QUAINT SHIPLOAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21153, 9 April 1932, Page 8

QUAINT SHIPLOAD.

JAVANESE FROM NOUMEA, RETURN FROM THE MINES. GROTESQUE "PARIS FASHIONS." [from our own correspondent.] SYDNEY. March 31. Packed -with a carious crowd of Javaaese who thronged the decks as the ship came up the harbour, the Dutch steamer le Maire arrived in Sydney this week and created a great deal of curiosity. The Javanese— 440 men, women and little brown babies—are on their way back to Java after spending years at the nickel mines in Noumea, and they wer e delighted to get a glimpse of Sydney before returning to their native land. Their every-day customs, and tho Queer effect of modern ideas on the natives is an unending source of -wonder to the Australians.

Coming from a land where the girls reach womanhood between the ages of 13 and 15, young matrons stroll round the decks nursing curly-headed babies, and, in some cases, playing them a lullaby on a mouth organ. Some of the natives have been in Noumea for more than 15 years, and their children frequently do not use their native language, preferring to carry on a conversation in French. One girl of about 14 years surveyed the shores of Sydney Harbour dressed in a neatly tailored skirt and wearing a red beret, only her bare legs and obviously Javanese features preventing her from looking like a modern French "flapper." All the girls use powder and ronge freely, but, unfortunately, indiscriminately, and look more like ghosts than anything else, with dead white faces and vermilion lips, contrasting with brown necks and shoulders. All the babies and many of the boys and girls were born on French territory, and the girls create weird effects with their native dress combined with the fashions pf Paris, copied from the French at Noumea. The women puff placidly at cigarettes and adorn themselves with all kinds of ornaments, some with gold coins in their hair and ornate diamond rings on their fingers. All are Mohammedans, and subsist mainly on a diet of curry and rice, while cows from the island ol Bali are carried on board to vary the menu occasionally. The men have a comparatively large sum of money saved for them by the Gov. ernment. They spend most of it playing roulette whenever they get the opportunity. All are inveterate gamblers and it is the duty of the ship's officers to discourage betting as much as possible. The natives are prohibited immigrants as far as Australia is concerned, and must not leave the ship while it is in an Australian port. One officer said that it would not matter much if they were allowed ashore, as they would be terrified at a city of the size of Sydney and would be glad to return.