Trapicalities

Pacific Islands Monthly

Magazine Section

argument about whether

imbing dragons really exist

w Guinea was receiving

prominence in the Terri

i May.

,rted quietly enough a few aths ago, after a field officer, Gibbons, had reported that had told him these dragons i 20 feet in length. Probably, ught, they were the Indo komodo dragons, ving this, there was interest g Canberra officials, who one captured, and Admin n anthropologist Char 1 e s vent out on a limb by saying bted if they existed, his has been duly reported r ious issues of PIM, but in .1 sorts of information was into Port Moresby to in that there are dragons at tom of New Guinea’s garden

ertainly exist in Indonesia).

Cleland, wife of the Admin , claimed she had seen a ne in the Balimo area.

P-NG Department of Agri produced a photograph y of a young specimen seven ig, taken by an Archbold Ex i on the lower Fly River in dney man, Mr. Eric Worrell, ced he was prepared to visit ritory to search for a dragon, if captured alive “would ex rld interest”, he said, merican reader of PIM, Mr.

E. L. Mauseth, of Alden, Minnesota, wrote to say that when he was with the US Army Engineers building an airstrip at Sausapor, Netherlands New Guinea, in 1944, his party had flushed three of the dragons from the jungle. They were six feet high, and one of them came within 10 feet of Mr. Mauseth, reared up on his hind legs and stuck out his 18inch tongue.

Adds Mr. Mauseth: “I was so paralysed I couldn’t shoot. That same year, November 22, I saw a sea monster in the Dampier Strait about a quarter of a mile out from Sorong, believe it or not.”

Believe or not.

A New Export Industry

riRASS skirts might be waning in \J popularity in the Islands, but that doesn t mean that the grass skirt industry is dying, if we can believe the evidence of a letter sent to the Cook Islands Administration recently by Mr. Bernard Elsey, of the Beachcomber Hotel, Surfers Paradise, Queensland.

Wrote Mr. Elsey: “I am interested in the purchase of 500 grass skirts, with a continual supply following on.

“The grass skirts would have to be of reasonable quality and low

in price as they are to be given away to our guests, so would you please advise by return air mail if they can be supplied, also cost and date of despatch.”

News from Palmerston

LATEST intelligence from Palm erston Island, as extracted from the Cook Islands’ News : “ Patiariki, the boat of the head teacher and his assistants was launched on Friday. It was built by Joseph Dick, son of the well known boat builder, Dick Marsters. Every one assembled on the beach for the launching ceremony, “The telegram continues, ‘Pastor Ned Marsters conducted a short service for christening. After christening Mrs. Mehau Joseph, the builder’s wife, knocked a bottle on her bow and she was pushed into the sea with many good wishes from all the people. As a custom of Palmer ston, every inhabitant of the island had a sail round on her.’ ”

They Can Prove Half Of It

LATEST true fish story comes from Penrhyn Island, in the Cooks. It tells how Teaurere and Murisau battled two hours to land a fish, which finally turned out to be a barracouta. However, half of it was swallowed by a shark while the fish was being played. What was left measured over six feet and weighed 124 lb. The Penrhyn Islanders are now wondering whether this is some kind of record for the Northern Cooks—but whether they mean a record in fish or in shark meat we’re not too clear.

New "Come-And-Get-lt"

Fish Hook THE Japanese have done it again.

A musical fish hook will soon be taking its place on the shelf in the Islands trade store.

A fishing tackle firm near Osaka has just gone into production on a gadget which is hitched to the fish ing line just above the hook. A streamlined plastic container 3J inches long and an inch in diameter encloses a battery and a “works” which produces a varying tone when switched on.

The tone can be altered in pitch to suit the kind of fish you want ior dinner. Fish within cooee of this

[?]IJI. The mountains that cut across Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji, divide it into and a "dry". On the Suva side of the island it's much wetter than on the Nadi side international airport is. This photograph, taken recently by Rob Wright of the Fiji [?]s how rugged is the country around the Namosi area. The highest peak in Fiji, Mount Victoria, 4,341 feet, is on an extension of this range.

, T e call come at the double; the pst is up to the baited hook.

An American firm has placed an 4“ to the first 10,000 squealers T<ev’re expected to retail in the slands at about £1 a piece.

One That Never Got Away ITHE ketch Trade Winds , like most I small craft, trailed a fishing line and lure all the way from mckland to Tonga Tie line went over again as the etch moved out through the Nukualofa passage bound for Suva.

As the ketch neared Totoya m he Fiji Group next day there were ish about, and hopes r °se high that >ne might be hooked as the south vest point of the island was passed, [’hey often take a lure near the reef. 5o a man stood by the line.

The crew looking hopefully far istern noticed after a time that here did seem to be a fish break ng surface occasionally at the end >f the line, but it wasn’t putting up nuch of a fight.

The line was hauled in to reveal a baby’s nap! It had been dropped overboard accidentally some hours earlier and by sheerest luck had been hooked.

First Catch Your Cat IN the New Guinea Sepik District, in May, at the same time as a court at Wewak was hearing evidence against a party of Sepik natives accused of raiding a village and eating some of the male occupants, another Sepik court, at Lumi, was hearing a case against a native who killed and ate an Administration officer’s prize Persian Ca Lumi’s Assistant District Officer complained that the local mission had brought a native to Lumi from Green River, a primitive area, and was showing him around Lumi when the bushman suddenly spotted the Persian 20 yards away. Before he could be stopped he had put an arrow to his bow and shot the cat, then dashed up to the thrashing

animal and hit it with a spade.

The bushman explained to the court that back home in Green River everybody ate wild cats be cause they were Number One food.

That’s not the way its done at Lumi apparently. The bushman had an award made against him of £7/10/- compensation for the prize Persian.

G&E "Soil" a Courtesy Title

APROPOS the item in May PIM (p. 161) that prospects jfoi alternative crops for copra ir the Gilbert & Ellice Islands wen poor, a reader recalls that sample: of so-called soil from the Grouf have been sent overseas from timf to time for examination. In som* cases, says our correspondent, tht laboratories receiving them though that someone was having a job at their expense!

One Resident Commissioner one accurately described the soil a “sand, flavoured with copra sack”.

The hardy coconut palm is abou the only flora that can surviv in those atolls on a commercis scale.

Just A Few Million Out IN case anybody happened to be in terested, the Fiji Governmen revealed recently that Fiji wa 15 to 30 million years older than! was thought to be. Its age is no\ estimated at about 60 million year —the figure based on fossils sub mitted to the US Geological Surve Department, by Mr. R. W. Bartholc mew, of Fiji’s Geological Departmei

Papeete Changed All Over I

IF your last visit to Tahiti was! few years back you’ll be los when you return —and everyol does return some day. 1 In the process of rebuild! central Papeete, which has been gc ing on since the big fire of sevej years ago, many well known ston and haunts have disappeared. Latest to be marked for demcl tion are the Vaihiria Bar and 3 Maurice. No doubt new ones w spring up to replace them, as othe? have done recently, but for so! visitors of past years there willl happy memories of these places nci disappearing.

At least three new restauratf have opened recently Chi Chapiteau, Canton, and Faratea, tl latter at Taravao at the far er of the island.