LIFE AMONG NATIVES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18589, 27 December 1934, Page 10

LIFE AMONG NATIVES

ELLICE ISLAND RESIDENT

INCIDENT WITH JAPANESE

British resident and lands commissioner for the Ellice Islands, Mr. Donald Kennedy, is at present on holiday in Wellington. He is stationed at Fuafuti and lie is the sole white man among several thousand natives. Some 13 years ago he went there as a schoolmaster at Vaitapu. To-day he is head of the local Government. He speaks the native dialect fluently and is recognised as an authority on the Ellice Islands culture.

It was the atoll of Funafuti that, in 1933, was visited by a mysterious Japanese sampan, supposed to be making a surreptitious survey of the islands. Mr. Kennedy was at the Government station at tiie island at the time, and attempted to board the sampan. He described his adventure recently.

The sampan was first sighted on .Tune 11, and, although he attempted to approach it under cover of j . night’,.'the! Japanese slipped from their mooriiigsj and avoided him. On June 13 they were located outside the reef, close to an island called To Pukn. Mr. Kennedy in a cutter sailed down behind the sheltering island and ran out through the channel. Before a fresh hveeZe his cutter was making about eight knots. When the Japanese sighted him they were about 300yds. distant. They were exceedingly well /organised and) proceeded to up-anchor and start their engine. As he was unable to approacn nearer than within 50yds., Mr. Kennedy fired across the bow of the sampan with a rifle. The sampan, however, held on its course and was soon out of range, Mr. Kennedy stated there was considerable apprehension in certain quarters concerning the Japanese intentions in the Pacific, Mrs. Kennedy and their three children live in Auckland. They also have spent a great deal of time in the-Ellice Islands.