THIS VERY QUEER WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, 10 February 1934, Page 21 (Supplement)

THIS VERY QUEER WORLD

WHAT HAPPENED TO COOK. AND NOW TO TWO AIRMEN. • This queer old world does not everywhere keep pace with the development of aeroplane and wireless. A grim story from West Africa reminds us that in some ways and places it has not moved since the days of our old friend Captain Cook. The great circumnavigator, who took more months to reach Australia in his sailing ship than the airmen now take days, was killed and eaten by the cannibals of a Pacific island. Six months ago two French aviators disappeared somewhere near the African coast in a storm and seemed to leave no trace; but the wife of one of them traced the missing plane to an island 200 miles south of Dakar. Portuguese troops were sent to the island to ascertain what had happened to the airmen.. They had to meet the poisoned arrows of the tribe on the island befpre, having captured -the chief medicine man, they learned what had happened. The two gods from the machine had been sacrificed' to the tribal gods, and had then been eaten by the cannibal savages. Captain Cook sails to meet, his death on a cannibal ■'island in T 779. French airmen fly to the same fate more than 150 years later.;"- ;/.-r ■ While most of the world. moves on from sailing ships to: aeroplanes,.. th 6 cannibal remains,, a grim reminder of what a queer old world we live in.