Sydney Porter—Notes on Birds of Fiji



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haughty one. We inquired everywhere but no one knew her or, for

that matter, seemed to want to. We got into an old dinghy half full

of water and made our way across the bay, nosing in and out of the

vessels lying at anchor. By this time it was quite dark, for in the

tropics the night falls early.


No one had heard of the boat: there were a hundred and one others,

some with very queer names. At last we came to one, The Island's

Pride. Ah ! . . . “ Pride ! ” . . . Could that be her, had we been given a

very free or wrong translation ? There was no one on board, no Parrot

either as far as we could see. We did almost give up hope this time, and

rowed back to the wharf. We still pressed our inquiries, however.

We asked about The Island’s Pride. Yes, she was from Ngau and was

returning in the morning ; that sounded hopeful, but where could we

find the skipper ? At length we did find him, just leaving a bar-parlour

but, as they say in the Islands, he was “ very well oiled ”, which in


plain English means he was very intoxicated. Yes, he had a -


Parrot, he had brought it from Ngau for a native who hadn’t turned up

(here were more adjectives quite unfit for the Magazine) ; so our


friend the captain was either going to wring the-’s neck or sell it.


Ah, that sounded better in spite of the sanguineous adjectives. Would

he sell it now ? No, he had a twinge of conscience, such as is usual

with hardened sinners when they get inebriated ; he felt that he must

wait until the morning to see if the owner turned up. My conscience

was not troubling me just then, so we visited the bar again with our

new-found friend—also several other bars ; but no amount of “ oiling ”

would stifle his troublesome conscience or induce him to part with the

bird. The only thing to do was to wait. If we liked to be down at the

wharf at 5.30 the next morning he might be able to do something. So

5.30 it was. But there was no signs of any skipper ; 7.30 came and still

no skipper. At last I hailed a passing Fijian and explained by the means

of the international sign language that I wanted to visit The Island’s

Pride, which still lay out in the Bay.


There was no skipper even there ; we had lubricated him a little too

well in our efforts to get the Parrot and he had been unable to find the

boat; whether he stepped over the side of the wharf I never knew !

No one on the boat knew what had happened to him either. How about



