Missionaries
p. 41 · Read in the full issue
• New Caledonia Looks
Back 100 Years
Pioneer Missionaries Remembered
ON December 7, Monseigneur Martin, Roman Catholic Bishop of New Caledonia, consecrated a monument on the shores of the Yate River estuary.
It marks the site where Marist missionaries stayed for a few months in 1849, when they had been driven out of Balade, on the north east coast, by hostile natives. Their stay on the banks of the Yate was short as they were driven out again within a few months.
They finally were able to establish themselves on the He des Pins and later returned to Balade.
Research showed where the first chapel was erected —on land owned by the photographer of the accom panying picture, who ceded the land to the church.
The photograph shows the Bishop (right) with the Mayor of Yate (left) inspecting the old well that the missionaries dug more than 100
years ago.
■ An RAF DC3 aircraft with eleven servicemen aboard visited Rarotonga from Christmas Island, via Penrhyn, late in November. The aircraft brought Mr. Ron Powell back from Penrhyn, where he had been stationed as an observer during the second series of British H-bomb tests in the area.
Photo: F. E. Dunn.