102 Days Adrift

HHE 1,800-mile drift voyage of L five Marshall Islanders (two others died on the way) ended ; Epi, New Hebrides, on November The islanders had left Kwajalein i a trading voyage on July 18 and ere beset by a series of misadven ires—their compass gave out, they ere becalmed, then blown south ards at the mercy of a gale. They ere without water, and their cap ,in died; some weeks later another ember of the party drank two )ttles of after-shave lotion and : also died. For food they caught me fish and ate sugar which they irried as cargo.

They tried to sail to the Philip nes but without a compass dually sailed south. When they aggered up the beach at Epi they lought they had reached the Hilippines.

They were cared for by a planta in owner and his wife and were ter taken to Vila to await re itriation to the Marshalls.

Native members of the Presby ;rian Church ton the island of ,ate, New Hebrides, have collected :00 wherewith to buy a site for a gh school, and now have decided lemselves to bear the cost of •ecting the building.

Mr. Loring Hudson, who is the executive secretary of the Pacific Science Congress, with headquarters in Honolulu, and Mrs. Hudson, were the guests of the Pacific Islands Society at their Sydney meeting in October. Mr. Hudson gave the members an informative address, in which he described the organi sation of the scientific bodies which now give such valuable service to the Territories and peoples of the Pacific. He also told the Society something of what the new American administration is doing in the Trust Territory of Micronesia, which the Americans took over from the Japanese after World War 11. Later in October Mr. and Mrs, Loring Hudson paid a visit to Suva, on their way home to Honolulu.

All trochus and green snail shell exported from BSI is now liable to 10 per cent, export duty.

Famous Scottish novelist, Eric Linklater, who is visiting Austral asia, left Sydney for New Guinea by Qantas at the end of October.