THOUGHTS AT SEA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 126, 29 May 1937, Page 13

THOUGHTS AT SEA.

DRESSING PROBLEM.

WONDERS OF THE WORLD. TIME PASSES PLEASANTLY. (By E. J. HOWARD.) The average Britisher lives a regulated life. If he plays golf he must have a certain form of dress. If he dines he must also have a certain and definite form of dress. So when the order went forth to dress for dinner on the good ship Arawa, bound for England with 290 passengers, mostly Coronation visitors, the great majority accepted the order, and out came dinner jackets and boiled shirts. The only fault to find about that is the fact that on a five weeks' trip, one cannot carry sufficient shirts to last the journey." So whilst the passengers looked clean and nice at first nights, the starched fronts soon begin to show signs of banquets. A Pleasant Ship. Taking her full and big, the Arawa is a pleasant ship. She could not be compared with the Awatea for mirrors or speed, but she waddles along at 12 to 14 knots. But we are living in times when there is hardly any excuse for not having a laundry on these deepwater nhips. Someone wrote, see Naples and dta. I have seem Naples, many times, and whilst there is much of an interesting nature, one has not seen everything in the world worth seeing by a long chalk. See Victoria Falls in Northern Rhodesia. They are wonderful. To see the sun rise with thousands of rainbows along a mile gorge is a sight that no man can see and forget. The Suez Canal is fine. But there is nothing spectacular or marvellous about it. It is just a gouge out of a long track of sand, letting the water pass from sea to sea. There is no tremendous engineering there. Not so much as in the bridge across the Zambesi. But the Panama Canal is a thing to marvel at.

Kimberley Wonders. At Kimberley, in Africa, the Mayor said he would show us the greatest man-made hole in the world —and he did. It was a worked-out diamond pipe. There it was, a mile in circumference. If one can imagine a huge phonograph trumpet driven into the ground email end down, and the flare a mile round, one can get some idea of this manmade hole. But, the Panama is different. It cost £74,000,000. For years it was a dream of the engineers. Someone has said it was the nursery of the British Navy. History tells us that Britain was challenging the might of Spain on the Beats, and that Drake sailed his ships into these waters, chasing the Spaniards and raiding their ships. However, it was not a sailor who built the canal; it was a soldier engineer, largely assisted bj natives of the West Indies. It is about 50 miles across. Forgotten Men. Huge vessels are. lifted over tho hills from the Pacific, and dropped over again level with the Atlantic. It ie a marvellous piece of structural engineering. Down under the bottom of the ship, 120 ft deep, men toiled and sweated and laboured to dig this cut, then called the Culebra Gut. The men who did the job are forgotten. They are mostly dead. It must be remembered the fevercarrying mosquito hummed round these men at night, and although some became salted and saw the job through, thousands gave their lives and others shortened their live® in doing the job. We lift our hats to the engineer and the navvies who accomplished this task. The Americans are justly proud of the job, but it was the British natives of the 'West Indies who did the hard work. Pitcairn Island. It is about 6500 miles from Wellington to Panama, and it is a somewhat dreary trip. The only laud one sees is Pitcairn Island. That is 2800 miles from Wellington. There is no reason in the world, so far as I can see, why the so-called economic speed of these vessels should not be increased at least to 20 knots. In these days of marvellous engines and oil fuel, 14 knots is not speed. It is just loitering along. However, with a capital lot of officers and men and a group of New Zealand cricketers life passes pleasantly with games and picture shows and dancing on deck.

Small and Lonely. Pitcairn, too, is worth seeing, although the ship only loiters there for a little over an hour. It is a small, lonely island and named after a naval officer, a lieutenant of H.M.S. Swallow, a ship that carried the crew that lirst discovered it in 1767. It was 42 years later that the crew of the Bounty got ashore there, and no matter how long it remains inhabited it will always be remembered frpm that historical point of view. It will be remembered the Bounty had been ordered to the South Seas to obtain breadfruit trees for cultivation in the West Indies. She was only a small ship of 200 tons. The Arawa is 14,000 tons, and the Rangi class vessels are 17,000 tons, so one can get some idea of what 200 tons means. This small ship found it impossible to round Cape Horn. So she turned back and rounded the Cape of Good Hope. She was battered about, but eventually reached Tahiti 10 months later. The crew lived ashore at Tahiti and naturally discipline became relaxed. Captain Bligh quarrelled with his officers and crew. They mutinied. Captain anil 18 of his crew were cast adrift in a small boat and made a voyage of 3600 miles across the Pacific. One man, John Adams, survived on the island, and he remained there 39 years before he died. The Long Bow. To say the inhabitants of Pitcairn! are descendants of the mutineers of the Bounty is to draw the long bow. We saw about 30 of them. They are sleek and brown, and of a decided Polynesian appearance, although in one of our cities they could pass for sunburnt Europeans. They sold us fruit and baskets and sticks and shells. They seemed kindly disposed people and did not drive very hard bargains. And to the credit lof the tourist, neither did they. Half , a crown seemed to be the coveted coin. | A basket of bananas, or oranges, or paw ; paws, a half crown and they were j yours. Carved sticks and fancy boxes, [ half a crown secured them. People in New Zealand who have time to spare should drop these lonely islanders a letter now and then. Post them a book or- send them a kindly thought. I would not like to live there. They love their island.