PACIFIC VOYAGER

Hokitika Guardian, 12 January 1935, Page 6

PACIFIC VOYAGER

MARINER AND SCIENTIST.

NEARLY FIFTY YEARS AT SEA.

SYDNEY, January 4

Captain Victor Brisson. a veteian French mariner, is no stranger to Sydney, or for that matter, to many a Pacific port. For the last 18 mouths ho has been wandering through-Dio Pacific in his 18 tons ketch, the Missy Girl. He was in Sydney last April, having an additional interest in tins city because his sister and his brother-in-law, a barrister, give him a regular holiday on land whenever he comes. But the Bissy Girl is his home. Sho is a trim craft whose only crew is Roo, a Tahitian.

When lie retired recently Captain Brisson had served for almost 50 years at sea, and h ( > had spent some years in command of ships travelling in the Pacific. He is an authority on Polynesian and Melanesian dialects and customs. One day recently the Bissy Girl came leisurely up Sydney Harbour. bringing a breath of tip. romance of the. South Seas. A -great tortoiseshell lay on the deck, and the oraft was laden with curios gathered in the Pacific. Luring the nine months in which he had been away from Sydney, Captain Brisson had visited Lord Howe Island, the New Hebrides, and New Caledonia.

u Tlus is the life,” said Captain Brisson. “We have solved the problem of th 0 high cost of living. Let me commend a diet of fish, crab, turtle and wild pig, and in the New Hebrides you can buy «t steer almost for two shillings. A passer-by can always get a piec e of steak, and ue welcome to it. 1. have done 10,(JOG miles in the Bissy Girl and the weather never troubles her. Nor does it trouble me. If we have to heave to I turn in for a sleep, and just take a peep out sometimes to see how tilings are going.” The captain has spent the last eight months sight-seeing, fishing gathering shells and curios and, quite frankly, “loafing.” “I have grown a goatee. My sister won’t he pleased at that, and J'll take it olf to-morrow, by jings!” he chuckled.

The captain said that the many steamers and trading boats in the islands those days made it difficult to get ourios, but lie unwrapped from brown paper four dried heads. Tlio Big Nambus people gave them to him at Malekula, in the New Hebrides. The heads were of Little Nambus people, who had met violent deaths. There were still cannibals at Malekula and tribal fighting would continue until roads were built, markets opened and education became general.

A keen naturalist Captain Brisson, lias bottles of shells. He is proud of his placostylus (bush snails), ne says tlieir presence in the north of New Zealand, Lord Howe Island, and New Caledonia, indicated that there was once land connection between those islands, since they cannot swim or flv. Earthenware pottery at Malekula and Santo, in the New Hebrides, leads him to the conclusion that the art was acquired from de Quiros and Ins Spanish expedition in 16G6. He says h 0 will add the hulk of his curios to his col-

lection at the homo of his brother-in-law.