Devastation in Darwin

Half a century ago today, Cyclone Tracy devastated the Australian town of Darwin, destroying 80% of houses, making 41,000 out of the 47,000 residents homeless, and killing 66 people. The Age newspaper called it a ‘disaster of the first magnitude . . . without parallel in Australia’s history.’ I was there, having arrived from Bali just a few weeks earlier after spending six months travelling across Asia. I’d got a job working in the power station, and I had a room in a house of travellers owned by Dutch Peter. It was Christmas Eve when the wind started blowing, and most people expected Tracy to veer away from land -  like a cyclone earlier in the year - but in the early hours of the morning of Christmas Day it struck with a vengeance, blowing at over 100 mph. Around 3 in the morning, after the eye had given us all a few minutes peace, Dutch Peter’s house exploded, the wooden walls and all its contents, including us, were catapulted into the night. What follows is my (rather hastily written) diary account of that night and the following few days.

24-30 December 1974
‘And suddenly it is Christmas Eve. Work [I was employed by the local power station] isn’t really work (yesterday it was quite interesting - we had to take the complete two ton end of the cylinder off - I was a little afraid the hoist wasn’t going to hold). I finish work at 12:00 and then at 2:00 there’s a nice little work social at the Rugby Union club - beer as free as the air and a constant flow of steaks. I talk to a range of people including the foreman - I am really pissed. He invites me round to lunch tomorrow - I am beginning to get blotto - the beer is running out but he keeps giving me cans - at one point he informs me about the cyclone heading straight for Darwin. I’ve no idea how I get home. Later, Gus tells me I shouted ‘the cyclone’s really coming’ and passed out, and that all attempts to wake me for dinner were in vain.

I wake early in the evening and go upstairs with a splitting headache. I sleep some more until I wake up absolutely soaking - the rain is howling in through the window and the floor is flooded. I join the others downstairs - it’s pretty bad here too. For some reason we all go to Peter’s room or the room behind it, at least it’s dry there. The wind is getting pretty heavy - Wayne is fairly drunk and jolly - doors are banging - the wind continues to get stronger. We make expeditions outside - first one, just after midnight, is to see why a car has stopped - it is virtually impossible to walk, the wind is so strong. Inside again, I go to fetch my diary and clutch onto it - things are getting a little serious - I suggest going to the hospital or somewhere safe, but there are no takers. I fetched my ‘mustn’t lose’ things such as money, passport etc and put them in a plastic bag with the diary. I sleep a while along with Pete and Go and Gus - Wayne falls asleep in the cupboard - Paul and Susie are asleep in the other dry room. When the eye comes, sometime between 2 and 3, it is a chance to sleep undisturbed

When the eye has passed, the wind comes back with a vengeance in the other direction blowing against the windows of the room I’m in - the gusts reach a tremendous force (from virtually nothing at all in a matter of minutes) - Gus is still half asleep, I wake him and he jumps in the cupboard with Wayne - Go and I have drawers over our heads and we crouch down behind the bed - we can’t get out of the room, the door won’t open - the whole wall is going to go - Jesus - I reach up with my hand up to the bed for my plastic bag and pull it down to me - and the house explodes.

I remember shouting and swearing and somersaulting through the air and landing on a load of rubbish - I may have been unconscious for a while. The next thing I know is that thousands of pieces of glass are hitting in my back - I lie down and grope with my hand for some cover - I feel so lucky because I find a board just big enough to cover me - I hold onto it with my life to stop the wind blowing it away. I am lying on my side on glass and wood - I dare not move my left leg because I think it’s slit open or broken - I can’t see much - I think I’m facing away from the house but I’m afraid to move and look round. Rocks hit my board, and sometimes I nearly lose it (the board) - I think through what I’ll do if the board does fly, and I decide to make a run for it. It is cold too - I find a plastic mac by me and wrap myself in it but the wind keeps blowing it off - I am shivering - I can’t decide if I’m going to live - when I think I see lights I shout several times but my voice can’t rise up above the roar of the storm - I am sure all the others [from the house] are dead - I can’t see how they can be alive - I am feeling so lucky that I’m not in pain and that I found the board to protect me.

I lie in two inches of water thinking, working out plans, looking, but never moving other than my hand, which keeps searching around for more protection. Occasionally a light glimmers from across the way - I can’t work out which direction it is, nor can I work out what a bridge-like structure is (it has cars underneath). Later, as visibility improves, I see lights and a house nearby - I am shouting more often now as the dense mistiness lifts.

More than two hours later, and dawn is approaching and the wind is abating to nothing more than a strong gale. I look around a little more and discover that my board has only remained where it is because it’s wedged down by the bed that I’d been hiding behind. Then I hear voices behind me - there are people alive - I pull myself together to turn over - it is the first time I’ve moved properly in two and a half hours, There is a light and I can see Peter and the van. There is no cut in my leg, or anything seriously wrong with it, but I still have to hobble when I walk. I go to the van where I find Gerry. Willem joins us shortly. Paul and Susie are safe in a cupboard. Only Wayne and Gus are missing - Peter and Joel are searching for them frantically but there is no sign. We are really worried that they are under the pile of debris where Peter’s house once stood.

Long after it is light and the wind has fallen still more, we hear that they are next door. I am crying with joy. Incredible. We all have little wounds but nobody is seriously hurt - Gus, Wayne, Paul, Joel and Peter start a frantic search of neighbouring houses, and then they take a couple of cars and start taking people down to the hospital. I really want to be part of this operation - I even try to join them at one point but my knee is really crook. The whole town is completely devastated - steel telegraph poles are bent to the ground - palm trees completely uprooted - roofs lying around everywhere except on the tops of houses. All that is left of Peter’s house is the bathroom on stilts and one of the long walls at a 45 degree angle, not a thing else upstairs. The dining room and kitchen below are wrecked. Everything, absolutely everything, is 100% wet - there are glass, wood, mosquito netting, nails, doors, clothes, books, everywhere. I take a ride down to the hospital - it is fenced in (the wire around the entrance had been put up before to stop hoards of people). I talk to someone at the hospital within 15 minutes but they aren’t interested in my problems and I’m not surprised - many people are bleeding or crying or nursing wounded children - all around is tragedy, tragedy tragedy.

I hitch back to the others - there’s not a building left in tact - corrugated iron, power lines, cars, caravans, trees are strewn everywhere - some of the road is under 6-8 in of water - destruction is everywhere you look.

When I get back, Peter and Wayne are hanging about the house, while most of the others have gone to the first aid centre. I chuck a few things in the van - Paul and I drive to the centre with some food and wine - we find the others from the house huddled in warm blankets - I join them and we swap stories. Gus has some bad cuts by the ear, Joel cut his foot running around helping people afterwards. Peter and Gerry had sheltered in the van soon after the house exploded; Wayne had lain on the grass in the middle of the road, he’d lost his way following Gus who ran to the other house. Gus, Gerry and I are the worst injured. After a couple of hours, a doctor comes, but again he’s not interested in me - Gus and Gerry get some stitches. Willem is OK even though he had been trapped and needed rescuing by Joel and Peter - Go is OK but for some cut knuckles. It’s Christmas Day.

Paul ferries us all to Darwin High School in little groups with blankets as our only clothes. I have real trouble bending my leg, and it takes time to get in and out of the purloined Volkswagen. We are among the first to arrive at the school. Everywhere is under water, but there’s not too much damage. We annex a dryish room for ourselves, but we can’t get the water out because the corridor is under water too. Peter is alternating between fits of crying and fits of trying to organise everybody, and boss them around. Paul goes back to pick up all the obvious things lying about round the house pile, and then he returns the car, and gets Peter’s wagon going

I have a little cry at the thought of Julian and Melanie waking Mum and Dad, then sitting down excitedly for breakfast and turning on the radio and hearing about Darwin. We all manage to send a telegram off home for free, and, a day later, we get a free telephone call. I am emotionally distraught hearing all their voices after so long.

The Aussie prime minister Whitlam flies back from his European tour and spends an afternoon here; Jim Cairns stays a little longer. The head of a newly formed disaster squad is working 25 hours a day, and, apparently, nearly breaking down sometimes.

People begin to pour into the school, and it becomes a main centre where all goods (food, clothes, cigarettes) are brought before distribution. There is a small team of dedicated cooks - so we have good food. My knee doubles in size. I am so incapacitated that I really can’t walk, it is as much as I can do to go to the toilet. Willem, Gerry and Gus do nothing either.

Around us, the authorities (concerned largely about health and disease because the water supply broke down) have acted efficiently. People were already being evacuated on Boxing Day, and by the third day they had got 6,000 people out by plane. The radio station was working again quite quickly, which helped everyone know what was going on, and what to do.

Some of our group keep going back to the house looking for their stuff, and especially for Peter’s money which was supposed to be in an attache case. Poor Peter, having lost his house, never found his money, and one day he just left, in his combie van, for Sydney.

Paul, Joel and Wayne work consistently - Susie and I do a little work in the kitchen - I prefer to wash dishes for two hours, and then get my meal immediately than to queue for half an hour. There are almost 800 people here, I think, and the queues are unbelievable. The evacuation programme continues and is going better than expected.

On 29th December the radio informs us that single men can now be evacuated.

Susie is going to Sydney. Willem is unsure how he is going to make it back to the island where he was working. Kiki is living and working at the Travel Lodge, and is happy to stay here.

Originally, I had planned to fly to Townsville and hitch down the coast (wanting to see something of Australia) but the evacuation planes are only flying to state capitals. I feel Brisbane is already too far south so I decide I might as well go with Gerry to Sydney. There is a lot of messing about before we are finally taken to the airport (in a beaut air-conditioned bus). However, the officials aren’t expecting another coach load, and there are queues and queues waiting to get on the one plane standing. We, and a lot of others already there, don’t make it - we sleep in the destroyed airport buildings. We spend the next day in the airport watching coach loads of women and children being evacuated; we are given food and drink all day long by the Salvation Army. There are newspapers lying around with long stories about Darwin. I talk for a while to one of the people from the school - he adores Joni Mitchell, but didn’t enjoy his overland trip.

Early evening the Starlifter we’d been promised arrives. It is going to take us all away from this devastated disaster area - we all fetch our bags and rush to the buses. I am horrified at the way the Americans are squeezing every last person in. We have to sit cross-legged in about 1 sq ft - from front to back nobody is going to be able to move. I still can’t bend my legs properly and so decide to get off - I’m not that desperate. I think the American was going for some sort of people record - he left all the baggage behind. Early this morning, on the first flight, they were trying hard to find people to go to Townsville - I should have gone, as I’d planned, but I was loathe to leave new friends after so long travelling. It was sad any way to leave Paul, Wayne and Gus - I had some good times with them.

The following morning I take the first plane - a Hercules to Brisbane. We sit on seats, and are allowed in the cockpit to have a smoke - it’s a beautiful serene sight, floating above the clouds. The journey takes five hours and we land in late afternoon - we are shuttled across a boring-looking town to an evacuation centre - an empty bus garage with clothes, social services, Sally Army, airline officials. We register, are given $62, and then booked onto a flight to Sydney. We eat, and I put on some new underpants.’

I’d have liked that too

‘Remembered to-day something I’d said to F. last summer as we lay on the bed together: I said “You know, you’re one of the few men I’d like to have had a child by.” After all, it was nearly twenty years since F. and I first went to bed together, so my remark shouldn’t have startled him. But no, perhaps it didn’t startle him - I’m wrong. Only his arm round me tightened a little, “Yes,” he said slowly, “I’d have liked that too.” ’ This is from the recently-published diaries of a largely forgotten New Zealand gay writer, James Courage, who died 60 years ago today

Courage was born in Christchurch in 1903, the eldest of five children. His grandfather had emigrated to New Zealand in the 1860s, and purchased a sheep station, and a grandmother had written several books about early colonial life. Taught at home during his early years, he was enrolled at Dunelm Preparatory School between 1912 and 1915, entering the rather exclusive Christ’s College in 1916. Though he excelled for a while at English, he seems to have had some kind of breakdown while still at school. Encouraged by his family, he travelled to England in 1923, gaining entrance to study at Oxford University, St John’s College. While there, he published poems, music reviews, and several plays in local/university publications. He graduated with a modest English degree in 1927.

Thereafter, Courage lived in London, studying the piano, and working occasionally as a journalist. He travelled in Europe and South America for a while, and lived in a fisherman’s cottage in St Ives. In 1931, he contracted tuberculosis, and was confined to a Norfolk sanatorium until 1933. During this time, though, his first novel One House was published by Victor Gollancz, though with a limited print run. On leaving the sanatorium, Courage returned to New Zealand for an extended period of convalescence, during which he made several contacts, On returning to the UK in 1936, he rented a flat in London and became involved with the Kiwi literary scene, meeting among others, Charles Brasch with whom Courage would maintain a life-long correspondence. Brasch published several of Courage’s poems in Landfall, a New Zealand literary journal he founded, and he edited a posthumous collection of Courage’s short stories.

Classified as medically unfit, Courage became a fire warden during the Second World War, and from 1940 he worked at a bookshop in Hampstead. Although regarded as excellent company, he nonetheless suffered from depression and from 1951 was nearly always under psychiatric treatment. Between 1948 and 1961, he published half a dozen novels, mostly set in New Zealand. One novel - A Way of Love - set in England focuses on a young homosexual’s relationship with an older man. Courage died in Hampstead on 5 October 1963 - see the websites of The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand and Victoria University of Wellington for further biographical information.

The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand has this assessment of Courage: ‘Discreet to a fault, and even self-apologetic by modern standards, the novel [A Way of Love] was banned under the censorship provisions in place prior to the setting up of the Indecent Publications Tribunal in 1964, and was only available to few New Zealanders. In recent times some commentators have viewed it as a milestone in New Zealand writing by gay writers. Published at a time when no other New Zealand writer addressed the themes of sexual orientation and same-sex relationships, except in very indirect ways, Courage’s novel stands out as a brave exception.’

Most recently, Courage has garnered some critical attention for his diaries edited by Chris Brickell and  published in 2021 by the Otago University Press. A review can be read at the New Zealand Newsroom. Here, though, is the opening paragraph of the introduction to James Courage Diaries, followed by several extracts from the diaries themselves. 

‘Courage was a prolific and idiosyncratic diarist. He began making notes about his life in 1920, at the age of 16, and carried on until 1963, the year of his death. His 14 private journals have attracted less attention than his novels, short stories and plays, but they have an immediacy that is not often found in his formal writings. Courage’s ‘spasmodic’ diary entries captured the smallest details of lives and places: the fine grained aspects of his daily routine in Christchurch, and later in England after he moved there in 1922, as well as the impact of global events. He wrote about his travels by ocean liner during the 1930s, the effects of World War II on the inhabitants of inner-city London where he was a fire warden for an apartment building, and his treatment for tuberculosis. The diaries also reveal what it was like to be homosexual in a world that was not always accepting, how Freudian psychotherapy changed Courage’s view of himself and how publishers’ decisions affected his often-tenuous self-esteem.

3 February 1930
‘This man has changed my life. For the first time I am willing to surrender my reserve to another. Even my sense of humour ‘goes under’: and my ‘second man’ (a sneaking hyper-critical fellow) disappears - which is extremely remarkable. Long may it last!’

9 February 1930
‘My twenty-seventh birthday. I turn back a year in the journal to find that last February I wrote as an aspiration: “To be famous and to be loved.” Well, I am loved. Now what about the fame?’

11 March 1930
‘I love this man unreservedly. I cannot imagine life without him.’

20 October 1931
‘Afternoon sadness. A roaring north-easterly wind tears the leaves from the trees. Bitterly cold. I sit with blue hands. Towers and scuds of white and grey cloud, with beams between. Rooks singing wildly.’

9 February 1932
‘My twenty-ninth birthday. Sobering reflection that I have spent so much of the last nine years in the company of fools, vagabonds, sex-maniacs and literary people generally. Well, if I have caught T. B. I’ve at least escaped syphilis. My great regret is that I have not written, as yet, the really good book I want to, though ‘The PY’ has excellent moments. To-day I wrote the passage about my grandmother and Mr Sherwood.’

10 July 1932
‘Pain and depression. My chest hurts: I feel stifled when I cough. A good deal of sputum. Heaven help me.’

13 July 1932
‘Appalling depression - really rock-bottom - everything in the world went black. This culminated in the evening when I burst into tears when Mrs M. came to see me, and wept for an hour and a half. I really think she saved me from suicide. I haven’t been so upset since Dec 27th, 1930, on the way to S. America. Completely and absolutely de profundis.’

16 July 1932
‘Feeling much stronger: despondency vanished. Mrs M. read One House in proof, and liked it - or rather, admired it. She envies me my “easy, flexible English”. I told her it was the result of damned hard work: and so it was.’

 13 May 1937
‘I have bought this journal and make my first entry in it in Brighton (Sussex). Am staying at the Old Ship Hotel, having temporarily - and for a very good reason - shut up the flat in Hampstead. I have been here a fortnight tomorrow, staying alone. Solitude by no means as depressing as I had feared, though I miss having somebody to talk to in the evenings. That, 1 suppose, is the penalty of living out of London - at least for a soi-disant intellectual. However, for the moment it can’t be helped; and at least I’ve taken to writing letters again, a habit of which the telephone in London had almost robbed me. If I had enough gumption I’d go out and live for a bit somewhere completely away from towns - somewhere in the Weald of Sussex, for instance. But I haven’t the gumption, so that’s that. I even say to myself, cynically, that there’s nothing to do in the country except farm and/ or fornicate. However that may be, I don’t feel at the moment that I want to do either. So, at Brighton I stay (where, if the opportunity arises, I can at least fornicate urbanly and in good company - to judge by the mien of most of the couples who populate the hotels). My waiter at the hotel here said yesterday (Coronation Day): “It ought to have been Teddy (Windsor) they crowned. Then he could have had Mrs Simpson to-night and told England to go to hell!” Evidently Brighton’s philosophy is on the pagan side. It must be something to do with that amazing Royal Pavilion of George IV’s and Mrs Fitzherbert’s.’

13 February 1943
‘I shall remember this day all my life for the sad news it brought me. When I reached home at 5.30 in the evening I found an envelope from the Returned Letter Office containing two of my letters (written in Dec. last) to my much- and long-loved Christopher. On each of my envelopes was pasted a typed notice telling me that the addressee had died on active service. For about an hour I hardly felt the shock. I even played the piano and read. Then when Mrs Timmons (who remembered Chris) arrived to cook my dinner I told her the news. Directly she said “Oh, how terrible”, the tears rushed into my eyes and I wept. Later in the evening I rang up Joan V. who knew Chris well. She told me that he died of wounds “due to shell or bomb blast” on Dec. 11th last (two months ago) somewhere in the Mediterranean. The announcement had been in the papers but I had not seen it. Chris was 27. Before going to bed I wrote to his mother, though I found this difficult.’

25 July 1953
‘One should be able to write of one’s sexual predilections as naturally as one’s taste in food.

Remembered to-day something I’d said to F. last summer as we lay on the bed together: I said “You know, you’re one of the few men I’d like to have had a child by.” After all, it was nearly twenty years since F. and I first went to bed together, so my remark shouldn’t have startled him. But no, perhaps it didn’t startle him - I’m wrong. Only his arm round me tightened a little, “Yes,” he said slowly, “I’d have liked that too.” ’

Power of a lion

‘I feel the power of a lion in me, since I have broken the heavy ban which encircled me for years. I know now only one goal: extreme particular education in natural sciences, a body like steel and iron and then to the farthest south.’ This is from the diaries of Karl von Terzaghi, an Austrian civil engineer and geologist, sometimes called ‘the father of soil mechanics’, who was born 140 years ago today. His colourful life, some of which was spent in the US, included a long-running scientific duel which had a tragic end, employing Sylvia Plath’s mother as his secretary, and engaging with Hitler on the best way to lay building foundations.

Terzaghi was born on 2 October 1883, the first child of a soldier and his wife in Prague. On his father’s retirement, the family moved to Graz, but Karl was sent to military boarding schools where he developed an interest in astronomy and geography, and excelled at mathematics. In 1900, he started studying mechanical engineering at the Technical University in Graz, graduating in 1904. A year of military service followed, during which time he translated a popular English geology field manual into German, and undertook further studies in geology.

Terzaghi went to work for a firm involved in hydroelectric power generation, and, by 1908, was managing construction sites; he successfully completed complex projects in Croatia and Russia. In 1912, he went on an extended tour in the US, visiting major dam construction sites. On returning to Austria he was drafted into the army to lead an engineering battalion. Before the war’s end, he took up a professorship at the Royal Ottoman College of Engineering in Istanbul where he began his groundbreaking research into the behaviour of soils.

By 1924, working at Robert College, also in Istanbul, his work was receiving much attention, and he accepted a job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Here he set up his own laboratory, and published widely, not least in popular magazines such as Engineering News Record. During this period, he employed Aurelia Schober Plath (later to become the mother of the poet Sylvia Plath) as his secretary. It appears, Terzaghi was a much sought-after dinner companion, apparently because of his charisma and scintillating conversation. In 1928 he met a young geology student, Ruth Dogget, and soon married her.

By 1929, Terzaghi was back in Vienna, having accepted a newly created chair of soil mechanics at Vienna Technical University. He travelled a lot through Europe, lecturing and consulting. During a sabbatical (1936-1937) he became involved in a conflict over the best way to lay the foundation for a Nazi building project in Nuremberg, which in turn led him into a discussion with Hitler. On returning to Vienna after a tour in the US and just after the birth of his first son Eric, a long-running dispute (originating in different views over the so-called uplift problem) with another Austrian scientist, Paul Fillunger, came to the boil and ended with Fillunger’s suicide.

Terzaghi moved to the US in 1938, serving as professor of civil engineering at Harvard University from 1946 until his retirement. His consulting business continued to expand, and included the chairmanship of the Board of Consultants of Egypt’s Aswan High Dam project until 1959. He died in 1963. Wikipedia has a little more information; otherwise try Googlebooks for Richard Goodman’s biography: Karl Terzaghi: The Engineer as Artist.

Terzaghi left behind an extensive set of diaries, though, as far as I know, these have not been published. However, Reint de Boer used them extensively in writing his book, The Engineer and the Scandal: A Piece of Science History, published by Springer, 2005. This might provide good science history but it is not great science writing. The prologue begins as follows: ‘This book gives one an indepth study into an important part of the development of the Theory of Porous Media’ - hmmm, sounds a bit dull so far - ‘as well as the amazing story of the glittering life of Professor Karl von Terzaghi.’ The scandal in the title refers to the dispute with Fillunger.

Further along in the prologue, de Boer explains: ‘[Terzaghi] left behind an extensive record of his life in diaries, manuscripts, books, pamphlets, statements, notes etc. In particular, his diaries contain a lot of facts about his life, individuals, who accompanied him, and his surroundings. However, von Terzaghi was a vain person and belonged to that group of people who work their whole lifetime on their own memorial. In his diaries he sometimes described important events in his life not on the day on which they occurred, but a long time later, and he glossed over many facts. Thus, one has to be careful in adopting his view on facts and his description of certain occurrences uncritically. [. . .]. von Terzaghi kept not only the extended diaries, discovered at his home in 1995/97, which are the basis for this treatise, but also an incomplete set of diaries with short entries which have already been known for a longer time [. . .]’

Much of The Engineer and the Scandal can be previewed at Googlebooks. Here are a few short extracts as quoted within the narrative of the book.

6 September 1902
‘I have happily finished my treatise “On the Intellect”. It is the first time that I have taken up the pen. That should be the beginning and the introduction to a series of larger and smaller papers which I will attack soon.’

September 1902
‘I feel the power of a lion in me, since I have broken the heavy ban which encircled me for years. I know now only one goal: extreme particular education in natural sciences, a body like steel and iron and then to the farthest south.’

September 1902
‘I have heavily sinned by my failed efforts, by nearly outrageous meditations, although not responsible, and I am punished severely by disorder and unsteadiness. I will regain all this by the greatest strictness against myself and systematic working.’

October 1902
‘I must learn to give talks, the skill to have an effect on other persons by means of language in order to convince them with that, which I have recognized as the truth. Truth? No, I have to convince them from that, which I have inspected as right and desirable. I stand here, isolated, and will represent my opinion as the present right one, will myself as the center and not as a follower. My work will be to a great extent independent. . .’

31 December 1902
‘Too many intentions, too little energy. Great phrases, small thoughts. Innumerable books, lack of concentration. The year which I end today, is as each of the proceeding [sic] years, distracted. I spent a part of my time with wandering about in the dark instead of with systematic work . . . However, I must admit that I made quite an imposing piece of progress this year. I have founded my philosophy of life recently through the realization of the moral law in us. I have won by this a measure of regulation and opinion in my way of acting.’

23 October 1903
‘Now I have determined plans for the future. I will abandon all dreams of my youth and choose a profession in which I can work most fruitfully. I would like to graduate from the Technische Hochschule as well as possible in order to enlarge as ever possible, the chance to get a professorship for mechancs.’

October 1912
‘It is just the calling of my life to develop all the skills which I possess as completely as possible. I have a certain hesitation going back to Europe, even for a short time. Europe is the land of the sins of my youth. There I developed, alongside many good things, all the bad seeds in my nature.’

2 October 1922
‘I must thank the Creator that I pass the threshold of the 40th year of my life as a mature man who has made his talents unfold and has already realized to a large extent the goals, of which he dreamed in his youth. In this summer I had the feeling of being on top of life. My achievements are beginning to receive the recognition and attention which they deserve. The publications of the total results of my previous research and thinking ensured. And the unnatural relationship with my wife cleared up. On September 14, I arrived in Constantinople. There following two weeks appeared to me like one year as a result of the variety of events. The old love to Olga struggled with the indignation at her behaviour and the indignation succeeded.’

22 October 1922
‘I have thought of you [Olga] daily, this year, of the women I have loved so much, and of our small child, Verele.’ Here de Boer explains: ‘He lamented his previous and then-current situation in over eight pages of his diary and expressed several muddled thoughts and strange statements indicating that he was completely out of balance.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 2 October 2013.

Baudin’s voyage to Australia

The French explorer Nicolas Baudin died on this day 220 years ago. Born in humble circumstances, he rose to captain one of France’s most important scientific and geographical expeditions to Australia - rivalling a similar expedition by the British captain Matthew Flinders. Both Baudin and Flinders -  who met once at Encounter Bay - are much studied by academics in Australia, and thus there is plenty of information about them on university and state library websites. In particular, the Libraries Board of South Australia published - in the 1970s and for the first time - a personal journal kept by Baudin. This latter contradicts some of the official French version of the voyage, dating from the early 19th century, which is highly critical of Baudin.

Baudin was born in 1754 at Île de Ré, a small island off the west coast of France. He joined the merchant navy aged 15, then the French East India Company, and then the French navy, as an ‘officier bleu’ (a commoner not of noble birth). He served a year in the Carribbean, before resigning and returning to merchant service, transporting emmigrants to New Orleans, and timber back to France. After a chance meeting with Franz Boos, the Austrian Emperor’s head gardener and botanist, Baudin took charge, in 1792, of a scientific expedition for Imperial Austria to the Indian Ocean. In 1796, he made a similar scientific voyage to the West Indies, where he collected material for museums in Paris.

In 1800, Baudin was selected to lead, what became known as, the Baudin expedition to map the coast of Australia (then still called New Holland) with two ships, Géographe and Naturaliste, and a company of scientists. He reached Australia in May the following year, and was the first to explore and map the western coast and part of the southern coast. In 1802, he stopped in Sydney, sent home the Naturaliste with all the scientific specimens he had acquired, and bought a new ship - Casuarina. He made for Tasmania, then Timor, before heading back to Europe; but, having stopped at Mauritius, Baudin died there of tuberculosis on 16 September 1803. See Wikipedia, the ABC’s Navigators website, or the Australian Dictionary of National Biography for more information.

The official account of the Baudin expedition - written partly by François Péron and completed by Louis de Freycinet - appeared in two volumes (1807 and 1816) of the series Voyage de découvertes aux Terres Australes exécuté par ordre de Sa Majesté l’Empereur et Roi, sur les corvettes le Géographe, le Naturaliste, et la goélette le Casuarina, pendant les années 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803, et 1804. Péron was particularly hostile towards his former commander, Baudin, and this shows through his account of the expedition.

However, a personal journal kept by Baudin during the voyage, from October 1800 to August 1803, gives a very different impression to that of Péron’s account. This was first translated from the French by Christine Cornell and published in 1974 by Libraries Board of South Australia as The Journal of Post Captain Nicolas Baudin, Commander-in-Chief of the Corvettes Géographe and Naturaliste, assigned by order of the government to a voyage of discovery. A lot more about the project to translate the journal can be found in The Baudin Legacy newsletter. A revisionist analysis of Baudin and his expedition to Australia can be found in The Baudin Expedition in Review: Old Quarrels and New Approaches (Australian Journal of French Studies, 2004).

Further information about Baudin’s journal is also available in Ill-Starred Captains: Flinders and Baudin by Anthony J. Brown, partly available to read on Googlebooks, which focuses on Baudin and the captain of a rival British expedition, Matthew Flinders. The two - famously - met at Encounter Bay on 8 April 1802. A website celebrating this encounter and both expeditions was set up by the State Library of South Australia in 2002; and this includes many extracts from Baudin’s journal. Here are three.

9 April 1802
‘There was little wind for the rest of the day. Sometimes we were even becalmed and at the mercy of the current, which carried us towards the coast, then only a league off. After sighting our points of the previous day, we sailed along the high land that we had seen a little before sunset. The coast in this part, if not extremely pleasant. was at least preferable to the region of sand-hills that we had just left.

At midday the latitude observed was 35° 36' but this was very uncertain. At three o’clock we sighted the island and islets spoken of by Mr. Flinders. I proceeded so as to run in for the channel separating them from the mainland, but since the slight wind blowing did not allow me to do this before dark, I went about at five o'clock to stand out to sea.

Coasting the mainland during the day, we sighted three islets or rocks lying such a short way out, that to see them. it was necessary to be as close in as we were. If becalmed, one could anchor there in 24 or 21 fathoms, for the bottom is sandy and good - a rather rare thing between here and the Promontory. At sunset we could still see Mr. Flinders’ ship running on the South-westerly leg.

Until midnight the winds were South to South- South-East and rather fresh, but then they moderated, and shortly after, we went on the landward leg.’

19 April 1802
‘I was expecting the weather to turn fine again and to be able, during the day, to explore the part of the coast that we had seen the previous day. But instead of that, the sky (which had been fairly fine throughout the night) grew damp and misty, with a very threatening appearance for the rest of the day.

At seven o’clock land was sighted from the mast-heads. It stretched from East-North-East to North North-West, proving only too plainly that we were in a gulf, as I had always thought we were, judging from the general shallowness of the water and the progressive decrease in its depth as we headed either West or East towards one coast or the other.

Since the weather promised too badly for us to think of reconnoitring the western part of this gulf, I sought to bear South as much as possible in order to be in a more advantageous position. During the morning the winds varied from North-West to West-South-West and were frequently accompanied by squalls and strong gusts. [. . .]

At one in the afternoon, with the wind still increasing and accompanied by sharp gusts, we wore ship and headed West of North-West to stand off the coast for greater safety during the night, for it looked as if it would be rather exhausting for us. At two o’clock the wind was still rising and the sea was growing steadily rougher, so we had to furl the mizzen-topsail and, shortly after, the fore-topsail. Although we were carrying no more than the foresail, main-topsail, close-reefed, and mizzen-staysail, the ship had on quite as much as she could manage in the squalls. We continued to tack West of North-West until eight in the evening. At that stage, being in 23 fathoms, we took our point of departure for the night’s tacking. The weather throughout it was very bad and the gusts were even stronger than during the day. We were several times obliged to lower our main-topsail, despite its small amount of canvas left. We went about every four hours and managed to maintain ourselves between 20 and 24 fathoms, tacking in a depth that never exceeded 30 and that diminished to East and West once one had reached there.

The night was very tiring for the crew and me in that we spent it constantly on deck. Except for those who changed watch, all the officers passed it just as peacefully in their beds as if the ship had been absolutely secure. As it was not the first time that they had done this, even in more critical situations than we were then in, I was not in the least surprised by it and left them in complete peace. This was what I had decided to do whenever such an occasion should arise. The stay of our fore-topmast staysail and its halyard went twice during the night, but the sail was only slightly damaged. The rain-bearing squalls were very cold and sometimes the water was like half-melted snow. We concluded from this that the winter cannot be very agreeable in this climate. The scientists, however, are of a contrary opinion because they saw parakeets in D’Entrecasteaux Channel.’

7 February 1803
‘As soon as our sails were furled, two boats were immediately dispatched to go sounding all around the ship and in various directions. On their return, I was informed that the depth of this bay was not sufficient for even a small vessel. At about a mile from the ship there were no more than 5 fathoms of water; half a mile further on, 4, and almost straightaway, 3 and 2. Nearer to the shore there was nothing but shallows and a continuous succession of sand-banks partly visible at low tide.

The boat which had had orders to head North-West gave us a moment of joy and satisfaction when it told us that it had discovered a fine port into which four rivers flowed, and that in the one it had entered, there were 4 fathoms of water and 3 inside. As a matter of fact the water in it was salty, but it would probably finish by becoming fresh as one went further up it. This was particularly pleasant, as it compensated for our regret at having found nothing on this coast so far that could repay us for our efforts and be of use to navigators.

The little boat had been sent off likewise to the island opposite which we were at anchor, and Citizen Guichenot, our gardener, had gone in it to reconnoitre the territory and discover what it produced. The boat did not return until during the night, having been stranded at low tide more than 2 miles off shore.

According to the gardener’s report, this island consists merely of sand, in which various low, shrubby trees grow. He only brought back some plants that were gone to seed, having been unable to find any in flower. Amongst them, there is one that has absolutely the bearing of an olive-tree. Its fruit resembles the olive in miniature, although the seed inside is very different. A big fire was lit on this island to serve as a beacon for the Casuarina, should she happen to enter this region.

As there was a very strong breeze all day and we had only 30 fathoms of cable down, we paid out 20 more, and in spite of the heavy South-South-easterly gusts, held firm on our anchor - proof that the bottom was not foul and that the holding was good.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 16 September 2013.

On top of Mount Everest

Seventy years ago today, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa, made the first acknowledged ascent to the peak of Mount Everest. Although they were part of a large British expedition led by John Hunt, it is the New Zealander Hillary who became most famous and is most remembered. Thereafter, he devoted much of his energy and time to helping the Sherpa people of Nepal. He left his literary estate - including diaries - to an Auckland museum, but then his surviving children fought a fierce battle over the rights to use his written and photographic material. The dispute was resolved, thanks to the intervention of the country’s prime minister, in good time for the museum to celebrate the anniversary of Sir Ed’s ascent of Everest with an exhibition and an online blog featuring his expedition diary.

Hillary was born in 1919 in Auckland, New Zealand, his grandparents having emigrated from Yorkshire, England, in the mid-19th century. An interest in climbing was sparked when he was around 16 during a school trip to Mount Ruapehu. He studied mathematics and science at the University of Auckland; and in 1939 completed his first major climb, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier, in the NZ Southern Alps. With his brother he became a beekeeper, a seasonal occupation that allowed him to pursue climbing in the winter months. He claimed his ‘religious conscience’ kept him from joining the air force at the start of the Second World War, but he did join the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a navigator in 1943. He was repatriated from the Solomon Islands in 1945 after being burnt in a boat accident. In 1948, he climbed New Zealand’s highest peak, Mt Cook, and in 1951 joined a British reconnaissance expedition to Everest.

Two years later, in 1953, Hillary was part of a ninth British assault on Everest, organised by the Joint Himalayan Committee. This was led by John Hunt and involved hundreds of people, mostly porters, climbing a route from Nepal via the South Col. Most of the climbers were forced back, but Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay managed to reach the summit at 11:30 a.m. on 29 May 1953. Hillary was thus the first non-Sherpa to reach the summit, and this led him to immediate fame around the world, especially in his native New Zealand, and in Britain, where the news was announced on the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation - he was knighted within a couple of months. Later the same year, Hillary married Louise Rose, and they had three children. However, Louise and one of their children died in a tragic aeroplane accident in 1975.

After Everest, Hillary wrote several books about his expeditions, most notably High Adventure, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1955, about the Everest ascent. He took part in the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, for which he led the New Zealand section, and reached the South Pole in January 1958, the first party to do so overland since Amundsen and Scott, nearly half a century earlier. He also continued to climb, taking part in several other Himalayan expeditions.

From the 1960s, Hillary became heavily involved in humanitarian work in the Nepal region, setting up the Himalayan Trust which, for decades, has helped build infrastructure and provide other support for Sherpa communities. In 1985, he accepted a posting as Ambassador to India, until his retirement in 1989. That year, he also remarried, June, the widow of his close friend, Peter Mulgrew, who had died, like his first wife, in an air accident. In 1987, Hillary was inducted into the Order of New Zealand; and in 1995 he received the British Commonwealth’s highest honour in becoming a Knight of the Garter. He died in 2008. Further biographical information is readily available from Wikipedia, The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, or New Zealand History Online.

Hillary left most of his literary and photographic archive, including some diaries, to Auckland War Memorial Museum. In May 2009, the New Zealand Herald reported that Hillary’s two surviving children were intending to sue the museum for usurping their rights: Hillary having stipulated in his will that his children should ‘have ready access to and the right to publish such material if they think fit’ for a period of 20 years. The dispute, between the family and the museum, which had become quite acrimonious, was only kept out of court through mediation by Prime Minister John Key, and the signing of a special decree - again see the New Zealand Herald.

Four years later, the museum announced it was opening an exhibition in celebration of the coming ‘60 year anniversary of Sir Ed’s Mt Everest climb and a lifetime of work in Nepal’. It was at pains to stress that ‘Sir Ed’s children Sarah and Peter Hillary have both contributed to the development of the exhibition’, and it included extracts from a diary that Sir Ed kept during the climb’. Extracts from that diary and images of the hand written pages are available on the museum’s blog. The extracts start with a short one dated 19 May 1953 and continue through to 29 May 1953, the day Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit. Here is part of Hillary’s diary for 28 May.

28 May 1953
‘[. . .] Position getting a bit desperate when Tenzing did a lead out over deep unstable snow to the left and finally to a somewhat more flattish spot beneath a rock bluff. We decided to camp here at approx. 27,900ft. gave others some oxygen and sent them down. It was 2.30pm. T & I took off O2 and set to work making campsite - a frightful job. Chopped out frozen rubble with iceaxes and tried to level area. By 5pm had cleared a site large enough for tent but on two levels. Decided it would have to do so pitched tent on it. Had no effective means of tying tent down so hitched some ropes and O2 bottles sunk in snow and hoped for the best.

At 6pm moved into the tent. Tenzing had his lilo along bottom level overhanging slope. I sat on top level with my feet on bottom and was able to brace the whole tent against the quarter hourly huge gusts of wind. The primus worked like a charm and we consumed large amounts of very sweet lemon water, soup and coffee and ate with relish sardines on biscuits, a tin of apricots, dates, biscuits on jam.

I had made an inventory of our oxygen supplies necessarily low due to the reduced lift and found that we only had 1 3/4 LAs (2000 litres) left for the assault. By relying on the two 1/3 full bottles left by Tom and Charles about 500 ft below South Summit I thought we could make an attack using about 3 litres a minute (I had adjustments for this and fortunately Tenzing’s set on 4 litres was really only a true 3 litres).

We also had a little excess O2 in three nearly empty bottles and this would give us about 4 hours sleeping O2. Although the thermometer registered -27 °C it was not unpleasantly cold as the wind was confined to casual strong gusts.

I spread the oxygen into two t hour periods and although I was sitting up I dozed reasonably well. Between O2 sessions we brewed up and had lemon juice and lemon juice and biscuits.

It was very noticeable that though we had no O2 from 2.30 until about 9pm that we were only slightly breathless and could work quite hard.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 29 May 2013.

I bayoneted two Turks

Albert Jacka, the famous Australian war hero, was born 130 years ago today. His eventful life, cut very short by the consequences of soldiering in the First World War, has been immortalised in various biographies and war histories. Many of these draw on a terse and laconic diary he kept during the Gallipoli Campaign. The most famous entry in the diary concerns the actions which led to him being awarded the Victoria Cross - the first Australian to be so honoured.

Jacka was born on 10 January 1883 at Winchelsea, Victoria, Australia, but his family moved to Wedderburn when he was five. On leaving school, Albert worked for his father in the timber industry before taking a job with the Victorian State Forests Department. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in September 1914, and was sent to Egypt in early 1915. By the end of April, though, his battalion had joined the newly-formed New Zealand and Australian Division, under Major General Alexander Godley, part of Anzac. The division landed at (what is now called) Anzac Cove in the Dardanelles on 16 April to take part in the Gallipoli Campaign. This would prove to be a disastrous failure for the Allies.

Jacka quickly established a reputation as a fearsome soldier; and, on 19 May, during a concerted Turkish assault against the Anzac forces, Jacka’s bravery proved decisive in combat with the Turks, and in holding a trench line. For this he was - famously - awarded the Victoria Cross. Almost immediately, he became a national Australian hero, though it was not until September 1916, that King George V presented the medal to him personally at Windsor Castle.

Jacka spent the rest of the war in France, and was repeatedly promoted, achieving the rank of captain in March 1917. Some felt, though, that he might have achieved a higher rank had he been, according to the Trooper Tours website, more of a diplomat and less of a pugilist (a reference to his boxing ability, and willingness to settle disputes in the ranks by administering a clout to the chin of the fractious). He went on to be awarded a military cross and bar; but, again, his supporters believed his acts of bravery deserved a higher honour, i.e. a bar to his Victoria Cross. His war ended in May 1918 when he was wounded during a German gas bombardment.

After the war, Jacka entered business with army colleagues and helped establish an electrical goods firm, but this business failed during the Great Depression. He married Veronica Carey in 1929, and they adopted a daughter, but the marriage would not survive. Jacka served as a councillor and later a mayor of his local community, but, by 1931, he had left local politics, and was struggling to make ends meet. His health soon gave out, largely it seems, from a combination of stress and complications associated with his many wounds and being gassed. More than 6,000 people filed past his coffin as it lay in state; and his funeral procession, flanked by thousands of onlookers, was led by over 1,000 returned soldiers - the coffin was carried by eight Victoria Cross medal holders.

Further information is available at Wikipedia, the Australian Dictionary of Biography, and the Albert Jacka website. Moreover, Jacka has been the subject of several biographies, and has featured in many books about the First World War. An early history, Jacka’s Mob, was published in 1933, and featured an introduction by the poet laureate, John Masefield. In 1989, Sun Books in association with the Australian War Memorial, published Ian Grant’s Jacka VC, Australia’s Finest Fighting Soldier. In 2006, Allen & Unwin published Jacka VC: Australian Hero by Robert Macklin; and in 2007 Mira Books brought out Michael Lawriwsky’s Hard Jacka: The Story of a Gallipoli Legend.

Some of these books quote from a diary Jacka kept during the Gallipoli campaign. In particular, one extract - concerning the day of his actions that would lead to the VC award - can be found on many war history websites, and in most ANZAC histories. Unfortunately, Jacka’s diary is neither detailed nor informative, as Macklin explains in Jacka VC: Australian Hero (much of which can be read on the Amazon website).

‘Bert Jacka, as he was now known by his mates in the 14th, opened his new diary just before Christmas 1914, but,’ Macklin says, he was no Samuel Pepys: ‘Terse and laconic, he seems to have used the diary reluctantly, as though responding to a plea from his mother, to keep track of his great adventure. His entries quickly became intermittent and would end with the withdrawal from Anzac. However, they do provide glimpses of character, not least by their simplicity and directness.’

Macklin also quotes from Jacka’s diary more than other sources, and the following few extracts come from his book.

22 December 1914
‘Embarked on H.M.A.T Ulysses at 4.40pm. Put out to sea at 8pm. Anchored for the night at 10pm.’

13 January 1915 [Docked at Colombo, Ceylon now Sri Lanka]
‘Beautifully fine morning. Palms making a pretty background to the white houses. During the day a lot of fun was caused by Major Steel chasing the troops who had broken ship. Sergeant Major Blainey was threatened with being thrown overboard for drawing and firing a revolver at a nigger plying a boat for hire.’

1 May 1915
‘Turks making great attacks on our trenches. They are brave but are going to certain death. Mowing them down in the hundreds.’

20 May 1915
‘Great battle at 3am. Turks captured large portion of our trench. D. Coy called into the front line. Lieut. Hamilton shot dead. I led a section of men and recaptured the trench. I bayoneted two Turks, shot five, took three prisoners and cleared the whole trench. I held the trench alone for 15 minutes against a heavy attack. Lieut. Crabbe informed me that I would be recommended.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 10 January 2013.

Feeling better is dangerous

’[Mr K] says that if he dies before the election I’m to go round his MPs - because they’ll say it was his own fault he worked too hard - and tell them it wasn’t all his fault. After all, they pushed him in to going here, there and everywhere. Everyone wanted him to visit their electorates. I grin at the thought of accosting Messrs Watt, Freer and Rowling with that message. These thoughts of death probably arise from his trip to Christchurch yesterday, when he saw Dr Mcllroy again. He’s been feeling better but the doctor has said feeling better is dangerous. He still has to get more weight off.’ This is from a diary kept by Margaret Hayward about her boss, Norman Eric Kirk, the prime minister of New Zealand. Kirk, who was born a century ago today, did indeed die in office, just a couple of years after this 1972 diary entry.

Kirk was born on 6 January 1923 in Waimate, South Island, New Zealand, the son of a carpenter. He left school at 13, and moved through a series of relatively unskilled jobs. He did, however, continue to study, in libraries, enjoying history and geography. In 1942, the army found him unfit for military service, so he returned to odd jobs. In 1943, he married Lucy Ruth Miller, and they would have five children. That same year, he joined the Labour Party's branch in Kaiapoi, where he and his wife had bought a plot of land, and on which Kirk built a house. In 1951, he was appointed chairman of the party’s Hurunui electorate committee, and two years later he led Labour to a surprising victory in elections for Kaiapoi’s local council. Subsequently, he became the youngest mayor in the country, aged 30.

After two unsuccessful attempts to enter Parliament, he was elected as MP for Lyttelton in 1957, and soon after moved with his family to Christchurch. He quickly consolidated a strong position within the Labour Party, and in December 1965 was elected leader of the parliamentary party and thus leader of the opposition. He led his party to two general election defeats (the second only narrowly) before winning the 1972 general election with a large majority against the National Party. As prime minister, Kirk pursued a policy of less dependence on the US, advocating more regional economic development and solidarity with Australia. In 1973 he strongly opposed French nuclear tests in the Pacific.

Overweight and never particularly healthy, Kirk, nevertheless, kept up a heavy work schedule during his premiership. By 1974, he was having various medical difficulties, including surgery for varicose veins. In mid-August, he heeded the advice of doctors to have a complete rest. But, it was too late. With serious heart and lung problems he was admitted to hospital on the 28th; he died on the 31st. His death shocked the country, and there was a national outpouring of grief. Further information is available at Wikipedia and The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand.

In 1968, a young woman named Margaret Hayward went to work in Kirk’s parliamentary office. Kirk and her family had been neighbours many years previously, and, since being in politics, Kirk had repeatedly invited Hayward to come and work for him. In 1971, at Kirk’s instigation, she began to keep a diary focused on his activities. This was first published by Cape Catley (Wellington) in 1981 as Diary of the Kirk Years. A substantial portion of the book can be read freely online at Amazon. In an ‘Author’s Note’ she says: This diary is my record of the last 34 months in the life of Norman Kirk. It was recorded from my viewpoint, and so is a partial view. It contains what he told me, and what I observed; and of course something of the activities of the many people whose lives touched his. In this compressed version little appears about my reactions, or my life and friends outside office hours. Official secrets, or documents classified as secret, including Cabinet papers, were no part of my daily record.’

1 March 1972
‘Mr K has at last found out who wrote the Southland Times article, attributed to “Our Political Correspondent”, in January. It said: “Mr Kirk is clearly still grossly overweight and, not to put too fine a point on it, must accordingly remain a bad health risk . . .” His habit of bounding up the steps to his office might impress some people but did nothing for “serious-minded analysts”. Hugh Watt, too, now “cuts little ice”.

It continued that such was Mr K’s fear of the Auckland lobby that he threw his support behind Mr Watt in the election for deputy leader. He certainly realised that if either Mr Faulkner or Mr Tizard became deputy leader, and Labour failed at the polls later this year, then he might suffer a fate similar to that which befell Mr Nordmeyer. Indeed, if Tom McGuigan instead of Mr K had stood in Lyttelton in 1957, McGuigan might well be the leader of the Labour Party now - and matters “might have turned out better for Labour if that had been the case”.

I’ve learnt that all politicians watch for “inspired” articles, and since then Mr K has wondered who wrote it and who provided the inspiration - the Government, or one of his own colleagues. Now Tom Skinner has told him that the writer is the fattest man in the Press Gallery, Keith Hancox. Mr K is wryly amused and says he must have a talk to Keith some time.

This morning Cyril Burton called to escort Mr K to a packed meeting at Corso headquarters. I tagged along with a tape recorder.

Mr K gave one of his better speeches. Judging by the hush before applause broke out, what he’d said had shaken his audience. As he was leaving, an elderly couple, missionaries in East Pakistan for 33 years, stopped him. Obviously moved, they congratulated him on the depth of insight he had gained during such a short visit.

Mr K asked me to watch TV news tonight for any report on the speech. Instinctively - or perhaps just because of what’s happened before - I felt the best parts wouldn’t be screened. And they weren’t. Only the hesitant beginning, showing him complaining about the lack of transport available to distribute food, rather than later when he was so positive.

The next news item, as if refuting Mr K’s speech, showed a New Zealand Air Force Hercules being loaded with aid materials.

Mr K, who had managed to see it himself after all, was furious and rang to check my reaction. He asked how he could stop that sort of thing. The news clip was obviously from old film because no Hercules had landed in Bangladesh since July. And, he said, on TV he looked fat and about five stone heavier than he is now. “I don’t look that bad. I’ve just checked in the mirror.” 

The problem of how to get him across on TV as the person he really is has concerned Rex, John Wybrow when he was his private secretary during the 1969 election campaign, and me for the last three or four years. So far there’s been no answer. It was hoped employing Media Consultants might help, but Brian 

Edwards and Peter Debreceny haven’t tackled media presentation but rather have done things which irritate the boss, because they are politically inept.

As a result of his years in the House, where it’s essential to show no emotion or the other party knows where to hit next time, Mr K has learnt not to react. Certainly he gets angry over an injustice, and will pound his bench in the House as he makes his views known, but he’s learnt not to rise to a bait in public, or let his feelings register on his face. All this makes for very dull TV interviews.

In 1965 when he deposed Arnold Nordmeyer as leader, he was depicted as the dominating bully who had beaten upright Nordy, the former Presbyterian minister who as Minister of Finance had become unpopular by the way he went about heavily taxing both beer and cigarettes. What may then have been accentuated to combat that image - being quietly spoken and reasonable - has resulted in Mr K being so low-key as to be almost non-existent. On TV he scarcely raises a spark, let alone sets the screen alight.

Something will have to be done to get his personality across. People can’t be expected to trust or vote for someone they feel they really don’t know.

I’ve discovered over the years that Mr K has to be needled before he lets his deep concerns show. Somehow, someone has got to convince him his performances are not good enough. But I can’t see who there is to do it.

John Wybrow. . . He admires Mr K but never seems to take anything too seriously, being flippant about matters the boss regards as vital if Labour is ever to be the government again. And before the leadership election John had insistently promoted Bill Rowling for deputy leader. So although John has said, quite correctly, that it might help if Mr K would smile more on TV, they have such differing viewpoints that I can’t see Mr K taking much notice of John.

Hugh Watt. . . Mr K wants Hugh to remain his deputy because he is convinced Labour must show solidarity in election year. Besides being loyal, Hugh also gives a sense of continuity, as he was Arnold Nordmeyer’s deputy leader too. But Hugh Watt would probably baulk at criticising his leader’s TV appearances. He must be aware that it is largely Mr K’s support that has enabled him to remain as deputy. That’s a pity, since Mr K would probably listen to him.

Bill Rowling . . . In spite of what some may think, Mr K appreciates Bill’s ability and has tried to promote him, though not for deputy. But the trouble in politics as in big business is that no one is going to risk telling his boss unpleasant truths, let alone repeat them until he takes some action. And Bill would probably reason, with justification, that Mr K would be suspicious of his motives and take no notice, anyway.

The only likely person seems to be John Hart, Mr K’s close friend in Auckland whom he sometimes calls on and talks to for hours - as did Michael Savage, Peter Fraser and Walter Nash before him.’

16 March 1972
‘Media Consultants have persuaded the Labour Party to help them finance TV training equipment. This morning, for the first and probably the last time in his life, Mr K went for TV training.

He abhors the thought of “an image”; he believes that being himself is enough. But Rex and I have been busy pointing out to him that there was no sign of his “being himself’ in TV interviews.

He admitted there could be some truth in that so reluctantly set off in the morning sunshine for Media Consultants’ office in Tinakori Road. Apparently he wasn’t going to give Brian Edwards and Peter Debreceny too much room for criticism. He wore a new Auckland-made brown suit, a welcome change from the baggy navy or grey suits he usually wears.

He returned at midday saying the exercise was “most useful” and that he could see a big difference between the first and last takes. The interviewer threw everything at him, made some very personal remarks, and “I didn’t flicker an eyelid”. They’d thought he would be upset but he’d explained to them he’d learnt not to react because he couldn’t afford to in the House, otherwise the other side knew when and where to attack.

He was taken aback at their criticism of Hugh Watt and said they wouldn’t even give him credit for the good statement he’d just issued about the surprise merger of Wellington’s two daily newspapers, saying the capital city might have two papers, but now they spoke with the same voice.

He had the feeling that Media Consultants were pushing to get rid of Hugh Watt as deputy leader, and wondered whose views they were reflecting.

Bill Rowling has announced from Palmerston North that he will be standing for Tasman, not the Avon seat. Mr K is disappointed when he reads that, and speculates that Bill may have made that decision so he won’t be available to help with the New Zealand-wide campaign in November. If he isn’t associated with the campaign, and Labour loses, then he won’t share the blame and “can step straight into my shoes”, Mr K conjectures.

Then he says that if he dies before the election I’m to go round his MPs - because they’ll say it was his own fault he worked too hard - and tell them it wasn’t all his fault. After all, they pushed him in to going here, there and everywhere. Everyone wanted him to visit their electorates.

I grin at the thought of accosting Messrs Watt, Freer and Rowling with that message. These thoughts of death probably arise from his trip to Christchurch yesterday, when he saw Dr Mcllroy again. He’s been feeling better but the doctor has said feeling better is dangerous. He still has to get more weight off.

So today he’s feeling lugubrious and tells me he wants to be buried, not cremated. “I don’t mind giving the worms a field day.” I say something brisk, and work goes on.

Tonight he’s flown down to Christchurch again for the annual meeting of the Sydenham branch of the Labour Party.’

4 April 1972
‘Not an Easter to remember: 120 bikies invaded Palmerston North. Chains, beer bottles, knives and iron bars were used during a brawl in the Square. Bikies and the Mongrel Mob were prised apart by police with drawn truncheons. It’s hard to believe this could happen in New Zealand, but overnight law and order has become a political issue.

From Dacca there’s a report that the Government’s belated decision to send an RNZAF Hercules to airlift relief supplies would help make amends for its only other official aid - 

thousands of tons of baby food dubbed “absolutely useless” by UN experts because it’s a sophisticated product no one in Bangladesh knows how to use.

The Government hasn’t heeded Mr K’s advice to send building materials and jetboats instead. The comment from the head of United Nations relief operations, from the other side of the world, has an unwitting irony. He says, “You can’t build bridges with baby food.” ’

5 April 1972
‘I had stayed with friends in Tauranga for Easter and then travelled through to Tokoroa as Mr K had agreed to address the Chamber of Commerce there.

The speech went well, and today, as he drove back to Wellington through miles of magnificent rimu and beech forest, Mr K recalled the hunting he did at Katikati in the 1940s soon after his marriage when meat and money were scarce. He shot whatever he could: rabbits, hares, pheasant, duck, even the protected native pigeons. “When the puriri trees were in berry, the pigeons were so plump they sometimes burst when they hit the ground.” ’

Dreaming of New Guinea

‘I walked down to the sea; the stars were shining and there was a crescent moon in the west. I sat withdrawn, not thinking much, but without homesickness; felt a dull pleasure in soullessly letting myself dissolve in the landscape. I fell asleep with difficulty, dreaming about the possibilities of research in New Guinea.’ This is from the diary of Bronisław Malinowski, a Polish-born British anthropologist who died 80 years ago today. As a young man, he was inspired by The Golden Bough, switch from the physical sciences to anthropology, and went to live among the indigenous peoples in Papua New Guinea for several years. 

Malinowski  was born in 1884 in Kraków then part of the Austro-Hungarian province known as the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. His father was a professor of at the Jagiellonian University, and his mother came from a family of landed gentry. Educated at home, he was afflicted by ill health which is said to have dogged him throughout life. Nevertheless, he traveled extensively in his teens not least in the Mediterranean region with his mother (by then a widow). He attended Jagiellonian University, completing his doctorate in 1908, in philosophy with physics and maths. He spent three semesters at the University of Leipzig studying economics and psychology, before relocating to London where, inspired by James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, he studied anthropology at the London School of Economics. where his mentors included C. G. Seligman and Edvard Westermarck.

In 1911. Malinowski published a first academic paper in Polish (Totemism and Exogamy); the following year he published his first paper in English; and the year after that he brought out his first book - The Family among the Australian Aborigines - based on a reinterpretations of Australian Aboriginal data from existing literature. These gained him a reputation and promoted his plans for field research; and in 1914 he was able to go to New Guinea. Six months’ work among the Mailu on the south coast produced a monograph that helped to earn his doctorate in 1916. Much of the next few years he lived in a tent on the Trobriand Islands. He learned the vernacular, and collected a wide range data which would later feed into many of his papers. In 1919 he married Elsie Rosaline Masson, an Australian photographer and writer; they had three daughters. In 1922, he published Argonauts of the Western Pacific, which brought him international fame.

After living in the Canary Islands and southern France, Malinowski returned in 1924 to the University of London as reader in anthropology, soon to be promoted to professor. His seminars became famous, attracting prominent scientists from other disciplines, and he taught many future prominent social scientists. In particular, he followed a functionalist approach, one favouring a focus on individuals, rather than society as a whole. In the 1930s, he became interested in Africa, visiting students working among Bemba, Swazi, and other tribes in eastern and southern Africa. He wrote the introduction to Jomo Kenyatta’s book Facing Mount Kenya (prepared as a diploma thesis under his supervision). In 1938, he went on sabbatical leave to the United States, and with the outbreak of war in Europe he decided to stay, becoming Bishop Museum Visiting Professor of Anthropology at Yale University. In 1940, he married again, to Anna Valetta Hayman-Joyce, an artist. He died on 16 May 1942. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, LSE, and Culture Poland.

For two relatively short periods during his early career (September 1914 to August 1915 and October 1917 to July 1918), Malinowski kept a diary in small black notebooks. This was first edited by Valetta Malinowski (as translated by Robert Guterman) and published by Routledge and Kegan Paul as Bronislaw Malinowski: My Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term. It was reissued by Stanford University Press in 1989. This latter edition is freely available to borrow digitally from Internet Archive. The first edition carries an introduction by Raymond Firth (a New Zealand ethnologist), who added a further introduction to the second edition.

From Firth’s first introduction: ‘What then is its significance? Malinowski was a great social scientist, one of the founders of modern social anthropology, and a thinker who tried to relate his generalizations about human nature and human society to the issues of the world around him. The diary refers to that very critical period of his career when, having equipped himself theoretically for empirical studies, he began to carry out field research in New Guinea. The first section covers his apprenticeship period among the Mailu; the second, after an unfortunate gap of two years, covers most of his last year in the Trobriands. Nowadays it is recognized that while the personality of a scientist may not necessarily have a direct bearing upon his selection and treatment of problems, it must influence his work in other more subtle ways. Although chronologically very brief, and although giving no great amount of detail on professional matters, the diary does indicate vividly how Malinowski thought about issues and about people - or at least how he expressed himself when he was writing only for himself as audience.

By these criteria, while this diary of Malinowski’s in its purely ethnographic sense cannot be ranked as more than a footnote to anthropological history, it is certainly a revelation of a fascinating and complex personality who had a formative influence on social science. In reading it, one must bear in mind its purpose. I think it is clear that its object was not so much to keep a record of Malinowski’s scientific progress and intentions, or to set down the daily events of his studies in the field, as to chart the course of his personal life, emotional as well as intellectual. In the earlier section it would seem that he regarded the periodic chronicle of his thoughts and feelings as a wav of helping to organize his life, and to realize its deeper meaning. But in the later section he meant it as an instrument as well as a reference work; he saw it as a means of guiding and indeed rectifying his personality.’

From Firth’s second introduction: ‘So in this second Introduction to the Diary I would modify one judgement in the first Introduction. Though the book is undoubtedly lacking “in its purely ethnographic sense” I would no longer rank it as “no more than a footnote to anthropological history”. The concept of ethnography has altered and widened, and the book has accordingly moved over to a more central place in the literature of anthropological reflection. It is not merely a record of the thinking and feeling of a brilliant, turbulent personality who helped to form social anthropology; it is also a highly significant contribution to the understanding of the position and role of a fieldworker as a conscious participator in a dynamic social situation.’

20 September 1914
‘Today, Monday, 9.20.1-1, I had a strange dream; homosex., with my own double as partner. Strangely autoerotic feelings; the impression that I’d like to have a mouth just like mine to kiss, a neck that curves just like mine, a forehead just like mine (seen from the side). I got up tired and collected myself slowly. Went to see Bell with whom I talked about native labor. Then Ahuia at Central Court. After lunch again with Ahuia. Then I reported to O’Malley, with him to McCrann. Back home I wrote to Mother and Halinka. Went up the hill. . .’

17 October 1914
‘Saturday, 10.17. In the morning S. took me on a tour of the island - to the flagpole, to the village, then to the gardens, then across the hills to the other side where we were given coconuts, and I watched the making of toea (armshells). Then we rounded the promontory and went along the mission shore. After dinner I read a little - I had done no work as yet, waiting for the help S. promised me.’

29 October 1914
‘Yesterday morning got up fairly late; I had engaged Omaga [a Mailu informant and village constable] who waited for me below the veranda. After breakfast I went to the village where Omaga met me near a group of women making pottery. My talk with him was rather unsatisfactory. . . [In] the middle of the street a woman was making drawings. Papari joined us; we talked again about the names of the months, which Papari did not know. I was discouraged. After dinner I read the Golden Legend, then took a nap. I got up at 4, took a dip in the sea (I tried to swim), had tea; at about 5 I went to the village. Talk with Kavaka about funeral rites; we sat under palm trees at the end of the village. In the evening talked with Saville about the southern coast of England from Ramsgate to Brighton. This got me. Cornwall. Devonshire. Digression on the nationalities and character of the population (natives of Cornwall, Devonshire, the Scots). I was depressed. Read a few pages of Cherbuliez’s Vlad. Boltkif - a sketch of a spiritually unusual woman; she reminded me of Zenia. Elated, humming a tune, I walked to the village. Fairly fruitful talk with Kavaka. Watched lovely poetic dances and listened to Suau [an island to the east] music. A small ring of dancers; two dancers facing each other with raised drums. The melody reminded me of Kubain laments. Went back home where I wasted time leafing through Punch. Vision of T. Occasionally I think of Staé with real friendliness; principally the melody he composed on the way to Ceylon.’

2 November 1914
‘Got up with a bad headache. Lay in euthanasian concentration on the ship. Loss of subjectivism and deprivation of the will (blood flowing away from the brain?), living only by the five senses and the body (through impressions) causes direct merging with surroundings. Had the feeling that the rattling of the ship’s engine was myself; felt the motions of the ship as my own - it was I who was bumping against the waves and cutting through them. Was not seasick. Landed feeling broken; did not lie down at once; had breakfast and looked through the newspapers with illustrations about the war. Looked for something about Poland - there was nothing. Very tired. Right after dinner, went to bed. Slept from 2 to 5. I did not feel too well afterward. I sat by the sea - no fit of dejection. The Stas problem torments me. In fact his conduct toward me was impossible. There was nothing wrong about what I said in Lodge’s presence; he was wrong to correct me. His complaints are unjustified, and the way he expresses himself precludes any possibility of reconciliation. Finis amicitiae. Zakopane without Stas! Nietzsche breaking with Wagner. I respect his art and admire his intelligence and worship his individuality, but I cannot stand his character.’

23 January 1915
‘I am “covering the ground” of my territory more and more concretely. Without doubt, if I could stay here for several more months - or years - I would get to know these people far better. But for a superficial short stay I have done as much as can be done. I am quite satisfied with what I have done under the poor circumstances. The arsenic works perfectly. Tonight I made an experiment. I took 10 grains of quinine and toward morning I felt quite terrible. Apparently quinine is not good and doesn’t help me at all - could it have a bad effect on the red blood corpuscles? I wonder whether arsenic is a specific against malaria? If so, what is its value in Alpine countries?    

Yesterday I walked to the village at 7. Photos of the lugumi - from behind the boathouse. I discovered this was the proper place for taking photos of Mailu (village). Then I went back, took Omaga and went to Keneni’s - Pikana joined us. I ignored him, turned my back to him. He began to talk of his own accord - and he was exceptionally good. We talked about gardens, about “Bittarbeit” [voluntary exchange of garden work] etc. . . After breakfast I took a pile of tobacco and went to the village and photographed the lugumi, then . . . went to buy stuff. Usually I overpay tremendously, I think, but I bargain till I am ready to drop. After lunch lay down and read Mexico. Two fellows brought me oba’ua - little axes made of shells. I went to the village around 4, bought two bamboo sticks with feathers; then I sat by the sea with Keneni and his family. Dini, Kavaki’s brother, came. Keneni [their uncle] and Dini went home with me and gave me descriptions of the specimens. After supper, terrible thirst - drank some soda water - then, very tired - changed plates; I walked down to the sea; the stars were shining and there was a crescent moon in the west. I sat withdrawn, not thinking much, but without homesickness; felt a dull pleasure in soullessly letting myself dissolve in the landscape. I fell asleep with difficulty, dreaming about the possibilities of research in New Guinea.’

Infested with pirates

‘Just as unfrequented dark streets in large towns favour bandits, so too the numerous straits of these seas are infested with pirates, who usually join forces to attack merchant ships. They put out to sea in long and narrow boats similar to canoes with outriggers. [. . .] The other day, about 15 of those boats, called corocores, appeared at nightfall heading towards us.’ This is from the private journal of Rose de Freycinet, the first woman in history to keep a journal during an expedition round the world. She died 190 years ago today, though her journal was only published a century or so later, and is now considered an important anthropological resource. 

De Freycinet was born Rose Pinon in Saint-Julien-du-Sault, 100km southeast of Paris, the eldest child in a middle-class family. Her father and brother died while she was relatively young, leaving Rose with the responsibility of looking after her sisters. She was educated at a school run by her mother. Aged 19, Rose married the 35-year old Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet, a member of the French aristocracy. He had already made a name for himself as a sub-lieutenant to French naturalist Nicolas Baudin by mapping Australia’s coastline. In 1817, thus, he was given command of the corvette Uranie, under the auspices of the French Navy and the Ministry of the Interior, for a circumnavigational scientific expedition. 

Before departing France, de Freycinet had a secret cabin constructed on the Uranie in order to accommodate his wife (women were forbidden from sailing on navy vessels) who boarded while disguised as an officer. For three years, they cruised about the Pacific, visiting, among other places, Australia, the Mariana Islands, Hawaiian Islands, and South America. Rose kept mostly to her cabin, teaching herself to play guitar, learning English, doing needlework, and being a companion to her husband. Her presence was largely unacknowledged by those onboard, and, ultimately, official documents concerning the expedition made no mention of her.

The Uranie was shipwrecked in a storm in early 1820. She managed to limp into the Falkland Islands but no further. Eventually, the crew boarded an American vessel, bought by Freycinet and renamed the Physicienne, and set sail for Rio de Janeiro. There they remained until September before returning across the Atlantic and arriving at Havre in November, complete with the many scientific specimens - minerals, plants, insects, animals - that had been collected during Uranie’s voyages. In Paris, Louis de Freycinet fell ill with cholera. Rose nursed him back to health, but succumbed to the illness herself and died on 7 May 1832. Further information is available from Wikipedia, ABC.net, and the Western Australian Museum website.

There are several written accounts of the expedition. Freycinet’s official report (in several parts) was published in 1827 (only in French). Jacques Arago, one of the expedition’s artists, published his journal of the voyage in 1822. This was translated into English and published the following year as Narrative of a Voyage Round the World in the Uranie and Physicienne Corvettes. However, most extraordinarily, Rose de Freycinet also kept a private journal, one never intended for publication. It was written more as a series of letters than a journal in fact, some to her friend and some to her mother. These were first edited and published in French in 1927 by Charles Duplomb. In 1962, Oxford University Press published Marnie Bassett’s Realms and Islands: The World Voyage of Rose de Freycinet with extracts from the journal/letters. 

A full English edition of the journal/letters did not appear until 1996 when the National Library of Australia published A Woman of Courage: The Journal of Rose de Freycinet on Her Voyage Around the World, 1817-1820 (as edited by Marc Serge Rivière). From the publisher’s blurb: ‘Shipwrecks, disease, pirates, storms, near-starvation and picnics of penguin meat, strange customs, encounters with island royalty and travels to remote locations, all were the ingredients of a great adventure, and all were endured for love. A memorable story of an adventurous and spirited woman, this book includes beautiful colour plates reproduced from the original limited edition French publication.’ It can be previewed at Googlebooks, and a review (pdf) can be read here. 

‘Being not intended for publication and being both frank and [with]personal musings about people, places and events,’ Wikipedia says, ‘[Rose de Freycinet’s] writings represent an important anthropological resource.’ Here is one dated extract from A Woman of Courage (although most of Rose’s narrative as edited is not dated).

9 December 1818, Pisang Island, north-west of New Guinea
‘On account of his poor state of health, the kind Abbé de Quélen was unable to go ashore at Dili. Accordingly, only a few days after our departure he baptised the young Timorese lad whom we had taken aboard. My husband and I are his godparents and, in accordance with the wishes of the Portuguese Governor, we gave him the name of Joseph, to which I have added that of Antonio. Don Jose wanted the boy to have his name, so that, he said, we would remember him. But we shall not forget his kindness towards us any more than the happy events during this stopover.

Although our voyage was easier once we lost sight of Timor Island because of a favourable fresh breeze, it was only after we emerged from the strait that the heat, which had affected us badly ever since our arrival at Kupang, became a little more bearable for those aboard who were in good health. Our sick crewmen are suffering greatly; we fear that the Abbé may have contracted scurvy; he has lost a lot of weight on account of the heat. The Second Lieutenant, M. Labiche, suffers from dysentery; several crewmen have already died from that disease. Such unfortunate circumstances make our journey distressing. Otherwise, it would be so enjoyable as we make our way through the Moluccan Archipelago, where one comes across enchanting islands around every corner. The richness of the soil is demonstrated by the luxurious natural forests which cover these uncultivated lands. And what trees do we find in those forests? They are the very ones which produce precious spices; their scent hangs heavy in the air all around us. Thus, we have sailed past Amboina and closer still to Ceram, two Dutch settlements which are famous for having contributed so much to the wealth of that nation.

I sometimes recall that my mother wrote to me, when I was still in Toulon, that a map of Paris and its surrounding districts was sufficient at first for her to find each of the places where we lived, that thereafter she needed a map of France and, finally, that she would only be able to follow our progress on a world map. Now, a very detailed map of Oceania would be required - if one existed - to know where we were. Even then, every day I am told that Louis corrects geographical positions, erroneously recorded until now, a fact which would not surprise anyone in this part of the world where the Creator has sown islands ‘as he sows dust in our fields’. Since New Holland, we have not come across any land other than islands, and it will be some time yet before we espy another continent.

Just as unfrequented dark streets in large towns favour bandits, so too the numerous straits of these seas are infested with pirates, who usually join forces to attack merchant ships. They put out to sea in long and narrow boats similar to canoes with outriggers, and use small paddles which require a different kind of handling to our oars, in that the paddles do not rest on the side of the canoe. The other day, about 15 of those boats, called corocores, appeared at nightfall heading towards us. Louis thought it wise to go on the defensive in case of an attack, but the pirates no doubt were deterred by the strength of the corvette and went on their way.

A few days after that insignificant event, we again encountered several armed corocores, but these belonged to the Kimalaha [chief] of the island of Gebe. I am not implying that they are not pirates. Louis believes they are when it suits their purpose, and that they were lying in wait for some ships when we saw them. But the chief, old sea wolf that he was, observing that we had the weapons to defend ourselves fiercely, came on board to start negotiations. Not only was he well received, but Louis invited him to lunch, which he accepted without waiting to be asked twice. He became very attached to one of our chairs, which was presented to him at once. In return for this present which pleased him greatly, he thought of nothing better than to remove his own hat and place it on Louis’ head, who appeared to me quite comical wearing that type of straw parasol which is skilfully woven but with the same pointed shape as the lids of our saucepans.

The name of that strange character was Abdalaga-Fourou; he was fluent in Malay, so Louis was able to obtain a lot of information from him. The chiefs of the other corocores came to join him and, like him, stayed for dinner. The Kimalaha, better dressed than the others, was wearing trousers and some kind of open dressing-gown made of white calico, printed with stripes and red flowers. Under his hat, he wore a small red turban with a crown made of fine straw. He was bronzed and his face was lively and cheerful. These men endlessly chew betel and chalk, packed into pretty little boxes made of fine straw in various colours. They exchanged a lot of arrows, paddles and so on . . . for mirrors, knives, clothes and so on . . . When night fell, Abdalaga-Fourou went back to his boat, promising to return the next day. That prince had pressed Louis to go to Gebe and, while he was aboard our ship, in order to communicate more easily with his corocores, he had asked us to take them in tow. But as soon as the wind became fresh, they loosened the moorings and left us in order to return to Gebe. Consequently, Louis does not believe the Kimalaha’s promise that he will meet us at Waigeo, where we have to stop to take observations. To derive some advantage from several days’ inactivity forced upon us by the calm weather, the Commander has sent naturalists to Pisang Island. As soon as they are back and the wind is fresh again, we will set sail.’