The Case of the Drunken Sailor

"It was in about 1885, but then again, it could have been a year or two later," said Peter, a local plantation owner. "It was a long time before my time."

"That sounds terrible," I said. "The poor little guys."

"It was an unfortunate event," said Peter. "Of course it all depends upon how you look at it."

"It was a tragedy though, wasn't it?"

"It would have been more of a tragedy, if the little blighters had survived," Peter said.

"For whom?" I asked.

"The Taveuni Parrot for one thing," the old islander said.

"Really!"

It seems that in addition to the ubiquitos Taveuni Parrot, the shy Orange Dove and the scarce Azure Crowned Flycatcher, also have an inebriated beachcomber to thank for their survival."

"I wonder if I'll ever get a chance to see the Orange Dove," I said. bird watching

"Why anyone would think to bring a crate filled with the lightning-fast critters to Taveuni is beyond me," Peter replied. "There probably would not be any chance of seeing the Orange Dove if the critters had survived."

Peter had already raved on about how the imports, as he called them, had decimated the bird population on Viti Levu, especially those species that were gound nesters. It seems that a fellow by the name of Dan had been given the task of delivering a crate of the critters to a planter on the island. At this late date, the planter's motive lies outside our ken.

"Dan, was not a bad sort of fellow, you understand. He just had a singular weakness. Late one afternoon, Dan was put ashore at Waiyevo, a hamlet that Somerset Maugham would have described as a rusty overgrown tropical outpost filled with eccentric individuals and he would have been right. As late as 1960, Waiyevo was a rusty overgrown tropical outpost that boasted a four room hotel with an adjoining pub.

Dan, the planter told me, duly deposited his crate in the shade of a tree that leaned out over the water. He left his charges with water so that they wouldn't perish from thirst and went to find refreshment. Waiyevo, being a rather closely knit community, happened to have a small hotel not more than a hundred paces from the crate that rested on the sand.

If you should ever be blessed enough to visit Taveuni you will notice that the beaches are skinny and Somosomo Strait is often like glass. The rain that falls on Taveuni is almost invariably gentle. As a matter of fact, it is possible for a person to drive his boat right down the middle of the six-mile-wide strait smack up against the rain and not get wet.

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