Tropicalities

Mr. Dugdale Achieved

Something For Fiji

A POLITICIAN can get things (\ done, sometimes.

Some months ago the bar at he Mocambo, the establishment hat caters for transient air travel ers at Fiji’s international airport ,t Nadi, was closed by Authority.

This sad fact was pointed out to Ir. Dugdale, Minister for State for he Colonies, when he visited the jautoka district in August. And, he reports have it, the MP was uitably horrified.

“Surely something can be done bout this,” he said. A procession f officials appeared before him and tiree days later the bar was re tired to the Mocambo.

Coincidence, maybe. But local ssidents are generously giving the redit to Mr. Dugdale.

Perils Of Travel

rEY have a new Fijian girl at the Sigatoka Hotel, She speaks no English, but is supposed to now something about chip bath eaters; and was told off to pre are me a bath the following lorning. Seven a.m. was fixed as le time.

About 6.30 I was awakened to le sound of frantic fire-makings i the bathroom next door—the •ackle of sticks and the reek of srosene.

But no one came near and, after I minutes, I went to investigate.

There was a furious fire going in le heater and everything was noking and red hot. But she had elected to do that very necessary ling—turn on the water.

No one was in sight so I ap ■oached cautiously, and, expecting ie whole works to explode in my ce, gingerly turned the water on. here was a great hissing of steam, tremendous spattering of solder id with a dull clank the spout of e contraption fell off into the ith.

Boiling water immediately started

gush out of the hole where the ►out should be, all over the floor id I was marooned on the wooden th-mat. The room got full of earn and the fire burned more adly than ever.

Where my Fijian handmaiden had t to I haven’t a clue; but, after ntemplating the gusher for some ne —as the little Dutch boy of ble must have once contemplated e hole in the dyke—l fished the out out of the bath and, holding

it on with a towel, managed to catch sufficient water to wash.

The old-fashioned shower bucket may be less efficient—but is not so lethal in the hands of the unin structed Islanders.—JT.

Consanguinity—Ci Fashion

I HAVE often smiled at the solemn injunction in both the Cl native Bible, and the English Author ised ditto, that a man shall not marry his grandmother.

Personally, I wouldn’t be keen on the move, even if permitted.

Lately, I’ve been wondering just what the ancient prophets would have had to say about a man

marrying his step-mother. I always understood that it is illegal. But, upon my island in the Cooks, it has been done—and nobody seemed to mind!

There was an old codger—call him Rori —who had married a woman much younger than him self. She proved, alas, no model of fidelity, and left him for his neigh bour, a similar oldster, slightly more virile possibly than decrepit Rori.

With hubby II she lived a while; and then he and Rori both snuffed it within a few weeks of each other.

The widow not long after “up and married” a son of Rori by his first wife. So, after being his mother, she became her final hus band’s lawful spouse—and Rori’s daughter-in-law!

I shall be interested to see how it works out in the Hereafter; but it seems odd that the High Court of Cl never investigated the matter upon this mundane sphere, for one suspects that the parties had no legal right to wed at all.