Tropicalities

Suva’S Greetings!

From Assistant Editor (in Suva) to Editor (in Sydney): You were pleased, some weeks ago, when the Sydney Sun, wishing us Happy Returns on our 21st birth day, called PIM the “Bible of the Pacific Islands.” I’d now like you to meet someone who has never lieard of it, apparently; and couldn’t care less.

He is the large man in uniform who inspects passports at Suva’s flying-boat base. Normally, I should think he’d be a policeman; but this being Fiji, he is probably a member of His Majesty’s Customs Service, or something.

The trouble arose from the fact that someone in Sydney neglected to pay my return fare, or alterna tively, get me a “permit to land.”

I therefore automatically became suspect of being up to no good, or likely to become a charge on the Colony; and I am asked to stand aside for later attention.

I tried him with “Tudor,” and was not unduly surprised when this meant nothing to him. Pacific Pub lications did not ring any bells, either; nor Pacific Islands Monthly.

I then started in to explain that we had a bank account here and, if he was so fussy, I’d write him a cheque for the return fare imme diately. At mention of the bank account he brightened just per ceptibly, and signed the papers that permitted me to proceed. All correct and official, of course, but certainly not homely.

Suva provides no welcome mat for her air travellers, anyway.

First, an official comes out to the plane and sprays it thoroughly with DDT. Then the whole thing is hermetically sealed and the con tents (which include passengers) allowed to stew in their own juice (and I mean juice, literally) for about 20 minutes.

You are then decanted onto a pontoon wharf and, burdened with the impedimenta of air travel— which in my case consisted of a typewriter, umbrella, raincoat, some clothes I had shed along the way, and a brief case—walk about a quarter-mile in the boiling sun.

When it rains I guess you do the same trek in the wet.

When you reach the tin customs shed you are confronted with a notice which says, in effect, that Authority is sure you forgive the juice-stewing business in the plane as Fiji is a malaria-free country and they wish to keep it so.

This Plane Rocked Them!

THEY have a special kind of plane now in Rabaul, servic ing plantations round about.

This useful Walrus can, when re quired, land on the water, let down a set of wheels, and haul itself out onto a handy beach.

It went out to Buka. The Buka- Bougainville natives, in relation to flying, are completely sophisticated.

They have seen it all. Many years have passed since their mission trained fathers called the first plane a balus, and described it as “mota car belong Jesus.”

But the Walrus rocked them.

When they saw the amphibian settle on the water, shake itself, put down its wheels, and solemnly clamber ashore they ran away howl ing, and yelled: “Go to ’ell ’ere — this plurry airplane savvy tumus!”

—Fpa.

Old School Tie Dept.

SCHOLASTIC and sporting circles in New Zealand were all a quiver in early August when it became known that a 19-years old Samoan, John Magumagu Segi, has been passing himself off as a 13years-old.

John, when the horrible facts became known, was a pupil at Wel lington College. He had been in 1949-50 at a preparatory school in Masterton, and there, passing as a youngster, he won a scholarship to the college. Teachers became sus picious when they “observed his development,” and inquiries made through the Island Territories De partment then revealed that, in order to get a Samoan scholarship, his parents had given him the birth certificate of a younger brother.

As might be expected, the De partment has taken a dim view of the deception and have shipped John back home, leaving sundry NZ schoolmasters wringing their hands and trying to sort out school ath letic records.

Seems that John was something of an athlete. While at the prepara tory school he competed in athletics, swimming, football and cricket as an 11 and 12-years-old, and com pletely outclassed all opposition.

He carried on his sporting career at Wellington College and won the 100 yards “under 14” championship and other events, and made new records. With his help the school won the secondary schools’ athletic shield. But now the college seems to

feel that it would be distinctly not] cricket if they kept it.

Our Apia correspondent says that] John has been shipped home, andi the Samoan authorities now aree considering how best to punish him,

Ships In Trouble

A RECORD number of ships were in trouble in stormy winten seas off Australian coasts inr mid-August.

Stanfirth, carrying phosphate from Nauru to Melbourne, ran out of coal off the Victorian coast and: provided Australian newspapers with a week of sea-drama. (Continued on Next Page)

Wahine, well-known NZ ferry Vessel (Union SS Co.) ran on a reef on Masela Island, 350 miles north west of Darwin, while taking NZ troops to Korea, and has been com pletely written off.

Neo Hebridais, 700-ton French steamer which runs between Noumea and Sydney, took about 14 days on the voyage instead of six. ran out of coal, put into Newcastle where she heeled over on the wharf while loading.

Finally, the 75-ft. schooner In spire limped into Newcastle after being battered by storms for the previous four weeks.

Inspire is owned by Mr. Hugh Williams, a Sydney cafe proprietor, who bought her in England last pear. He decided to sail her home, shipping seven Englishmen as crew and setting a course via the Panama and the South Sea Islands.

The usual troubles of small-ship sailing, plus the South Sea Islands, were Inspire’s undoing, and

Williams shed shipmates all along the route. Only one Englishman, by name Jack Puffett, finished the course.

They went trading for three months in the Cook Islands and picked up three Cook Is. lads, John Marsters and Pat and John Manuel, who sailed with them to Sydney, Mr. Williams has had the ad venturous life on the sea. He will sell Inspire as soon as possible.

Hilder Canvases For Ny

TOWARDS the end of this month, 60 Brett Hilder watercolours will be on the high seas be tween Sydney and New York.

From November 15 to December 15 they will be on show at the Museum of Natural History in New York.

Captain Hilder, well known to PIM readers as a BP skipper, as well as an artist, is probably the only Australian to be so honoured

by the famous New York Institu tion, of which noted anthropologist Dr. Margaret Mead, at present lec turing in Australia, is Curator. The Hilder work was introduced to the Museum by American writer James A. Michener.

The paintings, which will depict all races of the Indo-Pacific area,, are mounted on appropriate native matting and framed in teak. After the exhibition they will be on sale at the office of the Australian Trade Commissioner in New York.

In August the artist’s wife was organising some Pakistani sitters for him to complete the series. It seems that the skipper, who is large, still on the sunny side of 40 and has an eye-catching red beard., has sometimes been taken up the wrong way when at Island ports-of call he has asked prospective sitters to “Come up to my cabin and let me paint you.”

Balance Of Nature

SOME 39 years ago someone liberated five possums oix Chatham Island —one of New Zealand’s outliers —and now there are so many that they are a menace to crops and gardens and the Gov ernment has declared a bounty on them.

More than 400 possum bounties had been claimed from one pro perty alone within 10 days of the introduction of the scheme. Another resident declared that he killed 100 in a night simply by riding along on his horse and clubbing them as they sat in the trees.

THE American musicale “South; Pacific,” described as much part of the American scene now as the Empire State Building or Niagara Falls, has had 1,000 per formances on Broadway—and Aus tralia may see it some time in 1952.

Managing Director of J. C, Williamsons is now in New York finalising arrangements to bring the show to Australia.

The musicale is based on inci dents from James A. Michener’s- Tales of the South Pacific, and the scene is set in the New Hebrides— about as unlikely a spot for a sophisticated New York play as one

could imagine.