Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 208
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[Page 208]
Later Captain Glossop took a party of us up to Government House to call on the Governor and Lady Haddon Smith who entertained us kindly and then provided tennis.
The Vice Regal Houses were always oases in the desert in these smaller islands places where after heat stricken days at sea one could rest the eye on civilisation for the squalor of the native villages never really became interesting. The rulers of these places would need to do themselves well in order to find existence tolerable as the white population was scanty and congenial society less.
Next day there was a car provided and we toured the island a not very extensive trip and called on the Vicar General a genial sporting RC Padre who inhabited a large house up in the mountains.
He gave us the wine of the country and then showed us his school and Church.
The children to the number of hundreds stood up and sang God Save to our great embarrassment tho' we after many of these experiences were becoming pretty brazen.
In the afternoon the local cricketers took us on