SOUTHERN CROSS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 225, 23 September 1929, Page 8

SOUTHERN CROSS.

DEPARTURE FOR MELANESIA. SAILING TO-MORROW. At 11 o'clock to-morrow forenoon the mission steamer Southern Cross will cast off her moorings and leave for the tropical islands of the Melanesian mission field. She was to have left Auckland this afternoon, but loading operations caused a delay.

After a few weeks of recuperation since the arrival of the Southern Cross from Melanesia two missionaries will return to their posts, namely, the Rev. A. Butchart, of the Banks Group, and the Rev. G. E. F. Leggatt, of the Island of Mota. A trained nurse from the Feilding district, Miss B. Guylee, is going out to the new hospital at Malaita, and Mr. R. Clarke, of Dunedin, as an experienced carpenter, is going to supervise the erection of houses for , the medical and nursing staffs at Malaita, in the Solomons Group.

Included in the cargo of the steamer is a quantity of timber and other building material for the new residences. Under ordinary circumstances the Southern Cross would return to Auckland from this trip before Christmas, but on this occasion it is expected that she will not arrive here again before the first week in January.