My Science School

Set amongst mango and coconut trees along the beach front of Ovalau island, the Levuka Historical Port Town is frozen in time.

The town centres around a stone and concrete wall that runs along the length of Beach Street, the main part of the town. From Beach Street, other lanes and streets of the town branch inland in a radial pattern following the contours of the land. Inland, located on one of the three creeks in the town, are the sites of two former indigenous villages – Totoga (Vitoga) and Nadau.

While Beach Street is lined with warehouses, port facilities, bond stores and commercial buildings, the indigenous villages are home to residences, educational, religious and social institutions.

Some of the places to visit in the town are:

The Levuka community centre

Financed by the Fijian people, this community centre houses a branch of the Fiji museum, a crafts centre, a public library and a meeting hall among others. The centre occupies a renovated store built in 1878 by Morris Hedstrom, a Fijian grocery store.

The Sacred Heart Chruch

This Roman Catholic church is situated in Beach Street. Its clock tower strikes twice each hour and instead of the standard chime, it gives out a thud. The clock tower serves as a lighthouse to guide ships to the port. The church was built in 1858 by the Marist Fathers.

Levuka Town Hall

Constructed in 1898 in honour of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, the Levuka Town Hall houses the Levuka Town Council.

Mission Hill

Some of Levuka’s finest buildings are perched atop Mission Hill. These include the Methodist mission homes and the Delana Methodist School. One needs to climb 199 steps to reach the top. The Levuka Government Hospital sits at the foot of the hill.

Royal Hotel

The oldest operating hotel in the South Pacific, the Royal hotel is over 100 years old. Resembling a roadhouse from the U.S old west, the hotel was rebuilt around the turn of the century by Captain David Robbie, a retired seaman. He thickened the walls so that they could withstand hurricanes.

Totoga Falls

The Totoga Creek, the source of freshwater for the town, has several swimming holes for people to take a dip. Most of these holes are accessible through a climbing trail known as Bath Road.

 

Picture Credit : Google

The first colonial capital of Fiji, Levuka is a port town on the eastern coast of the Fijian island of Ovalau. It is the economic hub and the largest of the 24 settlements on the island.

Founded around 1820, Levuka was developed as an important trading town by European and American colonizers, who built port facilities, warehouses, stores, residences, educational and social institutions.

Levuka is considered a rare example of a late colonial port town, which was influenced in its development by the indigenous community which outnumbered the European settlers.

History

The first modern town in the Fiji islands, Levuka became an important port and trading post which sustained traders, missionaries, businessmen, and shipwrights among others.

The U.S. Exploring Expedition, an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean conducted by the U.S., visited Levuka in 1840. By 1870, the town had a population of over 800.

When the first modern nation state of Fiji was founded in 1871, Seru Epenisa Cakobau, the king was crowned king at Levuka. In 1874, after Fiji was annexed as a British colony, Levuka was named its capital. It remained so until 1877, when the administration was moved to Suva prompted by concerns of lack of space for expansion due to the hills and cliffs surrounding the port town.

 

Picture Credit : Google

It is a round dish with a crumbly crust filled with jam and jelly. Among the fillings, the apple stuffing is supposed to be the best. In the U.S., the pie is served as dessert during the Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts. But the pies we eat today have a short history, though people have been baking dough filled with stuff for a very long time. According to Time.com, in medieval England they were called pyes, and apart from the sweet fillings, they also had meat –beef, lamb, wild duck, magpie pigeon – and were spiced with pepper, currants, dates. Historians say ancient Greeks made the first pie-shells by mixing flour and water. Wealthy Romans used many kinds of meat – from even mussels and other sea creatures in their pies. Cato the Younger (scribe) recorded the popularity of the sweet pie as a dessert in Roman meals.

In 1621, people (the Pilgrims) crossed the Atlantic Ocean to settle in the New World of America. They carried salty meat pies with them to the colonies in America. The pumpkin pie, now a must-have during the Thanksgiving feast, was first recorded in a cook-book in 1675. The British made this pie with squash, and the American version with red pumpkin became popular in the 1800s. The colonists cooked many types of pies. With their crusty covers, pies were preserved food, and kept their fillings fresh in the winter months. Documents show that the Pilgrims used dried fruit, cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg to season their meats. A cookbook from 1796 mentioned only three types of sweet pies; a cookbook written in the late 1800s had 8 sweet-pie varieties; in 1947, Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking listed 65 different varieties of sweet pies. The original pie had a shell that could not be eaten, and the apples did not have added sugar. The apple pie was mentioned first in 1589 by poet R Greene in the poem Menaphon: “They breath is like the steeme of apple pies.” Pies today are eaten the World over, and have all kinds of stuffing – from apples to avocados.

 

Picture Credit : Google

The Inklings were an informal literary group in Oxford that started in the early 1930s. They continued meeting till the 1950s.

Most of the Inklings were academics at the University of Oxford and many of them were creative writers. The Inklings valued creative imagination and encouraged one another to write fantasy literature.

The most important members of the group were C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield and Charles Williams. Three were writers of fantasy fiction. C.S. Lewis authored the much loved classic children’s book series The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-56). Tolkien is the author of The Hobbit (1938) and the famous trilogy The Lord of the Rings (1955-56). Charles Williams was an editor at Oxford University Press while Barfield was a poet.

The main activity of the Inklings at their meetings was the reading and discussion of their unfinished writings. Tolkien first read The Lord of the Rings to the Inklings. He described the spirit of the meetings as ‘a feast of reason and flow of soul’

Christian values are reflected in the fantasy works of many of the Inklings authors. Both The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings have Christian themes. However, the Inklings included some non-Christians too.

The term ‘Inklings’ was a pun on these who dabble in ink i.e. writers. It also refers to those who may be having only an inkling of what they are going to write about when they start a story.

 

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In April 1975, an American Gary Dahl told his friends that he had the perfect pet. It required no maintenance, was cheap and always obedient. Dahl was referring to his pet rock! He meant it as a joke, but his advertising colleagues jumped on the idea. As if to prove the fact that Americans would buy anything if it was marketed cleverly, pet rocks became a fad!

Dahl wrote The Pet Training Manual in two weeks. It guided owners on how to  house – train and build a rapport with their rocks. They could teach the rock tricks such as how to play dead and roll over.

Dahl then created a pet rock to go with the manual. He bought a Rosarita Beach Stone, a round gray pebble that was the most expensive one in the builders’ supply store. He packed it in soft wood shavings inside a decorative pet carrying case and added the manual. Amazingly, more than 5 million Pet Rocks were sold all over the U.S. at $3.95 apiece. Originally, the Pet Rocks were plain, but Dahl added to the line, creating rocks with faces painted on them, birth certificates and even several pebbles sold together as a family.

Before the fad petered out, Dahl became an overnight millionaire and celebrity, appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

 

Picture Credit : Google