In Search Of Bong

Trees In The Pacific Islands

On Thanksgiving Day four oi five years ago, American autho: James Ramsay Ullman sauntere< counter-clockwise round the poo in New York City’s Centra Park, wondering what he had t< be thankful for. It seemed no much.

HE and his wife had recently bee: separated. A novel on which h had worked for two years and hai pinned great hopes had had a dis appointing reception. Three day earlier, he had turned 51. And nex day, he had an appointment wit his dentist.

On the other hand, Ullman ha no ties; and having, one gathers, reasonable tidy bank balance, h was free to go wherever he liked.

Ullman was in the mood for goin to some of those away-from-it-al places where the mythical bong tree of Edward Lear would be mo* likely to grow.

One stormy day, Ullman set ol by passenger-freighter from Sa Francisco on the first leg of Pacific tour that was to last 1 months. In the course of it, h probably visited more Pacific island than any American since Commodor Wilkes commanded the America Exploring Expedition to the Pacifi in 1838-42.

Landfalls Ullman’s landfalls, for the recorc were Hawaii; Wake Island; Guan Yap, Palau, Truk, Lukonor, Ponape Kusaie, Jaluit, Kwajalein and Majur (Micronesia); Tarawa (Gilbei Islands); Fiji; Tongatapu and Vava (Tonga); Niue; Tutuila, Manu and Swain’s Island (America Samoa); Upolu and Savaii (Wester Samoa); Aitutaki, Manuae an Rarotonga (Cook Islands); an Tahiti, Moorea, Tubuai, Raivavae Raiatea, Bora Bora, Takaro<

Napuka, Fatu Hiva, Hiva Oa, and Nuku Hiva (French Polynesia).

Ullman did not find any of the bong trees of his heart’s desire on :he first part of his trip.

Hawaii with its pasteurised Polynesian, South seas atmosphere, tVake Island with its 36 aircraft irriving and departing each day, and 3uam with its bustling, Americanised nodernity were scarcely conducive o the growth of bong trees.

But there were bong trees on some >f the less-developed, far-flung slands of Micronesia, which are dministered by the United States, rith a niggardly purse and without mch enthusiasm, on trust from the Jnited Nations.

Moving down to British-ruled 'arawa in the Gilberts, Ullman )und that Bairiki, the headquarters f the GEIC Government, looked ke the Garden of Eden compared ith the slums of Micronesia’s dis ict centres.

“But,” he adds, “it was not Eden, : course. In a bona fide Eden (as iy travel agent can tell you) there air conditioning. There are no osquitoes. And the toilet paper is >t made in England.”

In Fiji, Ullman was vastly amused ' the pukka, Somerset Maugham mess of Suva’s Grand Pacific Hotel : did what few locals have ever >ne —walked from one side of Viti ;vu to the other; and he had an counter with the huge girth even seeing was not believing”) of )nga’s Prince Tungi.

Rarely-Visited

Ullman’s chapter on Tonga itself headed, “Where The Saints Have od, and the chapter is largely a nsideration of the way that that igdom has been completely “won the West” in religious matters ile clinging to its old ways in aost all others.

In American Samoa, as in Micro ua, Ullman found that the chief nplamt was lack of money and lied personnel to develop the ce, but that “in common with er mortals,” the Samoans were itradictory i n that they wanted n progress and non-progress, ney and freedom from the need money, fa a Samoa and the wav the world.”

Jllman s chapters on his visits to lencan Samoa’s rarely-visited fin s Island and Manua are among most interesting sections of his k; but the islands which yielded most interesting characters— jng dozens of them—were un btedly tiny Manuae (population: in the Cooks, and Tubuai in nch Polynesia.

Manuae’s “character” was ex international tennis player Karlo A.

Andersen, a slender, middle-aged Dane in dark blue shorts, immaculate white shirt, blue tie with a gold clasp, golf hose with garters and white solar topee, who managed the island’s spick and span coconut plantation with military precision, and who turned on—during a brief stop by Ullman’s freighter—a four course meal with wines, served on Royal Copenhagen china by a house man and two uniformed waitresses.

Tubuai’s “character” was Tony Klein, an American, who had come

to the Pacific in the mid-thirties to escape the Depression, had drifted from Tahiti to Tubuai, and had lived there—the only Anglo-Saxon— ever since.

It was.on Bora Bora that Oilman became acutely aware of a disease called Pacific Rot, which, he says, is a direct outcome of “underwork and underworry,” and he went home.

The first result of his venture into the Pacific was a novel called Island Before The Wind.

Now he has published Where The Bong Tree Grows, which, besides

>eing a sort of Inside The Pacific stands (a la John Gunther) is, as he author says, “a personal story: he log of one man’s journey through •art of the world of the South ’acific.”

As such, it is one of the most ntertaining, thoughtful, informative, nd comprehensive books on the ’acific to appear for a long time. -RL.

(Where The Bong Tree Grows,

allins, London. 31/-.)

Roderick Cameron’S Book

•*' The Golden Haze, which is so a travel book of sorts, had a milar sort of genesis to that of lines Ramsay Ullman’s in that when, couple of years ago, someone ked Cameron if he had a subject •r a new book, he heard himself iswering, much to his own surprise, at he would like to write about e South Pacific.

He next bought a map of the >uth Pacific, and having decided at he could not visit all the islands, : thought he would confine himself those visited by Captain Cook.

This was a happy thought, for spite the thousands of books that ve been written about the Pacific one has ever written an In The ake of Captain Cook.

Cameron has not written such a ok, either, for he is one of those ople who is so fascinated by the st that when he travelled in Captain ick’s wake, he saw little of the jsent.

The Golden Haze is therefore •inly a recapitulation of Cook’s :ounts of what he saw in the ices he visited, with occasional s thrown in from the works of ter usually, long-dead writers— ugainville, Kotzebue, Orsmund, is, Krusenstern, Melville, etc.

"or all this, The Goldne Haze is dable enough if you are especially crested in the Pacific; and it is st handsomely produced, with 84 strations, of which several are in our. iut the book’s main claim to fame st surely be the enormous number literal and typographical errors, las more of these than any book have ever read; scarcely a single e is without them; and some es have as many as two to the s.—RL. [•HE GOLDEN HAZE. Weidenfeld & tolson, London 60/9.)