All Journeys Have An Ending...

By “Amel”

THE trouble was that we had been travelling in a Stratocruiser.

And when one goes flying in a Stratocruiser. purring smoothly along at 25,000 feet, up above flossy pink clouds, eating steak dinners with all the fixings, drinking delici ous wines, gazing blearily at a beautiful hostess and wondering whether one is heading for Nadi or Heaven, one is apt to forget the existence of such things as the MV Samoa.

But the MV Samoa had not for gotten us. There she was, the grim reality of her 35 tons of devilry waiting for us with steam up, at the Apia wharf, Western Samoa, to take us back to Pago Pago, Eastern Samoa.

It was 6 p.m., and the other passengers, numbering about 40, were already on board, the majority scattered about the deck munching quantities of food and staring at us

reproachfully.

We could not understand why they were stuffing themselves in this fashion, until we heard them losing it all in the stillness of the night.

Their philosophy apparently was;

“ Tis better to have eaten and lost, than never to have eaten . , .

' People in all walks of life travel on the MV (for motor vessel) Samoa, because usually it is the only means of transport between Eastern and Western Samoa. The distance between the two territories is only 80 miles, but it can seem like 800.

If you are very lucky, you may get a bunk in a cabin with five other passengers. But if your luck is out, you sleep on the deck, with a hard board for a mattress, your suitcase for a pillow, and the stars to cover you. And while the seas wash over you, and the wind screams around you, and the groans of the dead and dying rise above the shriek of the storm, you can ponder over your past life, and think of all those stories about the Romantic South Seas.

Cabin passengers on Samoa are jumbled haphazardly into the two available cabins, irrespective of sex, social position, race or creed. For 11 hours, they are classed simply as “human beings.” A prim spinster may find herself the only female in a cabin filled with men. A cynical bachelor may be at the mercy of a bevy of chattering females. LMS missionaries, Catholic priests, SDA Pastors,, Mormon Elders and atheists together share a cabin and the common woe of travel on the Samoa and for 11 hours out of their lives, they share a common thought: “How soon will this torture end?”

Many wealthy, important and in fluential people come from the United States to Pago Pago, Ameri can Samoa—people who are accus tomed to the best and most luxuri ous in travel comfort. To them, the last stage of their journey must surely be a great shock. Samoa is definitely not in the Coronia class.

No lovely stewardess smooths your brow when you are seasick, or brings you a tray of dainty food to tempt your failing appetite.

There is no bathroom, but there is (whisper it!) a “convenience,” a boxjike contraption attached to the stern, of which those who are in dire need may avail themselves. But the need must be very dire indeed, and it is also imperative that one be heavily insured and have made a will quite recently.

To reach this “convenience” on a dark and stormy night—supposing you have managed to get out of the cabin or up from your hard bed on deck —you feel your way cauti ously along the rail, which is draped at intervals with wretched figures like illustrations from The Ancient Mariner. Past the after-cabin your objective is in sight, but to attain it, you have to cross what seems like an acre of deck littered with inanimate forms. Hoping they are sound sleepers, you step from one body to the next until the goal is reached, then, standing unsteadily on someone’s hip, you wrench the door open and plunge inside, taking care not to dive, head first, into the raging seas below. It is an ad venture, but one to be avoided if possible.

OF course, when travelling on Samoa a Ipt depends on the weather. When Captain Bill Steffany told us it would be a rough trip, we believed him. We put our basket of food under the bunk and forgot it for 11 hours. Outside Apia harbour we ran into a first-class gale Samoa lurched from side to side with a wicked roll. Wind, rain, seas, thunder and lightning en veloped us. Waves swept across the cabin floor. Deck passengers crept into the cabin for shelter, and dur ing the wild night a cold hand came out of the darkness and touched my face. I sat up and swung my feet over the edge of the bunk and put them smack onto a recumbent Samoan.

The Samoa would dive down to the bottom of the sea like a sound ing whale, and, it seemed years later, decided to shake the Pacific off her back and come up for air.

But all journeys have an ending, and at dawn, Samoa glided into the fiord-like peace of Pago Pago har

bour. The sound of roosters crow ing and dogs barking that drifted across the water was to us the sweetest music in the world.

Hawaii Drought Busters

FOLLOWING a protracted and severe drought in the Hawaiian Islands —in common with large areas of the South Pacific —through last year, the Board of Agriculture and Forestry there is seriously look ing into the question of rain-mak ing. Some time ago a Drought Study Committee established by Governor King gave the agricultural authorities permission and made available funds for them to “seed” clouds over the main drought areas.

However, the Board of Agriculture is well aware of the legal tangles in which US mainland rainmakers have found themselves. Individuals and State Governments there have brought actions —which are still be ing fought out in the courts— against cloud-seeders for stealing other peoples’ clouds and rain or for actually provoking droughts in neighbouring areas.

Meteorologists have made it clear that cloud-seeding is not something that may be approached hap hazardly though it is now well established that under suitable con ditions, and with suitable types of clouds overhead, it is possible to cause rain to fall by seeding the clouds from an aircraft with in expensive materials such as common salt and other chemicals, or by smoke projectors on the ground.

Wide-scale use is being made of the discovery over certain farming areas of California. Experiments are also being made along the same lines to dissipate hurricanes in their early stages and some success has been claimed, especially with the more localised but no less violent tornadoes of the Gulf of Mexico.

A new Post Office at Yandina, in the Russell Islands, BSIP, was officially opened by the Protectorate Postmaster (Mr. T. H. Manning) on January 2. The Police Station at Yandina was also formally opened on January 2 by the Superintendent, Police and Prisons (Mr. E. J. H.

Colchester- Wemyss, CPM). A de tachment of police under a Euro pean police officer (Inspector J. L.

Holland) has been stationed in the Russell Islands for some months, pending the completion of the new station building.