Tropicalities

“Communist” Godwits

AMUSEMENT was caused in Aus tralia in March by a Queensland politician who protested against pro tection of “Communist Godwits” which, he declared, fly down from Siberia each northern winter, fatten themselves on Australian crops, then return from whence they came, leav ing Australian farmers,the poorer for their visit.

This outcry raised a smile from Dr. R. A. Falla, noted ornithologist of the Dominion Museum, Welling ton, NZ, who hastened to point out that, far from the vast majority of Godwits which visit Australia and NZ being Reds, they actually are Yanks from Alaska. These Pacific Godwits migrate south via several routes as widely separated as the Cook Islands and Indonesia. But the Yanks far outnumber the Com munists in the great annual migra tion.

Grapes In; Trains Out

JOHN MASIVE of Bena Bena, NG Central Highlands, and Karese Manovaki of the Solomon Islands, raised about £6,000 for the SDA Mission during their recent three months in Australia. They toured with Pastor Eric Boehm, making appeals for funds, addressing meetings in Pidgin English (translated

by Pastor Boehm) and acting play versions of native life.

Before they left for home they visited the Sydney Royal Show and spent three weeks in Brisbane.

In Masive’s opinion the best things Australia has to offer are ice-cream and grapes. Could be.

Manovaki said that he did not like Sydney’s trains—“ . . . All the time stand up; no can sit down!” How true.

Honolulu Wash-Day

USUALLY, when the editors re ceive an old-time story from Oscar Nordman, in Tahiti, they read it carefully—so that they can pro duce it as their own at private parties —and then they tuck it coyly away in the wpb. But we’ll pass this one for publication.

Many years ago, when the Oceanic liners were running through Hawaii, one of the first to come aboard at Honolulu was Poco, a comely lass from Rarotonga, and a skilled laun dress. She was well paid to do the captain’s washing.

On one ocasion, the captain was a man who knew no Polynesian, and he asked Oscar Nordman, then one of the Purser’s staff, to come along and interpret Poco for him.

Business finished, the skipper showed a personal interest in Poco, and asked questions about her.

Captain (to Poco): Are you mis sionary? Do you go to Church?

Poco: From my waist up I am missionary. From my waist down I am no missionary.

Poco was half-way down the gang way before Oscar, with characteris tic tact and discretion, had completed the translation.

Dense Dogs And Swarming

Butterflies

FOND parents and relatives who send the letters of their travel ling offspring to the local paper probably should be publicly sup pressed. But the results—when in terpreted by the provincial press of Australia—bring a little golden sun shine to this dark world.

Recently a young man (a fellow feeling leads us to suppress his name), who went to the Wau district, NG, wrote to his people in the Bowral district of NSW and the local

newspaper made this out of it:— “He declares in his letter that there is a marked similarity be tween his present abode and this district, even to the point of the dense and numerous dogs to be encountered there.

“Mr. X, who was always in terested in our native fauna and flora, states that the beauty and colour of the island flowers are amazing. The butterflies are enormous and their colouring magnificent, and when they swarm resemble a giant rainbow in colour.”

Well, they say first impressions are always sharpest. We would like to bet that when he has been there two years the dense dogs and/or fogs will be remembered only for their nuisance value and the flowers and butterflies will have shrunk to quite normal size.

Fiji Legend

WHEN in Fiji some years ago, I visited Taveuni and the many places of interest there. On a plateau there was a small lake with clear water and near the edge of the lake a beautiful orchid was growing. An inscription near the plant said “Tangi Moce” (Crying Sleep).

I asked the Fijian girl who was with me why such a rare flower should have the name of Tangi Moce and she told me that years before whitemen went to Fiji a powerful Chief lived on the island, and had a lovely daughter, Tarana, who was loved by all. When her father told her she was to marry an old chief of another island, she re fused, saying that he had already many wives and that she did not like him.

Tarana’s heart had already been given to Saki, a commoner of the hills, and often when the moon was bright, she and four maids would creep away to meet him. This was madness on Tarana’s part, for one of the maids was jealous and informed her father. He, in a great rage, sent men to spear Saki and they let his body fall into the lake.

So, when Tarana and her maids went to the meeting place Saki was not there. Fear filled Tarana’s heart and she ordered the maids to return and tell her father that she was going into the hills to find Saki.

When they had gone she looked into the lake and there saw Saki’s body.

She dived in and brought him to the edge and pulling some of the flowers she decked her hair. She put lov ing arms around Saki, rolled into the

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lake and lay there to drown.

When the maids informed the Chief that Tarana had gone he was angry and fearful. He hurried to the lake with some of his men and there saw the two lovers at the bottom of the clear water. The men brought them to the Chief and with cries he tried to separate the bodies but could not.

A grave was made near the orchid which grew at the side of the lake and the Chief told his men the orchid should be named “Tangi Moce”. Years later the inscription was placed on the plant, the roots of which grow intertwined, like the forms of Tarana and Saki.—VIOLET

Langdale.

Pitcairn Isolated?

WHO says Pitcairn is isolated?

The following large passenger liners are expected to call there dur ing May: Rangitane, Rangitata, Ruahine, Gothic, Motaroa and Corinthic.

Radio New Zealand, the New Zealand national short-wave station, keeps Pitcairn informed well in ad vance as to what to expect, and when.

Pearl

F ATELY a Sydney resident, havread our “debunking” of coco nut pearls (February, p. 61) hastened to bring one along for our inspection, just to prove that there are such things after all.

The pearl in question is of perfect drop shape, about 3/Bths of an inch long and i-inch in diameter at the shoulder; and, apart from a few rust coloured flecks on one side, is of a dead-white colour, completely lack ing the usual lustre and translucence of a good oyster pearl. It is un doubtedly a very fine coconut pearl, and was brought from Thursday Island about 20 years ago.

But, on the question of what a coconut pearl really is, we now quote from an acknowledged authority, Louis Kornitzer, who, after many years as a pearl buyer in all parts of the world, has written the following in his autobiography, “Pearls and Men,” published in 1935: If anyone tells you that he owns a coco-nut pearl, you need not dis believe him, though his treasure has certainly not come from the coco nut palm. For, in some parts—though why I do not know—the white variety of conch-pearl is so called.”

Kornitzer says that conch-shell

pearls are common on the Indian coast, off Florida, and in the Baha mas. They are usually pure white, or pink with white, irridescent speckles.

Pending the arrival of any sworn affidavits from coconut producers to the effect that pearls are a profit able sideline of their copra driers, we respectfully suggest that Dr. R.

M. Stevenson, MD, PhD, FRS, writer of the article quoted in February, has himself been misled by the name and that there is emphatically no such thing as a pearl from a coco nut.

Pig, Outward-Bound

THE master of the Fiji Medical Department’s work-boat Vuniwai reported encountering an unusual seafarer on the ocean last January.

While en route from Beqa to Kadavu the Vuniwai overhauled a prime porker, headed for an undis closed destination and two miles from the nearest land. The skipper was decent enough to give the daring mariner a lift to Kadavu. Passengers are still speculating as to whether the passage was inspired by the migratory urge, the memory of a Porkeress residing on Viti Levu, or a belief in suicide. Just what the Fiji sharks were doing on that day re mains a mystery.

Operation Mystery

IT is calculated that something like a mile of sausages flew by TEAL Solent from Auckland to Suva in early April. There was a whole ton of them and sausage experts say that that means 10,000 individual sausages each measuring, on an aver age, six inches. Work the rest out for yourself.

The übiquitous sausage usually goes by the name of “snag” in Aus tralia but we understand that in more refined countries they are sometimes called “mysteries.” Australian varie ties are both a snag and a mystery but even when manufactured by the local butcher are now in the million aire class.

Suva must be mighty fond of them to go to the length and expense of air-freighting. Must be expecting an influx of wealthy dollar tourists this year.

Nasty British Trick

BURSTING with what he appar ently believed was an almighty scandal, a Fiji Indian wrote a letter to the local press alleging that the Government of Fiji was using hurri cane relief funds to replace Govern

ment officials’ cars which had been wrecked in the hurricane.

The correspondent added that In dians in New Zealand who had made relief donations had said that they intended their money to go to Indian sufferers and “not to provide cars for English people.” It was, he claimed, another example of the way in which the English grabbed from the Indians.

Almost simultaneously came publi cation of a Government denial, which stated that relief funds had been used for nothing of the sort. Two or three officials, who were on duty during the hurricane, had lost their cars. The wrecks had been sold, and the Government had advanced (not given) enough money to buy replace ments. (The officials, presumably, had had advances to buy cars in the first place). Relief funds had noth ing to do with it.

The general impression is that if another one like that comes up, a curious, mushroom-shaped cloud may be expected to rise- from the Govern ment Buildings.—J.K.

Tahiti Please Note

TAHITI and other Pacific “Para dises” trying to promote tourist traffic might take a cue from Japan.

A tourist restaurant in the pearl ing centre of Mie conceived the bright idea of putting an occasional valuable pearl in the soup. This was so successful that a rival concern organised an even brighter idea; Patrons are invited to chalk their name on a live oyster shell. A seed pearl is then inserted, and the shell put back in the sea fronting the res taurant. The patron is then invited! to return in a few years to collect; his pearl.

A Difference In Titles

IN Auckland, in March, when the; Anglican Bishop in Polynesia,, the Rt. Rev. L. S. Kempthorne, metJ the Bishop of Melanesia, the Rt. Rev..

S. G. Caulton, a curious difference; in titles was noticed. The former is* the Bishop in Polynesia: the latten {he Bishop of Melanesia. The ex planation is quite interesting. Whenr Bishop Kempthorne was in Sydney ini mid-1945 attending a conference of) Pacific Bishops, he said that hiss diocese was one of about 1\ million r square miles—most of it sea; it took) in Fiji, Samoa, Cook Island, Tonga,, Society Islands, Gilbert and and a few other oddments. Thee “In” was used originally to show thee French administrators that the Bishopc had no territorial ambitions—that! he was in Polynesia, rather than of! (Continued on page <4) (

Is It “L” Or “R”?

According to a newspaper report. Dr. C, E. Fox, of the Melanesian Mission, said recently that the correct spelling of the big island in the Solomons is Guadal canal “but in recent years the final letter has become T, because that is the way the Americans spelt it when campaigning there in 1942-43.”

This is a subject of argument, over the years. The Bishop Museum Index, published in 1900, says: “Guadacanar, the Guadacanal of Gallego and Mendana, who dis covered it in April, 1568.” Fairfield Osborn’s compilation, The Pacific World, published 1944, says: “Guadalcanal is really Guadalcanal meaning a dry river bed, and named after a city in Spain”, However, now that the name of the island has become part of the history of World War 11, there seems to be general agreement that it shall terminate with an “1”.

No Objections To These

Jap Migrants

WHILE the subject of admitting Japanese pearl shell divers is likely to remain a contentious one, Australians are welcoming another class of Japanese migrant with open arms—or mouths! The migrant? No other than the Japanese oyster itself.

It seems that, the famous “Sydney Rock” having refused to thrive south of the N.S.W.-Victoria border, Aus tralia’s Department of Scientific and Industrial Research has turned to Japan for the Pacific oyster (Gryphea gigas) which the Americans since the war have already successfully trans planted to the U.S. Pacific Coast.

First unsuccessful attempt to bring the Pacific oyster from Japan was in 1940. Then came the war, and the experiment was halted until 1947.

Then 15,000 seed oysters, brought south in a cooler at 50 degrees, and hosed at frequent intervals, arrived in fair condition, 60 per cent, sur viving the voyage. Sent by air to Oyster Harbour, near Albany, W.A., , and to Pittwater, Tas., they were planted out.

The West Australia crop promptly died, but the Tasmanians thrived to produce new generations in the past three summers, in the cold southern waters.

More parent oysters will soon be coming from Japan to extend the beds which give promise of a pros perous new industry for the Southern State. Tasmania already is famous for its scallops, which are found often on the menus of leading hotels and restaurants in the other State capitals.