THE NEW HEBRIDES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 144, 19 June 1923, Page 8

THE NEW HEBRIDES.

• I ■- ■ — LONELY TRAVELLERS IMPRESSIONS. A PLEASANT PLACK. (From Our Own Correspondent.! SUVA, June 12. •Mr. H. Pidgcon, who recently left Suva i in bis little craft en for the New j Hebrides, lias arrived at that destination. In a letter to a friend here iic ' says:— I "Mcli Bay and Vila are as beautiful ! as any place I have seen in the South Seas, and on a ride out to a plantation ' in the country I was astonished at the , extent and fertility of the arable land i on the island. Here, for the first time, ' I saw cocoa growing, and the French ' planter told mc that it was profitable, and also that there was prospect of a good I crop this season, but they have to light with the lats for it. [ There are extensive cocoanut plants- : tions in the vicinity, but there is a moth ' working en the leaves, which, I pr.jsume, I is tlio same as the pest that is working i on Viti Levu. There is some coffee produced, and I am told that three crops ] of maize can be grown in a year. Cattle do exceedingly well. The two most com- 1 mon complaints about the country nro ' the fever and the Condominium Government, and the people do not seem to ' entertin any hope of relief from cither, i Aside from the fever, I think I should I find it a pleasant place to live in. ' POLYNESIAN .DESCENDANTS. ' "I have visited a small island in Mcli 1 Bay, where live the descendants of some < Polynesian castaways, who seized the : island and made it their stronghold. Some say they came from Wallis Island. I They showed mc a piece of iron which, ' they say, was used as an anchor for the \ great (unoe that their ancestors came to i the island in. They have inte-married ' with the- Efate natives, but many of ,' them have straight hair, and they talk t a Polynesian dialect."