LONELY YACHTSMAN

Taranaki Daily News, 31 March 1934, Page 22 (Supplement)

LONELY YACHTSMAN

PICKLED OCTOPUS FOR A MEAL. FRIGHTENING A SHARK. It is good to hear that Alain Gerbault, the French yachtsman who lias sailed alone round the world, has arrived safely at the Marquesas in the Pacific (says the' Children’s Newspaper). Over a year ago Gerbault found the sea calling and coijld not resist its appeal, so he set sail again from Marseilles ip his new yacht one October day in 1932. Since then he has been sailing by way of Casablanca, the Cape Verde Islands. Martinique, and Panama. The Marquesas are a group of islands not far from Samoa, where Robert Louis Stevenson made his home. When Quiros and Captain Cook visited these islands they were amazed at the beauty of the natives, but Gerbault laments that the population has fallen from thousands to 1800. One of the finest races is dying out, he says. Traders come to the Marquesas for copra and vanilla. NATIVE HOSPITALITY. Gerbault says the islands have a wild beauty with their rugged cliffs, high mountains, and valleys planted with coconut trees and giant mangroves. The French yachtsman writes that on his first visit tn the Marquesas the difficulty of landing at Taha Uki in a swell was so great that he moored the Firecrest a few yards out and swam ashore. Curing his three-mopths stay Gerbault used to swim back to his boat at night after spending the day ashore surf riding or exploring the valley? with.tlje brown Marquesan children. One night a? h? was swimming back an enormous shark passed him- made noises apd splashed violently, and the shark swam away in fright! , . . Gerbault was received with, typical native hospitality. Of his landing, at Akapi he writes that several natives collected round hjm as span as. he reached the shore, and one took bim by the hand and led him t° bis The hut was no more than’ a shelter of leaves, and there he was invited to partake of a meal. There Was raw octopus pickled m lemon juice, octopus roasted on red-hot stones, and a delicious dish made from bread-fruit pastq' cooked in coconut rpilk.

TALKING. OF TENNIS. When Gerbault was in England a few year? ago after his 40,000-mile voyage round the world he visited a home in Epsom. Like many brave men he could not be induced to talk of his mapy exciting adventures. He continually tried to turn the conversation back to. lawn tennis, a game he plays and follows enthusiastically. He was . immensely interested in some of the earliest rackets he was shown. Now Gerbault is back again among the Pacific islands. On his last visit natives invited him to rule over , ope of the islands. SEVEN REINDEER. A MOTOR RIDE FROM SWEDEN. Seven reindeer have left Sweden to found a new home in a foreign land. They are in charge of two Swedish gentlemen and a Lapp, who have undertaken the .'task of shepherding them y-to their destination. as well as staying with them until the experiment is brought to a finish. . • ’■ • The goal which the little caravan has set out to reach, is distant enough, being situated in. the French Pyrenees. If. seems that reindeer used, to live here in olden days, and this experiment is to try to get them to settle down and multiply. Once before the trial was made,. but without success, chiefly owing to unsuitable modes of conveyance. That, time the little company of pioneers , went by boat and train. Now they travel in a motor-wagon, and will stop for long intervals on the way. It is expected that it will be summer before they reach Switzerland, and it will be there, among the eternal snows, that they will spend the whole of the warm season before going on. How surprised they will be at the dark, starlit summer nights instead of the silvery twilight they are used to!

THIRTY MEN ON MAGIC CARPET.

ACROSS 2000 MILES OF SEA IN DAY.

Thirty men left San Francisco, one afternoon and landed at Honolulu, 2100 miles across the Pacific, the next day. Needless to say, their magic , carpet was the aeroplane, six seaplanes, in fact. They flew non-stop, and their flight was the longest, ever accomplished by a group of aeroplanes flying in formation. Even during the wonderful journey of Balbo s Italian armada no section exceeded 2000 miles. During the flight of the American planes, led by Lieutenant McGinnis, the machines kept in touch with one another by wireless, and even when one of the six was lost in the fog the wireless link still held it to the main formation.

The flight of 2100 nautical miles was accomplished iu a few minutes more than 24 hours, an average of about 90 miles an hour. The nautical mile _is about a seventh more than a land mile, so that the speed was actually over a hundred miles an hour. BACK TO MEDIEVAL DAYS. THE DARK AGES IN DACHAU CAMP. Terrible stories of cruelty in ' German concentration camps are still reaching England. One of the latest concerns the camp at; Dachau in Bavaria, and has been put on record by a special correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, who gives the names of the victims. This camp was the subject of an article in the Munich Illustrated Press, which described it as a place fpr the training of good citizens and gave pictures of their healthy life. The facts appear to be different. Last autumn there were over 2000 prisoners, mostly of the working-class, about .50 intellectuals, and 50 Jews. The ten,barracks in which they are housed had punishment cells of concrete without heating arrangements and practically without light, one totally dark. Let into the walls are chains, and only wooden beds without blankets, are available for sleep. The prisoners may be kept in these cell? for three months. A USUAL PRACTICE. This is not tire worst that may .befall them. They may be sentenced to flogging with a thong of ox hide to which is attached a strip of steel. It is a usual practice to beat officials of the Socialist and Communist parties immediately they arrive at this camp. The correspondent gives the names of half a dozen Communists and two Brown Shirts who died from their injuries at the camp, and declares that the total number who have perished in this way cannot be far short of 50. He adds that the prisoners are compelled to deny that they have been beaten, and that two whose names he knows have been compelled to write articles giving a favourable account of life in Dachau camp.'