Tropicalities

Magazine Section

except the stern line had been thrown off when a surge of the crowd knocked one of the fire extinguishers down, and it went off like a rocket, shooting out clouds of vapour and foam.

As the crowd surged back rapidly, one man threw himself on the container and wrestled it like a Roman gladiator, rolling round on the wharf, to the shrieks and cheers of the crowd. Finally, the chemical exhausted, he managed to stagger to his feet waving it triumphantly and looking like something from another planet. His triumph was short lived. Booming through a megaphone came a voice, “If some one does not throw that line off I’ll tow your b wharf away”!

Then the crowd woke up that the ship was moving off steadily and the stern line was still looped over a bollard. The gladiator, being the only person on the wharf at the moment, staggered over and cast it loose. And when later he was asked to pay for damages to the fire extinguisher, he countered with an account for services

rendered to the ship!-

Daika.

From Ships To Fires

SOLOMON ISLANDS hands of the old days learned to be tough.

Walter Buckley who skippered schooners . round the group for thirty years or more is now living in retirement in Faulconbridge, NSW—which was the very centre of recent big Blue Mountains bush fires. Buck’s house wasn’t one of the 180 buildings that were reduced to ashes, but he had a narrow shave, and has had other close shaves, and helped others avoid close shaves for many years now.

Buck moved to the Mountains when he retired from his last job as bosun of the pilot steamer Captain Cook and he becomes involved in bushfires each summer.

A few years ago he distinguished himself by helping to evacuate aged women from their burning homo and a picture of his efforts made the front pages of Sydney’s news papers. Thirty years work in a climate which brash modern writers are apt to refer to as “white man’s grave” and “green hell” have not affected his health. He is in excellent condition and spirits and would welcome a word from any Solomon Islands hand of the old days. - Buck skippered the Sideia, Rogeia, Royal Endeavour, Kobiloko, Vella, Mascot and other schooners and steamers for Levers, Burns Philp, W. R, Carpenter and other Solomon Islands concerns. Before leaving for Sydney he was trading in Santa

Cruz.-

W.B.

Pandanus Research

Research into the uses of pandanus is at present being carried out in the West Solomons by a graduate of the University of Hawaii, Mr. Benjamin Stone. This s irvey is the basis of a thesis for a doctorate; but Mr. Stone wants to continue his survey and widen it to cover the greater part of the Pacific.

Mission In The Mud

Mr. Harrie Standen —One

half of the Mission in the Mud —was in NSW for Christmas, from the Bamu River Mission in Papua. The other half of the mission —his wife Eva— was carrying-on, back home. The Standens, who practise a practical kind of Christi anity in the muddy delta, are unique in missionary endeavour—even the crustiest Territorian can’t find any thing but good to say about them.