SKETCHES OF SUNLIT SEAS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3519, 23 August 1921, Page 55

SKETCHES OF SUNLIT SEAS.

By

TE PANA.

For tlie Otago Witness. ISLAND DOMICILES. As I write the thermometer stands somewhere about 40.10 g. A small gas stove in the room is putting up a good fight with the cold and a feeble ray of heat penetrates the chilliness. . . My friend, who has lived all his life in the south, tells me that a cold climate is healthy . . . bracing. Quite so. Nevertheless, from this disatnee those sunlit seas of the Pacific look good to me. When I drifted their warm wastes a block of ice was my one craving, a block oi ice and a long cold drink. And now that I have the cold— — Hut I'm a discontented person. . . . The window of the room is tightly closed, wedged with paper, as a matter of fact, and the door has a piece of felt tacked to it to prevent stray draughts and keep out tile keen air. . . . And I am reminded of the little islands dotted in a warm sea, where the perpetual trade winds blow, and men fling wide the doors and windows of their houses that tiler may feel its cool breath : and when the breeze dies, or fails to following the rising sun. man-power fans are set in motion to stir the atmosphere. The air in motion is what the dweller in the j Islands most craves, and the-brown man j who lives in a palm hut is always ;■ cooler person than the white man who simmers. in a weather-board bungalow, not because he wears less clothing, but on account of his house being built to get the benefit of every*" idle breeze and zephyr. The materials for the ideal island house are at hand in every village. The fronds of the coconut palm, and the leaves of the pandanns, are most favoured for thatch and side walls, although the roof par excellence is made from thick layers of sugar-cane leaves. The Polynesian architect thinks in fathoms, which, he measures with the span of his outstretched arms, but whereas the Fijian is obliged to regulate the size of his house bv the length of the vesi (native timber) trunk he can find for his king-posts, the Samoan a,id Tongan, by a more elaborate arrangement of his interior supports, may build a roof as lofty as he pleases. The ridgepole of the lijian rests upon two uprights, buried for two-sevenths of their length in the ground if the house is to withstand hurricanes; and since it is impossible to find straight vesi trunks more than 54ft in length, the ridpe-poie can never be more than 42ft- above the ground. And since the sense of proportion would be exaggerated by a house being too long for its height, there is no native building in Fiji more than 66ft long—the length of the great courthouse at Xautuatuathoko. The system of supports for a Tongan roof tree may, by elongating side and centre supports, be 70ft or 80ft high, and of proportionate length and breadth. Tf the structure succumbs to a hurricane the roof merely slips from the supporting poles and subsides in a single piece. The college building at Nukualofa is 120 ft in length, and has stood the blast of hurricanes for over 20 rears. The Niuean house style closely resembles the Tongan even to the peculiar bow-shaped ends. In Samoa the domiciles are round in shape, hut the roof structure is built on Friendly Islands principle. In the case of public buildings they arc sometimes of “mixed’’ construction ; the walls might be weatherboard, witlr a sugar-cane thatched roof ; or the roof might be iron, covering walls of woven palm leaves. Nearly every native is competent to undertake, the job of house building, although there are skilled workers in every villagf to whose lot, falls the erection of churches and chiefs’ house.:. The principal art in building i . Ihe fssteniim together of the beam Nall: an . eldum if ever used, coloured : iniiet plaited from the Ini: Ic of tin coconut lal.iiw the place of iron rivets. The llialeli when made of dried leaves of sugar cane last .seven or eight years without re(|iiiring repair;, while that formed of coconut fronds is good only for three years. Flooring is an easy matter to the native builder. Ib simply digs the ground, and dumps sufficient earth from nearby to make- an elevation about a foot high, 'l'iiis in turn is beaten down hard, and covered with a, thin layer of smooth stones, dried grass, and leaves, topped off by roughly woven matting made from coconut palms. The finished structure is a onc-compartment affair; but if the

occasion arises for a subdivision screens ! of hark cloth are strung from wall to I wa.l. In Samoan houses the walls are 1 Unit on the \ enetian blind principle, and : during the day they are drawn up by i strings and concealed juSt within the eaves. ihe furnishings are simple. A pile of mats foj a heel, a few wooden pillows, a camriiiorw:id box wilh patent brass locks, and a kava howl. The rest is just air—pure, fresh air. Cooking is done in the open, far away from the real domicile. The Rarotong-aus have advanced a stage iii architecture. In tlie Cook Islands most of the houses are made of lime cement, ! tlie principal ingredient being obtained Inhuming coral rock. A light wooden framework is erected, the male portion of the village turns out on masse, and for a few days great activity prevails. The resultant structure is cool little house, lean resistant, and pleasing to the eye. ior Rarotongan i- proud of his domicile, and he goes one better than most Pacific i Islanders in the matter of interior fittings. An all-brass bedstead is a common piece of furniture with him. and in ninety out of a hundred houses there is a sewing machine. As he hates mosquitoes, thin, white protective curtains hang from most ceilings. The Tong-ms, Samoans, ami Fijians (narticnlarly the Fijians), being thick in the skin, do not j worry about these trilling matters. Despite the coolness and comfort of the native-constructed house, I only met one white man who favoured the design sufficiently to model lus "bungalow" on similar lines. That was the Tate Finest Darling, tlie “nature man” of Papeete. Tahiti. He lived in a tiny shack away up the side of a mountain, and no bribe could have induced him to spend a night under a European-fashioned roof. He was an open-air-life advocate, who came from California seeking tlie ideal climate—he found it- in Tahiti. For many years he was quite an attraction in the ’little island town, and on steamer davs—when he reallv dressed himself- -came out of his | fastness clother in a wide me-h singlet, a parco. and a reading shade. He Was a splendid advertisement for the cult of a “natural" life; but with all his great physical strength and perfect health Darling was unable to withstand the ravages of the influenza- epidemic of 1918.