HEROISM OF FIJIANS

Taranaki Daily News, 31 December 1929, Page 3

HEROISM OF FIJIANS

HURRICANE AT LAMBASS A. Two striking uisutnces or"’neroTsm“oy." the part of Fijians in connection with the recent Tiurricane at Lambassa are narrated by a correspondent in writing to the New Zealand Herald. . A very lucky thing for many of. the Indians was that Ratu Veli, the Boko or High Chief of the Macuata Province,' was at Lambassa, as otherwise they . would surely have been drowned. “You can swim, • the Indians cannot,” said he to the Fijians, and he led his men in_ heroic rescue work against many a bombardment from flying tin arid iron. Ratu Veli was in the house of Mr. Gibson, a solicitor, when he heard that the' manager of Mr. A. M. Brodziak’s store, Mr. McPhee was, with hie fariiily, beneath their upturned dwelling. “Lakkomai” (“Come”), he said to three Fijian followers, and he led them through the flying debris of Mr. Brodziak’s store and rescued Mr. McPhee and his family. - There were many other acts of braver v, but the most conspicuous was that of Ratu William Ritove, who, with two half-caste boys named George Robinson and Johnny Guitar, ’ later rescued the families of Messrs. Gibson, McPliee and Johnston from the house of an Indian in which they had taken shelter. Again the risk of flying tin was great, so the Europeans were made to lie down in a punt. The boys entered the water and wadirnr and swimming, they thus propelled°the punt to the house ,of Mr. A. N. Simmons, which alone of all the houses in the low-lying area, was not submerged.