Laslo

While in Goroka (up and back without issue in the end) found this rhyming verse in the P.J. McCarthy Museum.

Salamaua

A pub surrounded by a small stretch of land,
A couple of houses built on the sand,
Recruiters and miners who in rather tough tunes
Converse with their lazy, black ignorant coons.
Noisy, great air planes, some boats near the shore,
And two brilliant blonde beauties at the Carpenter's store.
In one single street you walk up and down
And find the D.O. at the end of the town.
The people, like elsewhere, have their joy and their pain,
yet the dust of Rabaul is replaced by the rain:
The store of B.P.s has its own private pier
And two bob and sixpence is a bottle of beer.
Between gins and whiskies odd stories are told,
Your hair may be silver, but your dreams are of gold.
Behind the hotel there are no golf-links,
Just a room for the folks who had too many drinks.
At night, noon and morning you're shouting a beer,
O Mexican poet, what doeth thou here?

Pablo Laslo 1933.

Not politically correct, in fact far from it (guess it was the age), but it was published in the Rabaul Times - which I am sure wouldn't have been particularly hard in those days. It piqued my interest because of the location and the author's name. Laslo was a visiting Mexican/Hungarian traveller who just so happens to go by the same name to another Hungarian traveller who was recently passing through these parts. I do know Laslo is fairly common Hungarian name, but I like the connection anyway.