That Tortoise Again !

By a Correspondent

The antecedents of That Tortoise of Tonga came up for discussion again recently. Mr. R. J. A. W. Lever, writing in the September issue of Corona the journal of Her Majesty’s Overseas Service, said the evidence didn’t seem to substantiate the legend that the tortoise was a gift from Captain Cook.

r wasn’t the first time that has been written, and it won’t be the last.

That Tortoise is Tui Malila, who wanders about the Royal Palace grounds in Nukualofa these days, occasionally being filmed by visiting TV teams and reporters, and on one famous occasion being introduced to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

Tui Malila is supposed to be the sole survivor of a pair given by Captain Cook to a Tongan chief either in 1773 or later. That is what the legend says, but Mr. Lever makes the note, as others have done, that none of Cook’s reports leaves any record of the fact —and Cook was a detailed historian.

Cook gave a lot of details of gifts

and various items given in exchange for food, but there is no mention made of Tui Malila.

Mr. Lever also points out that a naturalist on board with Cook, Mr.

J. R. Forster, kept daily records and wrote them up in Voyage Around the World, published in 1777, under the name of Forster’s son, George (be cause the Admiralty wouldn’t let Forster’s name appear). There is nojecord of the tortoise in that, Mr. Lever also notes that there is no mention of the tortoise in the book Notes by a Naturalist, published after the visit of HMS Challenger to Tonga in 1874, although details of fauna, etc., ashore, are given. Nor does Sir

Basil Thomson mention Tui in hr Diversions of a Prime Minister.

Mr. Lever could have gone furthi and pointed out that there does n< seem to be any reference to thi tortoise in any book published up the end of last century. The pr sence of Tui Malila seems to been noted only in recent times.

Mr. Lever says he sent photograph of Tui Malila to the British Museum where an expert said it was probab: Testudo radiata from Madagascar, i island never visited by Cook.

Adds Mr. Lever: “I suggest thr there seems to be no proof either fra contemporary or nineteenth centuj records that such a gift [of a tortoi from Cook] was ever made. Vi ourselves have had to change oc ideas about Stonehenge and tJ history of Easter Island without beii any worse for it, and it seems best regard this tortoise as having con to Tonga subsequent to any voyat of Captain Cook. So let us leave TI Malila —blind, battered and burnt! and wish him many more years eat pawpaw and other delicacies his pleasant South Sea Island hoim Unless the Tongans can get otU evidence, that seems to be about tt

true position.

Tui Malila, that famous tortoise of Tonga, lives in the grounds of the Royal Palace, Nukualofa, where he is a favourite of Queen Salote. Here is Tui with one of the palace guards— the palace in the back ground. Tui means chief, and he is venerated as one.