THE ISLANDS AND THEIR CHARM

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 1, 1 July 1925, Page 23

THE ISLANDS AND THEIR CHARM

Tv “IN BAD”

HOW LITTLE i Hfc COVERAGE NEW ZEALANDER KNOWS OF OUR ISLAND DEPENDENCIES! IN THIS ARTICLE THE WRITER GIVES AN INTIMATE PICTURE OF LIFE IN THESE “LOTUS LANDS” OF THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC

D° those two words, “The Islands,” convey anything to you, reader? White beaches of coral sand, shimmering lagoons reflecting tall coco-palms, spouting breakers on the coral reef ? Or do they merely bring to your mind grubby colliers acting as temporary (and most unsuitable) fruiterers, bringing you bananas, oranges, pineapples? Oranges that leave Aitutaki and Rarotonga as big yellow-green globes of firm fruit that will yield nearly a tumblerfull of health-giving juice, and land at times on Auckland wharves as two inches of green, dripping scum at the bottom of the cases. No wonder you have to pay long prices for your fruit. Perhaps you are too near to the tropic isles, and know too much about the material side of things to feel the lure that undoubtedly exists, the lure that in other parts of the world has been responsible for boy runaways, for broken love affairs, for good billets thrown up by adventurous souls who must go and see for themselves. The great demand for books on the islands in Europe and America, and the amazing sums derived from the tourist business in Honolulu, which last year amounted to about twenty-five million pounds, are proof enough that the fascination not only still exists, but is actually gaining ground, as year by year the places nearer home give up their secrets to the übiquitous globe-trotter. Fortunately for those who desire peace and solitude, the islands are not likely to yield their mystery so easily. To begin with, they are scattered over so many thousands of miles that many of them take weeks to reach, and the holiday of the globe trotter is generally limited. To voyage to the far-away, off the beaten track islands, one must be prepared to face discomfort, perhaps even hardship and sometimes real danger. JS it worth it? Well, that depends. If your idea of a holiday is to motor from hotel to cool hotel, and you find the close proximity of an ice-chest indespensible, you had better keep away from the islands, with the possible exceptions of such tour-ist-frequented places as Honolulu, Fiji, and Tahiti. But to others the very names are a clarion call that set the wanderer poring over charts and worrying

the travel agents about schooner services ; think of them —the Gambiers, the dark Marquesas, whose deserted pac-paes or house platforms in the empty valleys bear witness to the thousands that are no more; Rapa Nui with its gigantic stone images which no man can explain; Ryevaivai, the Australs, Tubuai, BoraBora, Raiatea, home of fire-walking and even more mysterious doings; the island Venice of Ponape in the Carolines, with its strange temples and breakwaters roughly built of

piled-up basaltic columnsdo they stir your imagination and wake in you any desire to brave the very evident discomforts and sec them for yourself? If not, you can still find something of the lure which has brought writer after writer to the Southern Pacific, writers who have never left mail steamers and comfortable hotels; and yet have found ample material for profitable South Sea Island stories. Honolulu, although American enterprise has made it a wonderful

resort, is fast losing its charm as a South Sea Island; big hotels, motor roads, and, above all, ; a population which is 65 per cent. 'Japanese, are gradually blotting out the -real island atmosphere like an unpleasant fog, but in Tahiti the island charm may still be found. npHERE is so little one can tell ' that is new. Hermann. Melville, whose “Typee” and “Omoo”, still rank amongst the best. R. L.'Stevenson, Louis Becke, Jack London, and Somerset Maugham, ; whose “Moon and Sixpence” is founded' l on the life of the unfortunate ganguin who died in squalor in the ’ Marquesas before his paintings became the craze in Paris —all have ' told something of island life. Rupert Brooke also spent some time in Tahiti; Beatrice Grimshaw writes of it in “The Strange South Seas” and O’Brien’s fascinating triology “White Shadows in the , South Seas,” “Atolls of the Sun,” and “Mystic Isles,” about the Marquesas, Paumotus and Society Islands respectively have an enormous vogue in the States. “Faery Lands of the South Seas,” by Nordhoff and Hall, deals with the more out-of-the-way islands of the Paumotus and Cook groups; Robert Service’s “Roughneck” takes one to Tahiti and Murea, and now Robert Keable, forsaking Africa, has given us “Numerous Treasure.” Many of these are not illustrated, and, indeed, it is doubtful whether black and white really conveys much of the beauty of the South Seas, but the accompanying photographs may make it easier to visualise the various scenes and types which have been so often written about, even though the colours be lacking. Take, in imagination if you cannot do so actually, the monthly mail boat Tahiti or Makura from Wellington, and five days after sailing you land for a few hours in foam-girt, mountainous Rarotonga. This is your very own tropic isle, and probably the fairest of them all, but for all that most New Zealanders know or care about it, it might as well be in the middle of the Sahara. Alone amongst islands accessible by mail steamer it has not been overrun by a horde of Orientals, and, in careful hands, would make an ideal winter resort.

A further forty-eight hours on generally calm tropic seas' and you skirt Murea and steam through the narrow “pass” between the ends of the reef into the still lagoon of Papeete. The little town is half smothered in foliage, only a church spire or two and a few red roofs showing above the trees. The towering heights of Aorai and the Diademe are wreathed in cloud, and the new arrival finds much to catch his attention for the hour or so while the vessel is at anchor pending medical inspection, Pratique granted, the vessel edges circuitously and carefully to her berth at the wharf. JgEFORE long you arc ashore amongst the muslin-clad, flowerdecked damsels, for whom “steamerday” provides the monthly thrill, and after having your belongings

examined by the douanier you set off to find an hotel. Aina Fare’s Annexe, along the Quai des Subsistences, is as good as any, and it has the additional advantage of being on the waterfront. Pare, in white shirt and dark pareu, comes out to greet his new guests, and offers the male visitors that island nectar, a rum punch, at the brewing of which he excels. Once settled in your room, someone suggests a swim before dinner, and Arue (“Steu”) is only three miles away. The beach is private property, but the owner, with true island hospitality, allows its use by the public, who can also procure the key of a small dressing shed from the native caretaker. The bungalow at the other end of the beach is exactly as described in the latest book, and there is a shower, in the open, in front of it, which all may use. ■CPHE sand of Arue, and, in fact, of nearly all the surf beaches, is fine in texture but of a dark grey colour, and rather like coal dust when wet, but one soon realises that its colour is due to its volcanic origin and not dirt. There is time to run out to Point Venus, where Captain Cook landed, and from the height you look down on the stretch of dark shore with its contrasting line of white foam.

Far off, under the setting sun. the jagged peaks of Murea,,. “Island of the Lizard Men,” loom up for a few moments, and you watch for a while the wonderful colours of that indescribable thing, an island sunset. The car makes short work of the return to Papeete, and the question of dinner crops up. You can choose between a well-cooked French meal in the cafe on the waterfront, or in one or other of the hotels, a Tahitian meal, including baked fei (wild plantain), raw fish steeped for 24 hours in the juice of limes, and other strange but attractive dishes, or you can dine in a Chinese restaurant on chop-suey, bamboo shoots and sharks’ fins, and drink choicest China tea delicately flavoured with chrysanthemum buds. As you walk back to the hotel along the waterfront, past the famous Cerclc Bougainville, whence

comes the rattle of dice and pop of corks, you pass under an avenue of flamboyant trees and along the grass by the low stone seawall, only two or three feet above water-level. From the line of schooners and cutters, moored stern-on to the quai, you hear the harmonies of a “himcne,” or the brisk strains of a “upaupahura” played on an accordeon by an expert. Girls stand on the edge of the stones, angling with bamboo rods for the fish that come close inshore, attracted by the lights, and most of them smile friendly-wise at the visitor and murmur Bon sailor la ora na (pronounced “lorana”). And so to bed, for one must be up betimes to see the market. Pare sits on the verandah and again proffers rum-punch. * * * * TT is still dark when a knock at the door heralds the uninvited entry of the stout and beaming serving wench. “You going market? Better get upcar come. Coffee downstairs” and she helps herself, unasked, to one of your best cigarettes, lights up and pads out, humming a fragment • of last night’s himene. Drowsily you crawl out and mentally anathematise such ridiculous institutions as markets which start at 4 a.m. You find your way down to the big concrete tank which serves as a

bath, the water from the Fautana Valley that falls ten feet from the shower, soft as a caress, in a few moments banishes the cobweb? and you are ready for the : coffee, rolls and fruit that await you on the verandah. Other prospective marketers turn up, in various stages of deshabille, and as the first gleams of light appear over the mountains you dash to your room and fling on some clothes, for the market is all over by sunrise, and it is well worth seeing. The car, with a very drowsy chauffeur, runs you round to the low, iron-roofed building in a few minutes. You climb out and thread your way through the throng, and as most of the busy shoppers are flowerdecorated you follow suit and purchase a scented garland i of tiare or gardenia. A group of pretty girls with fivefoot lengths of green bamboo catches your eye. “What can they be for?” you wonder, and to satisfy your curiosity go across, to discover that the bamboos contain various cunningly-compounded sauces. You buy one or two, hand them to the chauffeur, and struggle into the market proper, which is divided into three portions wherein are sold fish, vegetables and meat. Already the stalls are emptying, but you still see strange fish, turtle, varos, fresh-water crayfish, oysters and other bivalves, and lobsters. Turtles’ eggs, spherical and about the size of a golf ball, look rather fascinating, and a small basket of them is added to your purchases. The vegetable stalls are next visited, and the Chinese market gardeners offer their wares washed and polished, bundled or basketed, as only a Chinese market-gardener can. T HE sun is now appearing over the hills, and the crowd gradually disperses. Dejeuner is not until 11 a.m., which seems a long time to wait, so most of the marketers repair to the various cafes round the. square for coffee and fruit. Your party makes its way to the cafe on the front, where the good M. Laury rapidly clears a table for you. You give your order and hand over the turtles’ eggs to be fried with bacon, while you start on a big plateful of bananas and mangoes. The motor launch for Murea is due to pull out and there is a big native picnic going across. A number of the party are seated round you, the girls in muslin “Mother Hubbards” and the lads in white duck suits. You notice they are all wearing flowers in their hair, round their hats, or behind their ears. There is a legend, probably invented for the benefits of tourists, that, to wear a flower over the right ear means “I want a sweetheart.” and over the left “I have a sweetheart.” Lamentable to relate, the prevailing fashion is to wear one over each ear! The cafe presents a gay enough scene, and most of the picnickers are armed with guitars, mandolins or accordcons, which break now and then into little snatches of native airs, until the launch “Mitiaro” toots impatiently and they all make a rush to get aboard. (To be continued in the August ssue, when the exploits of the visitors at a native picnic are vividly depicted.)