YOUNG ISLANDERS MAKE KEEN SCOUTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 528, 28 November 1928, Page 6

YOUNG ISLANDERS MAKE KEEN SCOUTS

TORRES STRAIT TROOP

EXPERT TURTLE HUNTERS Learning to do their daily good turn, to make the clove-hitch, the sheep-shank and other knots; to play such games as the Treasure Hunt and Smugglers; to run a camp; and to be cheerful under all difficulties, the young islanders of Torres Strait, north of Thursday Island, are enjoying the novelty and interest associated with scouting. The Rev. H. E. Warren, of the Anglican Church Missionary Society, who is stationed at Groote Eylandt, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and who is now on a visit to Melbourne, spoke of his troop of islander scouts. “This troop of boy scouts belongs to Badu Island, in Torres Strait,” he said. “They are trained under Scoutmaster Cole, a white, in the Papuan Industries’ Trading Company’s institution. “By far the proudest day in the lives of these scouts was that on which the four Supermarine flyingboats, which visited Australia, lauded at Thursday Island, on the return journey, and the scouts acted as a guard of honour to the airmen. It was a day of days, never likely to be forgotten by them. In addition to acting as guard of honour, they performed native dances on the ships in Port and before the townspeople. “There is not a smarter body of boys in the north. They take the keenest interest in their scouting jobs, which include many forms of service not generally known to boy scouts in the south. They are all expert turtle hunters and dugong fishei s, and some of them make a very good living by diving for pearls and troclias shells. They can handle a sailing boat with the greatest of ease, and are even more at home in the water than on land. “ lu . t,leir bright red sulus and khaki shirts, with yellow handkerchiefs knotted round their necks, they make a very picturesque team and are the envy of all the other boys on the island. The drilling and discipline w hicli are part of their training bring out the best in them, and they are not only useful workers, but are thoroughly trustworthy and honest. “So enthusiastic are they in scouting that it was found impracticable to keep the troop within the customary ages——ll to 16 years or thereabouts. ‘Boys' of 30 years worm their way iuto the troop, and to them as well as the younger lads, the task of winning badges is a source of never-ending delight/*