The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 10 (January 2, 1939)

Front Cover

Back Cover

Kawarau Gorge, Otago, South Island, New Zealand (from a Paintaing by Peter Bousfield)

Leading Hotels A Reliable Travellers Guide

Contents

Page A Tapu Isle of Birds 17–44 Among the Books 45–47 Dream Places 14–15 Editroial — Develop all New Zealand 7 Excursions Into Beauty 30–31 General Manager's Message 8 He's Tellin’ Us 52–53 Lost to Te Reinga 34–36 Lyttelton—The Gateway to Canterbury 37–39 New Zealand—Nursery of the Thoroughbred Horse 9–56 New Zealand Verse 25 Our London Letter 22–23 Our Women's Section 57–59 Panorama of the Playground 61–62 The English Scene 41–43 The Magic Island 49–51 The Vigorous Enderbys 26–29 Wit and Humour 63

The New Zealand Railways Magazine is on sale through the principal booksellers, or may be obtained post-free for 6/- per annum.

Employees of the Railway Department are invited to forward news items or articles bearing on railway affairs. The aim of contributors should be to supply interesting topical material tending generally towards the betterment of the service.

In all cases where the Administration makes announcements through the medium of this Journal the fact will be clearly indicated.

The Department does not identify itself with any opinions which may be expressed in other portions of the publication, whether appearing over the author's name or under a nom de plume.

Short stories, poetry, pen-and-ink sketches, etc., are invited from the general public upon New Zealand subjects.

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I hereby certify that the publisher's lists and other records disclose that the circulation of the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” has not been less than 24,000 copies each issue since April, 1938.

Controller and Auditor-General

10/11/38.

(Photo., Thelma R. Kent.) Looking across the heavily-wooded slopes to Mt. Christina, Eglinton Valley, South Island.

“Calm as a cradled child in dreamless slumber bound.” —Shelley. The Boat Harbour, Lake Waikaremoana, North Island, New Zealand. (Photo., J. Cowdrey.)

New Zealand Railways Magazine Registered at the G.P.O. Wellington, New Zealand for transmission by post as a Newspaper “For Better Service.” Published by the New Zealand Government Railways Department Vol. XIII. No. 10. Wellington, New Zealand January 2, 1939.

Develop All New Zealand

How the interests of the people of New Zealand are interlocked is at present being explained, with a wealth of technical detail, in the course of a campaign instituted through the Bureau of the Department of Industries and Commerce for the purpose of stimulating and permanently increasing the internal trade of the country.

All who have had an opportunity to see the development of factory production in New Zealand are aware of the extraordinary advance in technical skill and mechanical efficiency recorded.

In some respects the comparatively late development of her secondary industries generally has been to New Zealand's advantage. It has been found, in the course of investigation by competent authorities, that through the adoption of the latest machinery and methods of manufacture, New Zealand manufacturers and artisans are turning out articles superior in many respects to the products of countries where such manufactures have been standardised for many years.

With a universally high standard of education, a healthy climate, good physique, and mental endowments that reflect the best elements of the British stock from which they spring, New Zealanders are particularly well-equipped to win in any competitive pursuit upon which they care to engage. And they have—especially those of the younger generation—a highly developed mechanical faculty which accounts for their success as inventors and operatives.

Further confidence in each other's work, and interest to ask for and try New Zealand products for comparison with imported articles, is all that is required to ensure a very large increase in the use of New Zealand's products by New Zealand's people.

It can well be a good New Year resolution for New Zealanders to buy with the money earned in serving New Zealanders the goods these same New Zealanders produce. No matter how fast the internal circulation of goods and services in this way may be, it can never impoverish the country, but will rather help to add to the richness and joy of living and to the advantages which New Zealanders already possess as a natural heritage.

One side of New Zealand's economic development which cannot be assailed from any angle is that of its tourist trade.

There are no international complications involved in the travel of people from overseas through our country. No economic resource is exhausted when other people look at our scenery, nor are we making any demands upon the possibly limited stocks available elsewhere when folk from other lands pay us a call.

In these circumstances New Zealanders should use every contact they have as a means for attracting travellers and settlers, for not only have we lots of scenery practically going to waste at present, but the country can only grow better and better as there are more and more people to help make it grow.

Railway Progress In New Zealand General Manager's Message. The New Year

Every railwayman, particularly those with some years of service, will, I feel sure, experience a sense of satisfaction and pride in the progress made by the Department during the past year; and in making comparisons with the years that have gone before will realise that 1938 reaches a point of progress in the history of the Railways of the Dominion indicating the high-water mark of their achievement to date.

As we all know, the service has had its ups and downs in the seventy-five years since the first section was opened in 1863—periods of expansion and periods of contraction following largely the fluctuations occurring in the general field of the Dominion's economic development; but with a full knowledge of what has taken place in the past, I may fairly claim that there has been more change for the better in railway affairs during the past three years, of which 1938 provides a fitting climax, than in any equivalent period in the past; and this applies both to the range and quality of transport provided for the public by the Department, and to the conditions under which the employees of the Department work.

We enter upon 1939 with the knowledge that, as the result of the capital expenditure in recent years upon buildings, track improvements, rolling-stock, signalling, road services and other important phases of the Department's work, we have never been better equipped to meet the transport needs of the community—with a substantial portion of the rolling-stock programme still to complete. In these circumstances it rests with each railwayman to do his part, by taking advantage of the improvements effected, and to help in every possible way to popularise the service by the care, courtesy and attention he gives to the Department's customers.

At the same time I would ask members of the staff to exercise the greatest care in all matters relating to expenditure: to make the most economical use of the stores and other materials provided, and the best use of the existing facilities for the conduct of the Department's business.

I anticipate that 1939 will see a marked extension of air-conditioning on express trains, and, judging by the opinions expressed regarding the vehicles of this kind already in service, the new cars are very popular indeed. We may also feel confident of public appreciation regarding the latest type of seating now being introduced on principal trains. More rail-cars will also be running during 1939. These will be of the new Standard type which have already undergone extensive trials with outstanding success. All this means greatly increased satisfaction to passengers and is fortunately available in time for the Centennial Exhibition period which is to commence in November.

There has also been a great acceleration in the provision of more powerful locomotives and in the construction of new and improved rolling-stock for goods and livestock traffic.

Generally, the outlook for 1939 can be regarded as particularly bright from the railway operating viewpoint, and in the opportunities of service to the public which railwaymen will be afforded.

General Manager.

<name type="work" key="name-410623"><hi rend="c">New Zealand … Nursery</hi> of the<lb/> <hi rend="c">Thoroughbred Horse</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="i">The Story of the Melbourne Cup from Martini Henry to Catalogue</hi> </name> (By O. N. Gillespie .)

The late Mr. Henry Redwood, the Father of the New Zealand Turf.

The Melbourne Cup is the greatest race in the Southern Hemisphere, and one of the half-dozen richest equine contests on earth. Interest in it is world-wide. I remember Pat Cotter, an American writer who had lived long in Alaska, telling me of the grizzled Australian prospectors simmering with excitement in the first week of November. “They waited for the Yukon river boats with the news of the Melbourne Cup winner,” he said, “and pokes of gold dust changed hands all round the Arctic Circle.”

The first Cup was in 1861, the prize-money £200, and four thousand people attended. In four years’ time a trophy of plate was added, and the added prize-money slowly rose to £1,000.

Then the boom times came, and when the New Zealand horse, Carbine won, the stake was £10,000, and there was a cup worth £150. The list of prize-moneys provides almost an index to the financial changes in Australia's condition. As depressions and booms came and went, the Melbourne Cup stake ran up and down, falling to £3,000 and rising to £10,000 and a £200 cup.

The race is for two miles, and naturally attracts the best horses in Australia and New Zealand, and this article will try to show how the glorious record of New Zealand horses in the race provides a real romance. It definitely assists the claim that New Zealand is fitted to be the thoroughbred farm of the whole world. It can be said, too, that the evolution of the New Zealand racehorse is convincing proof that the British race has a way of reproducing its distinctive characteristics, however far Anglo-Saxons and their Celtic brothers wander to make a new Homeland. If the ancient St. Bede, or gay King Charles II could come back to Trentham or Ellerslie, or better still, see the picnic races at Castlepoint, they would feel at home, knowing they were among British folk.

The first victory of a New Zealander in the Melbourne Cup was that of Martini Henry, a three-year-old colt who was a picture of equine perfection.

The last winner, fifty-five years later, was Catalogue, the veteran of the field who, on looks, would not win a prize at a country show. He was eight years of age, and no horse of that degree of antiquity had won the race for seventy-three years.

Experts of all degrees have been explaining away his runaway victory ever since the race, but assuming that Catalogue can smile, he should be wearing a contented grin from daylight to dark. He broke other records: he was the first horse ever to win with a No. 5 saddle cloth; he was the first horse ever to land this rich prize, to be trained by a woman; he had never won at more than a mile and a-quarter. This fact, that he was regarded as a “non-stayer,” made him a wild outsider in this race, but students of breeding would have pointed out that he had a good strain of Spearmint, who was the son of Carbine and the grandson of Musket. Among these believers was his New Zealand woman trainer, Mrs. Alan Macdonald, better known as “Granny Maher.” It is scientific truth that the Musket infusion of blood stands first in the world to-day for imparting the quality of endurance. As a matter of fact, the first three horses in the last Melbourne Cup, Catalogue, Bourbon and Ortelle's Star, all claimed a strain of Spearmint.

Now the sons and daughters of Musket are New Zealand's own possessions, born and bred in the pretty Sylvia Park stud farm close to Auckland. They changed the landscape of racehorse breeding all over the world.

We are inclined to overlook the fact that the settlement of Australia was a good half-century older than New Zealand. It is noteworthy, however, that the New Zealand Cup is only four years younger than the Melbourne Cup, and that the New Zealand Derby was established five years before the A.J.C. Derby and only four years after the Victorian race.

The breeding of the thoroughbred horse was handled in a planned and systematic fashion from the very first years of our settlement; our stud book, the equine Debrett, was in comprehensive book form before the first Australian compilation.

Our British forebears contained many men who had horse wisdom, and loved the thoroughbred. With unfailing care they watched developments in England, and the arrival in Australia of good sires and mares imported by the second

Phar Lap winning the Melbourne Stakes. generation of Australian men of fortune. Here and there, and now and again, a horse or mare with pedigree valued by the New Zealand students of breeding, would be quietly acquired. It was in the very early dawn of New Zealand history when the Middle Park stud was at work in Canterbury. It was in 1854, that wise old Henry Redwood brought the famous Flora McIvor from Australia to Nelson. She was then too old according to conventional ideas, but she had twelve foals, and in her daughter Waimea, left the founder of a great winning family. It must be remembered that this grand old man had already imported the mighty Sir Hercules, and that his racing colours, the black jacket and red cap, were known throughout New Zealand. I have a programme of the Nelson Jockey Club meeting of 1907 where he is described as having been then engaged in racing in New Zealand for over sixty years, and as owning racehorses in England before coming to New Zealand in 1841.

His importation of Emma at the same time as Flora McIvor was one of the factors in the extraordinary preservation of the “No. 18” family in New Zealand. It has faded in England, and desperate attempts are being made to revive it. We got such demi-gods among thoroughbreds, as Multiform, from this line.

A similar work was later carried on in Canterbury by Mr. G. G. Stead. He brought in a great son of Yattendon in St. George, and was steadily importing high-class mares.

The stage had been expertly set, but strangely enough the Auckland province was to provide the particular scene for the appearance of the star who was to make horse-breeding in New Zealand a national industry of world importance.

Musket was the leading actor in this drama. This English horse belonged to the eccentric Lord Glasgow, who had many queer habits, from refusing to name his mares, to having an annual round-up of yearlings for trial, the bad performers being condemned to be shot out of hand. Musket was among the doomed, and was only reprieved at the request of a horseman who had ridden him in work. Musket had a brilliant English career, beating all the best in the land, including the Derby winner, Blue Gown.

Lord Glasgow died, leaving a will as eccentric as himself, and great ingenuity had to be exercised when a trustee's death caused a dispersal sale. The goddess of high chance threw New Zealand a gift of priceless value. Musket, at the sale, for some reason went for about a quarter of his real value, and he was bought by Mr. Russell for a Waikato firm who wanted him to improve the standard of carriage horses! Mr. Russel actually tried to sell Musket on the way out, but he was landed from the appropriately named steamer “Hero” in February, 1879.

New Zealand born Carbine—one of the greatest racehorses of all time.

Soon after this, the Auckland Stud Company was formed and the chairman, Major Walmsley, impressed by the new English importation, bought out the Waikato Company, and so Musket came to Sylvia Park, to make New Zealand famous for all time in the annals of the world's thoroughbred horses.

Here arose the beginnings of New Zealand's connection with the great race across the Tasman Sea, the Melbourne Cup. In the usual New Zealand fashion that I have described, the Auckland Stud Coy. managers looked carefully at Australian equine ranks for suitable matrons. Among these was a fifteen-year-old mare called Julia, and she was promptly mated with Musket. The great figure in Australian racing in the ‘70's was the Honourable James White. His Melbourne Cup and Derby double with Chester in 1877 nearly broke the Ring, and his horses dominated the classic races of those days.

Towards the end of 1881, he was on his way to England, via San Francisco, and while the ship was waiting in Auckland, he slipped out to see Sylvia, whom he had admired in Australia. He was impressed with Musket, and delighted with Sylvia's colt by him, for whom he promptly made an offer. Major Walmsley, however, had English ideas about prices, and stuck hard and fast to the immense and unthinkable price of 1,250 guineas, at that time, the highest price ever paid for a yearling outside of England. The proverbial luck of the plucky purchaser stayed fast, and the Hon. James White thus became possessed of Martini Henry. The colt repeated Chester's performance, winning the Derby and Melbourne Cup double, both in record time. His victory sent the Melbourne crowd wild with delight as he started a hot favourite in a field of twenty-nine, and “walked home.”

Now the world of racing sat up and began to take notice of New Zealand. With almost amusing swiftness, the Sylvia Park folk entered the Australian market, sending over a batch of youngsters for the sales held three months after Martini Henry's Melbourne Cup. Once again, the Hon. James White entered the lists and his top bid gave him another son of Musket, Nordenfeldt. Once more the big Australian scored, for this fellow was to become known as the “bull-dog of the turf,” and at Musket's untimely death was destined to become the worthy successor at Sylvia Park of this great sire.

The story of the sons and daughters of Musket was only beginning, and soon they were making New Zealand famous in all the lands of the Seven Seas. In the compass of this article I can only mention a few. Trenton comes first; he was an example of classic equine beauty, he had unexampled endurance, and had a world-wide influence on bloodstock breeding. He will be best remembered in Australia as the sire of a marvellous quartette of mares, Lady Trenton, Auraria (Melbourne Cup winner), Quiver (who dead-heated with Wallace), and lastly the amazing queen of the turf, Wakeful, still rated as the greatest mare of all time under the Southern Cross. Maxim, the next son of Musket, was considered by Sir George Clifford as the greatest horse he had ever seen. He left mighty sons and daughters here, and then carried the New Zealand flag to California, where at the Rancho del Paso stud he was a brilliant success. In passing, I should add as an extra that another son of Musket, in Matchlock, was sold in 1885 to an Indian Prince and his name is still remembered. In this year, however, Carbine was born, and in a couple of years he became a world figure. His record was 43 races, 33 wins, 6 seconds, 3 thirds, and once only unplaced, that time without shoes. His relation, Martini Henry, won the Melbourne Cup in 1883, Trenton had been narrowly beaten in 1885 and 1886, and Carbine himself ran second in 1889, and duly won in 1890.

He was known as “Old Jack” to the worshipping crowds and performed every sort of miracle. He had the gift of drama. He earned all sorts of heavy penalties, was left several times, and again and again swept up to send the roaring crowds hysterical with a win by a head on the post. He seemed to know where the winning post was at least as well as his jockey, and always “knew what to do.”

His mother was Mersey, another mare brought to New Zealand after careful thought. The racecourse deeds of Carbine were wonderful, but negligible in comparison with his achievement in infusing new life into the thoroughbred families of the world. It is a long story, but it is perhaps not an overstatement to say that this strain, originating in New Zealand, remains one of the potent forces in the evolution of the staying racehorse of to-day. French horses lately have been getting an inordinate share of the long-distance races in England, and many experts ascribe this phenomenon to the plentiful supply of the blood lines of Spearmint, Carbine's greatest son, whose Grand Prix victory is still Gallic turf history.

The best filly to-day in England, Rockfel, is a direct descendant of the great New Zealander.

Now I want to repeat that when Carbine went away to Welbeck Abbey, New Zealand was already in possession of a noble array of splendid maternal families of thoroughbred horses.

This provides the enduring foundation of New Zealand breeding success. We should remember that Phar Lap descended from Carbine's granddaughter, Catherine Wheel.

The “head-work” of our sagacious pioneers, the amazing fertility of our grasslands, our limestone downs, our mild climate, all worked together to invest New Zealand with the reputation of producing the highest grade of racehorse.

Iliad—New Zealand sire of many great horses.

The Melbourne Cup has already been described as the greatest testing contest of staying horses in this part of the world. Crossing the Tasman is no morning stroll, and consequently the percentage of New Zealand horses is always very small. However, the New Zealand record is a just cause for pride.

We got as far as Carbine's great victory in 1890, carrying the all-time record weight of 10st. 5lbs., and playing with the field. By the way, the account of the race reads very like the performance put up by our last New Zealand winner, Catalogue.

Carbine left the ruck of horses in the straight and with Ramage sitting still, tore past the post with three lengths to spare. Pandemonium broke loose; men and women laughed and wept in frenzy, and the roar of applause sounded like thunder. It was not until 1907 that a New Zealander was to win the race again, but the influence of our horses was still paramount, mainly through the potency of Trenton as a sire. His daughter Auraria won in 1895, his son Revenue in 1901, and Lady Trenton's son Lord Cardigan won in 1903. Bloodshot, a son of Maxim ran second in 1896.

New forces had arrived in New Zealand, among them a representative of St. Simon, possibly the greatest name in British breeding history. It was extraordinary

that one of his very best sons, in Soult, should come to New Zealand, but I pause to say that this good fortune has to some extent been paralleled in our acquisition of Absurd, Limond, Hunting Song, and, of course, the greatest of all, Martian. Even at the risk of dislocating this story, I would remind readers that our horse Martian still holds easily the record of total sires’ winnings in Australia and New Zealand.

Two sons of Soult, in Wairiki and Solution, essayed the Melbourne Cup, both were installed hot favourites by the Australian public, who had learned to respect New Zealand contenders, and both failed, Wairiki breaking down hopelessly. However, in 1907, Apologue, again a hot favourite, won nicely for Mr. “Bob” Cleland, of Auckland, and the Queen City had a wonderful afternoon when the news came through. The habit of making New Zealanders favourite had some disastrous results; among the failures were Reputation, in 1915; The Cypher, in 1922; Sir Simper and Nightly, in 1934; Sir Regent, in 1937; and, of course, the brilliant Royal Chief in Catalogue's race. This led to the caption everywhere “Wrong New Zealander Wins Melbourne Cup.” Phar Lap was, of course, favourite whenever he started and twice he let his horde of followers down. However, his deeds need no recalling here. He truly earned the title of “world beater.” The most heart-breaking happening was the misfortune of Concentrate. I heard the account of this race on the radio and, just as the announcer excitedly said “Here comes Concentrate with a wet sail—it's all over,” the New Zealander stopped almost to a walk and even then struggled into third place. The rest of the story is that Nightmarch won in 1929, Phar Lap in 1930, Gaine Carrington was third in 1932, Wotan won in 1936, Willie Win ran second in 1937, and our ancient relic, Catalogue, won this year.

Only three horses in the past dozen years won with a greater weight than Catalogue, and they were Nightmarch, Phar Lap and Peter Pan.

It is a comforting recital, but in the pure tests of merit, the weight-for-age races, the performance of New Zealand horses is still more exciting.

Every racing enthusiast would like to own a Derby winner. In the sale ring, wealthy bidders pay for a likely youngster prices that have no relation to his possible earnings.

The New Zealand record in the richest of these races in Australia, the A.J.C. Derby, is most intersting.

Naturally, Musket blood played an important part in early times. Nordenfeldt won in 1885, Martini Henry's son, Singapore, in 1889; Trenton's son, Trenchant, in 1893. Then Lochiel's son, Bonnie Scotland, won next year for Spencer Gollan, who took our horse Moifaa home to England to win the Grand National. Carbine then came on the scene and his two sons, Charge and Amberite collected in 1896 and 1897, and then there was a gap to Noctuiform, in 1906. Our stud-masters in New Zealand had been carrying steadily on in the traditions of their forebears, and in 1916 the deluge started. From 1916, when Kilboy won, to 1923, three New Zealand-bred horses,

Typical New Zealand yearling at the Trentham Sales.

and two Australian-born but New Zealand-owned and nurtured had won this blue ribbon. In 1928 the cascade began again, and five out of eight races fell to New Zealanders.

(Continued on page 56).

Aboard the Rotorua Express: The man smoking the cherrywood said to his friend: “Never see you with a pipe now, old bird. Chucked it? “Had to! Throat irritation. Doctor said ‘stop.’ So I stopped.” “Ever try the toasted New Zealand tobacco?” “No. Any different from the ordinary brands?” “It can give the ordinary brands 70 in a 100 (to put it in the language of billiards), and then run out in a single break.” “How does it differ from the ordinary brands?” “To begin with it contains very little nicotine. That's why it doesn't irritate the throat or burn the tongue. You can smoke it all day and then some. It can't hurt you. Secondly it has an unrivalled flavour and a matchless bouquet. The secret of its excellence is that it's toasted! Yes. There are various brands. You try one, and I'll wager you'll soon be smoking that old pipe of yours again.” He said he would! The five brands are: Navy Cut No. 3, Cavendish, Cut Plug No. 10, Desert Gold and Riverhead Gold.*

<name type="work" key="name-410624"> <title level="a"> <name type="work" key="name-410625"> <hi rend="c">Dream Places</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="i">Fruits of the Earth</hi> </name> (ByLeo Fanning.) For so, to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. —Milton in “Lycidas.”

A Kind Maori friend successfully spread a story in the Northland—the Kauriland of old romance—that I was a re-incarnation of a famous chief whose home was in Hawaiki long ages ago. So the Maori heart and hand went out to me in places of peace beyond the rustle and bustle of Auckland—Albert Edward Glover's “fair Queen City of the North which laves her feet in the blue and sparkling waters of the Waitemata.”

* * *

A tribe appointed three of its members as helpful companions, skilled in Polynesian story-telling and in arts and crafts for the making of cosy camps and preparing meals far away from all bugbears of cost of living.

There may be people in the Northland who worry about tallies of butterfat, tallow, hides and pelts, but I did not meet them. Human fuming and fussing would seem absurd in that land where the clock's pointed fingers are not constant goads as they are in less happy regions.

This sense of escape from the hurly-burly of life is partly due to the mild climate and partly to the merging of the Maori into the European in various localities. Even a slight tincture of Maori blood tends to an increase of philosophy and mellowness of temperament. It adds beauty to the eyes of girls and women and puts melody in their voices.

* * *

Mated tuis and bell-birds were singing their first love songs of spring when we camped in a ferny dell by a murmuring rill beyond Hokianga. From a secret creek, a favourite haunt of whitebait, we could easily scoop up half a bucket of the fish for breakfast.

One day I was taken in a canoe from Rawene up the Taheke Creek, a magic mirror in which weeping willows admire their tresses. Suddenly the little craft was moored by some steps which seemed to trickle out of a thicket. Up we went—and there it was, an inn of heart's desire, such a one as would have gladdened Gilbert Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc for one of their merry week-ends.

* * *

We rode horses by easy stages to the Bay of Islands. No wild galloping—just a gentle jogging. Word had gone ahead that we were on the march. So in villages Maoris sang and danced for us and called blessings upon us.

Indeed, everything was done to a song. My Maori attendants built the camps and paddled to chants of other days.

Here and there our gaze fell upon ancient fruit-trees, survivors of orchards planted by the early missionaries. No sign of a house; just a few old apple and pear trees mingled with kowhais and puriris which had sprung up near the aliens, as if to comfort them in their loneliness. What stories those fruit-trees could tell of homes which have vanished! I thought of verses of Madison Cawein:—

Never near, oh, never near, Where all the dreams of the heart appear; Where Reverie lays her spirit bare, And Mystery lures with golden hair; Oh, there, whatever the heart may hear— Never near, oh, never near Is the Land of Dreams that our hearts hold dear. Never near and far away! Oh, pale, pale lands where Yesterday And dim To-morrow, like ghost with ghost, Wander and whisper and beckon us most! Open your gates that are twilight grey, Never near and far away, And let us in where our lost dreams stay.

* * *

We had a week at the head of a tidal creek in the Bay of Islands.

Here every place is a piece of history. One moonlit night a soft crooning of the ebb tide on the shore came to me as a lament for other days. Mingled with the sad sighing of phosphorescent waters was the plaintive trilling of night crickets.

In a reverie I heard again the chanties of sailors and the shouts of wild whalers in old Kororareka before the doubtful British authorities sent Captain Hobson with a few policemen to try to maintain order in that lawless settlement. Again I heard the war-cries of Hone Heke and his ally Kawiti, and the booming of the guns of H.M.S. Hazard.

To-day Russell is a rival of Akaroa as a place of peace. A cock-crow at dawn, waking people for work, is an impertinence by those restful shores. Truly do these lines of Swinburne apply to Russell:—

Here where the world is quiet, Here where all trouble seems Dead winds and spent waves riot In doubtful dreams of dreams.

* * *

On the way to Whangarei I had some meditations by the tangled stands of mangroves which help to make the Northland different from any other part of New Zealand. They stir memories of old stories of boyhood's days—the escape of tortured slaves or other victims of cruelty and their lurking in tropical jungles of mangroves. They hid in peril of horrible fevers and crocodiles until a miracle swished them to safety.

But, of course, the mangroves of Northland are free from pests. They flourish in clean coastal waters and at the mouths of creeks where the salty tides can play.

Away we went across the peninsula to the Trounson Kauri Park with a good supply of cooked food and raw fruit, for it is almost a sacrilege to light a match for any purpose in that sanctuary. We were chatting about light things when we entered the forest, but soon silence came upon us. The wagging of a tongue, except in noble song or hymn, is ridiculous in that Temple of Nature, with its great canopy of green upheld by huge columns. In the musical murmur of the wind in the leafy heights, one could easily imagine the trees grieving for their brethren who had fallen before axe and saw, a sacrifice to settlement and commerce.

An occasional deputation of bohemian writers, artists and musicians.

The estimated age of one Kauri King is more than twenty centuries. It was saluted by the seasons when Julius Caesar and his legions invaded Britain.

I remembered well a remark of Mr. Guthrie-Smith at his Tutira homestead two years ago in a chat about the main marvels of New Zealand. His vote was cast for a kauri forest and the vast night-flight of mutton-birds to an islet by Stewart Island.

No wonder that in the old Maori religion those tremendous trunks were regarded as limbs of the forest god Tane. What a pity that so many of them have been put to base uses! Perhaps some of the sawdust went into sausages long ago.

* * *

In another native forest, where we tarried for a few days, my thoughts wandered to Elsdon Best, who died some years ago. Many a time he camped alone in such woods, but never was he lonely.

“Loneliness is yet unknown to me, though solitude I know full well,” he once wrote. “Maybe, in the days that lie before, when books and memory fail me, when materials for writing are not, when I can no longer look upon the grand old forest, its every denizen, the gnarled, stunted growth of storm-lashed trunks, the stately peaks of terrace and valley, the wealth of shrubs and ferns; when I can no longer see to grope in dank spots for minute specimens of the molluscan fauna, nor hear the song of forest birds and the swirling waters of mountain streams, when the sun shines not and the mind refuses to follow the old discipline—then it may be that I shall know loneliness, and that will be a very good time to lift the trail of Maruiwi, the trail which Maui of old broke out in days when the world was young.”

* * *

My guides made camps in several sheltered green valleys by the sea, delightful abodes of the kind which inspired James Russell Lowell for some lines of his “Sirens”:—

Here all is pleasant as a dream; The wind scarce shaketh down the dew; The green grass floweth like a stream Into the ocean's blue. Listen! O, listen! Here is a gush of many streams, A song of many birds, And every wish and longing seems Lull'd to a number'd flow of words. Listen! O, listen! Here ever hum the golden bees Underneath full-blossom'd trees, At once with glowing fruit and flowers crown'd.

* * *

And yet into such Arcadias and Lands of Beulah one may be induced to receive an occasional deputation of bohemian writers, artists and musicians. Of course, they are not allowed a long stay.

[I made a mild protest when I was shown the drawing of the tail-piece of this meandering article. “Oh, let it go,” the editor said with a broad smile which threatened to turn into hearty laughter. “Besides, what else could you expect from ‘Thirteenth Cluers'? Anyhow, it's too late for an alteration.” Well, well … .]

<name type="work" key="name-410626"> <hi rend="i">A Tapu Isle of Birds</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">Hauturu And Its Inhabitants</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="i">Old Maori Memories</hi> </name> (By James Cowan).

(From a photograph in Auckland, 1886) Paratene te Manu, the ancient warrior of Ngati-Wai.

“If I might be a sea-dove, I'd fly across the main To the pleasant Isle of Aves, to look at it once again.” —Kingsley's “Last Buccaneer.”

It was in the grey-and-rose dawn that our little Nautilus lay-to off the Island one summer morning of long ago, and we pulled over the long ground-swell in the dinghy and watched our chance between the seas to jump ashore on the rugged boulder bank, where rocks rolled and crunched upon each other with every in-send of the surf. But even before we dropped into the dinghy we heard the birds, above the growling noises of the coast. The tui and the bell-bird were chanting away at morning song—I suppose hundreds of them—in the pohutukawa trees and the manuka thickets that fringed the shore.

The sun had not yet shown himself over the sea-rim; a long blanket of mist swathed the mountain tops, and the air was raw and damp; but every bird in the Maori groves was piping and gurgling and bell-ringing. They were all around us when we landed, fluttering and hopping about the branches, some of them sucking the honey from the flowers, hanging to the twigs—often upside down—others seeming to give all their energies to the morning's music. It was an entrancing hour—a dawntime pleasure that I have recaptured in part many times since, but only once in such overwhelming measure, and that was in a deep valley among the forest ranges of the Urewera Country. What pen can reproduce the enchantment of such moments? Sometimes a New Zealand poet comes near it, as in Satchell's rime of a bell-bird's song:

“Oh, hush! Oh, hear! A goblin chime; The dew-drop trembles on the branch; A solo sweet, a scattered rhyme, A golden avalanche.”

Sometimes a musician attempts to reproduce it. But what flute, what pipe, what human voice can faithfully give us even those three deep, rich, dropping notes of the tui, “the essence of pure sound,” that the Northern Maoris interpret as “Pa-re-ro”?

But here we are under the Christmas-trees of Hauturu Island, otherwise the Little Barrier, high-peaked, densely-timbered, walled with dark cliffs of volcanic rock, dissected by gorges and gullies, with high steep ridges rising between like green-garmented ribs. Here, fifteen miles from the mainland, moated by the ocean, harbourless, bayless, wooded as it was a thousand years ago, fog-draped, surf-washed—here is the most secure of all New Zealand's many island homes set apart as national refuge-places for the native birds. It is, one is free to fancy, the Garden of Eden all over again, without the Serpent—at any rate, an Eden for the Maori birds, and in particular for those members of the bush bird-family that are too quickly disappearing from the mainland before the direct attacks of animal pests and the indirect, but even more deadly, destroying march of the settler and the bushfeller.

You can see from the Auckland hills the faint blue summit of Hauturu, like a serrated whaleback, the loftiest island in the waters of the Hauraki; it looks a place of faerydom from afar, a shadow of an island. Nearer, it looms blue-black of colour, even grim of contour; it looks a palisaded hold, this bold steep-to isle, and it is fortunate for the birds that it is so rough and forbidding of approach. You find it different when you land, but—supposing you have official sanction to visit it—the difficulty is to make that landing. We were weather-bound in Little Omaha Cove for two days before a favourable slant and comparatively smooth seas gave us the chance that morning, wn Eden of birds; though there is no serpent, it is not without its curses—the pakeha rat and the wild cat—and, I suppose there were such prowling creatures even in Paradise. Isle of Aves—yes, and pleasanter even than the Last Buccaneer's beside the Spanish Main, for those tropic birds may be gorgeous of plumage, but they are unmusical, croaking things by comparison with our sober-coated tui and bellbird, and the little riroriro of Alan Mulgan's praise, the grey warbler, whose plaintive yet cheery trill always seems only half-finished—

“So much of beauty all around, But none more dear Than this small hidden bird's sweet sound, Following the changing pageant of the year With daily note, half joy and half regret.”

The Home of Ngati-Wai.

There were more than birds to interest one on Hauturu in those days. There was the Maori life, soon to vanish for ever from this isle of beauty and legend. It was in 1895, and a little Maori hapu, the Ngati-Wai, still lived on the island. My old coastwise-sailor acquaintance, Tenetahi, and his wife, Rahui te Kiri—as good a sailorman as himself—were the principal people of the few families who composed the owning hapu. We visited them in their homes, where the Government custodian now has his house on the flat at the foot of the forested hills. This place was renowned for its sweet potatoes, which grew to perfection in the good warm soil formed by the decomposition of the volcanic rocks. Around the whares were those kumara gardens, the maize and tobacco plots, and the peach trees. The cultivation patches were fenced in with manuka; the pig-proof fences were crossed by rustic stiles.

There, under the peach-trees, I talked with a wonderful ancient relic of the cannibal days, the venerable warrior Paratene te Manu, grim, black-tattooed, spear-scarred. His life-story would have filled a book. His memory went back to the days of Hongi; in his youth he had voyaged in Ngapuhi war-canoes many times along the coast, even as far away as the Mahia Peninsula, shooting and tomahawking and eating “long-pig.” He was a youthful musketeer in Hongi's army that conquered the Tamaki isthmus and all the Hauraki shores in the early Eighteen-twenties. Later he followed Hongi's warrior lieutenant and successor, Te Wera, in many a raid.

The ancient man—he must have been over ninety years of age, he said he was a hundred—was not happy at the prospect of exile from his island home. He had to leave a few months after my visit, for the Government was clearing everything out but the birds—the Ngati-Wai had sold the island to the Crown—but I have always thought it was a pity he could not have been left there to finish his days, among his peaches and his kumara, the tui and the bell-bird.

The Eviction.

Our small steam-yacht, the Nautilus, on the trip to the Island in 1895, took officials from Auckland to serve summonses to shift on the die-hards who had repented them of the bargain forced on them by the Government. The venerable Paratene was found sunning himself in front of his wharé. The bent, tattooed old fellow regarded his summons with great aversion. He would not touch it, so it was laid on the ground at his feet, after the Crown Native interpreter had translated it, and he picked up a manuka stake and war-danced feebly around the objectionable blue paper, making jabs at it as if he were spearing a foe. “Go to your Court!” he cried. “I won't go to your Court! This is my island, and I'll never leave it. I shall die on my island!” Then he threw down his stick, having sufficiently exhibited his defiance, and, with a change of tone, made request “Ho mai te tupeka.” He got his tobacco, squatted down at his door, lit up and was happy.

The poor old boy couldn't do the birds much harm; indeed it was not the Maoris who slaughtered the rare species on Hauturu, but mercenary pakehas, who were paid for the work by collectors who called themselves scientists. At least half the interest of the island lay in its Maori life. However, evicted Paratene was; he died at Whangaruru, on the mainland, a few months later. Tenetahi, too, and his wife Rahui te Kiri, were cleared off, and I have always thought that the manner of their clearance was not altogether fair, and that the question of compensation should have been readjusted. Tenetahi was a sailor and a scow-owner, a real old sea-dog. Well, I remember his round, merry face and his rolling walk—and his sturdy wife, too; Rahui was a first-rate sailorman herself. The pair of them, with a tattooed old Maori seaman named Te Maré, and a brace of boys ran their centreboard schooner, the Ida, carrying kauri logs in to the Auckland mills.

So, the Maoris, their few cattle and their goods having been cleared out of the island, the Lands and Survey Dept. set about making it a sanctuary for native birds. Some of us in Auckland thought Tenetahi and his wife should have been appointed custodians,

(Photo. by courtesy of Dr. W. R. B. Oliver, Dominion Museum.) Looking towards Herekohu Peak, Little Barrier Island. because of their natural affection for the island, their knowledge of all its wild corners, and their interest in the bird life. I know that Tenetahi prevented hives of bees being landed on the island, for fear of harm to the honey-eating birds. Next time I visited Hauturu (it was in a three-masted schooner built for the South Sea trade, with Captain Frank Worsley, later of Polar exploration fame, as skipper), there was a pakeha family there. The Government Custodian had five or six daughters, and jolly fine, petticoated sailorboys they were, able to knock about in a boat in any kind of weather with the old man, and climb anywhere over their mountain-island home. That was many a year ago, too, and the laughing Nereides have gone.

All Alone on Hauturu.

There was a succession of Government custodians, and the Tourist Dept. took over the charge of the sanctuary. Once there was a pitiful tragedy. A friend of mine, in the Tourist Department of those days, Robert Hunter-Blair, and his newly-made wife were the only people on the island. The husband was taken ill and died in a few hours. The young widow, a frail Scottish lass, waited vainly for assistance, then she contrived heroically to give her dead burial alongside the house, and remained in her solitude for some days until the Government steamer chanced to call on her round of lighthouses and State sanctuaries. It was as in the old Scots ballad, “He Slew My Knight”:

I sewed his sheet, making my mane; I watched the corpse, myself alane; I watched his body night and day; No living creature came that way. I took his body on my back, And whiles I gaed and whiles I sat; I digged a grave and laid him in, And happ'd him with the sod sae green.

On Kapiti Island, too, a one-time custodian, J. L. Bennett, is buried. He lies beside his wife in a beautiful nook on the eastern shore. The bell-bird and the tui that they loved make music all day long over their sleeping heads.

“When Men Were Stones.”

The story of Hauturu (the name means a fair and steady wind) in Maori tradition goes back several centuries, and many a time it was a rendezvous for war-canoes in the days when every Maori tribe's hand was against its neighbours. For generations it was the home and refuge place of the Ngati-Wai, who—as was solemnly sworn to by the ancient Paratene te Manu in the Native Land Court in Auckland in 1886—had occupied the island from a period “when men were stones.” The Judge dryly remarked of this legendary era that it was “a period unknown to the Court and to modern science”; nevertheless, Ngati-Wai were awarded possession of the island as against the other claimants, the Ngati-Whatua tribe of the mainland. Our present-day landing-place was not safe for canoes, but on the western side of the flat there is a cut in the boulder bank where a passage was made to haul the long war-craft up safely beyond reach of the surf. Pomare, the Bay of Islands chief, whose pa at Otuihu was destroyed by British troops in 1845, once occupied Hauturu; and in the early days of colonisation he seems to have offered the place to an Auckland man, in return for a schooner. But he reckoned without his Ngati-Wai, the tangata-whenua, who decidedly objected to parting with their ancient home. It was a strange, solitary spot that surf-girt home, yet Ngati-Wai loved it as the Western Highlander loved his lone shieling on the misty island.

Later came the pakeha coastwise smuggler, who found the unfrequented part of the south-west corner of Hauturu, despite the awkward landing, a convenient and safe hiding place for un-Customed liquor and tobacco.

The Bush and the Birds.

Hauturu is just a deeply cut-up mountain range, five and a-half miles long and between. three and four miles in width—a trifle smaller than famous Norfolk Island, but infinitely more broken. Away in there towards the craggy island-top, well-named Herekohu, the peak to which the fog clings closely, are the secure haunts of the shyest and most rare of birds, the hihi, tihe, or tiora, called by pakehas the stitch-bird, and the tieke or saddleback. Kiwi, too, are in there; but they often come down near the home of man these halcyon times.

There is a great contrast between this island and Kapiti. Hauturu is primeval, unspoiled. Kapiti is a once half-ruined place, only just rescued in time; and splendidly regenerated by the Lands Department and its excellent custodians.

All the birds on the island appear to be on the increase. Besides the very plentiful tui and bell-bird, these species are seen in large number: Grey warbler, fantail, whitehead, white-eye, kingfisher, kaka parrot, red-fronted parrakeet, wood-pigeon, pied tit, rifleman (bush wren), robin, morepork owl. The rare

Haast's Kiwi from the South Island, liberated on the Little Barrier. saddleback and stitchbird are also increasing.

All about the flat at the landing-place, and all around the coast, the grand old Christmas-tree grows, and every tree is a scene of joyous bird-life at this time of the year. There is a place around the coast, Pohutukawa Flat, a terrace several miles from the homestead; there the forest creatures have a honeyed paradise when the trees put out their oriflammes of blossom. Quite fifty birds, chiefly tui and korimako, have been counted on a single pohutukawa tree—fluttering from branch to branch, thrusting their beaks into the flowers for the honey, chattering and chanting bursts of song, the tui for sheer mischief teasing and chasing the bellbird, and being itself chased by the kaka parrot, uttering its harsh, high cry. The little parrakeet, or kakariki—two varieties, the red-fronted and the orange-fronted—flits about the honey tree.

Here, too, in the seaward groves, that far-travelling migrant, the pipiwharauroa, or shining cuckoo, comes to rest in the spring of the year, after its long flight from the tropics, and the ear is rejoiced with its high, clear notes—which the Maori interprets as “Ku-i, Ku-i, whiti-whiti ora, tio-o.” You hear it close to the towns, as well as in the heart of the Maori wilds. I have heard its sweet, shrill whistle alike in remote sanctuaries and in such places as the bluegum plantation alongside the Rotorua railway station.

There is plenty of room for exploration about the flat, with its curious boulder bank thrown up by ages of sea-pounding, and on the hills that rise steeply from the old garden-levels. Up in the mountains that rise into peaks of from 2,000 to 2,400 feet, and along the precipitous coast of this 7,000 acre island—where most of the acres stand on end—it is scrambling, rather than foot-climbing. The island is all sharp ridge and deep gorge, and looking down into the shadowy depths of some of those gulches where the big rata and tawa and kauri in whole groves grow on incredible slants, you wonder how you are going to reach the other side, and wish for some kind of flying machine.

High up on the mountain ridges three kinds of petrels, or mutton-birds, the taiko, titi, and oii of the Maoris, have their nesting places in the earth and under the roots of the big trees. The late Hugh Boscawen (of the Lands and Survey Department in Auckland), who did a lot of exploration on Hauturu, used to say of the mutton-bird that “it tastes something like the smell of a blown-out oil lamp.”

One of the natural-history treasures of the place is the tuatara lizard, which, as on the other off-shore islands, lives in the mutton-birds’ burrows. Another is the pupurangi, the large land snail; I £ und a shell of unusual size on the hills just above the old wharé. There is a remarkable shrub, seldom found on the mainland, the parapara (Pisonia Brunonia), which entraps not only myriads of insects but sometimes small birds, by means of a glutinous fluid similar to bird-lime, which exudes from the flowers and leaves.

Sweets for the Singers.

The late Robert Nelson, Government Custodian of the Island for many years, gave some very pleasant word-pictures of the bird life in his reports. It is very much the same to-day under Mr. Hargreaves, the Custodian for the Tourist Department. Here is a June scene at the kitchen door, as described by Mr. Nelson:

“It is not unusual to see thirty or forty tuis and bellbirds waiting when the door is opened in the early morning, and as many sitting on the trees near at hand. Mrs. Nelson gives them the house scraps and left-over porridge

and milk, of which they are very fond. It is amusing to see them flying after her and gathering around her as she empties the food in the dishes. They are very tame; they even land on our shoulders, and a few come into the kitchen, and on to the table, while we are at our meals. Some of them stay about the house the whole day, while others fly into the bush, but are here again the following morning. They sit around the rim of the dishes, under the trees, feeding all together. They like sugar in their porridge.”

When the morning milk was drained from the buckets into a can, the bell-birds were all around. They sat along the rim of the can, trying to drink the milk as it flowed in.

There, too, is the kaka parrot. When food is laid out, he gets the biggest share. He gets away with the crusts of bread, and he often hangs around the kitchen door when it is quite dark, or whiles away his waiting time by walking noisily about on the roof.

What a picture, in the season of ripe fruit, a hundred tui and korimako in a peach tree, singing their loudest and sweetest as they daintily and leisurely enjoyed their meals. They seemed always to have plenty of time for song.

In midsummer, as in the breeding season, the bush everywhere is ringing with the songs of the various species. “Their charming melodies are delightful to hear,” was a typical item in the monthly reports. “An hour in the bush, sitting listening to the birds, is worth far more than the finest concert in the city.”

And, per contra, a note on the pakeha-bird interlopers: “I am glad the imported birds are decreasing. Long may they stay off the island; they are a great pest.” Rats, too, are a curse to the bird-island; they have become too cunning to take the poison laid for them. Wild cats are more easily dealt with. The custodian shot many of them.

In March, when the peaches and figs in the garden are ripe, all the birds, Maori and pakeha congregate in the trees. A Nelsonian diary picture: “The starlings and blackbirds are taking the lion's share of the figs. They are not easily destroyed; they are too much awake, and discern danger all the time they are on the trees. By hiding in the centre of a bush near the fig-trees, I have been able to shoot fifteen in two days. The tui and bellbirds are all busy feeding on the figs, singing and screaming and chasing each other, when all at once quietness reigns. A blackbird makes its appearance and commands the whole tree. The report of the gun and the fallen dead bird do not seem to trouble or frighten the native birds, for in a few seconds the feasting and singing recommence.”

One season Mr. Nelson made a large scarecrow, which drove the foreign birds away. The Maori birds, of course, knew it wasn't meant for them.

The birds would very soon have taken all the grapes one year, when there was a very large crop on the vines, but the custodian's wife saved some for the household and for the winter supply of jelly by filling two cake-tins with the previous season's jelly and some fruit pulp, and setting it out on the paths. In a few minutes there were scores of birds jostling each other around the tins and feeding joyously. The news of the glorious kaikai seemed to have been broadcasted through the bush, for next day there were far greater numbers there, and before a week was out it looked as if every tui and every korimako on the island were gathered there for the feast. The moment one flew away its place was taken by another. Then the tui chased the bellbirds away, and the little fellows came dancing around, waiting an opportunity to get a place on the dish-rims; and there was a kind of queue sitting on the branches of a near-by apple-tree, waiting till the first table had finished.

The native robin, the toutouwai, is a tiny habitant of the bush that shows a pretty confidence in its human protector. It comes up quite close, and, like the fantail, will hop on to a stick if you hold it out. The garden-digger it regards as its benevolent friend, turning up worms for it, and by way of thanks-giving for its meal and its mate's, it rewards the spade-man with song.

The custodian remarked on the kaka's noisiness, a comment that recalled to me an old Maori bush-guide many years ago in the Urewera Country. We were tramping over the ranges from Ruatahuna to Lake Waikaremoana. The shawl-kilted Hauhau mountaineer broke

(Photo., courtesy of Dr. Oliver.) The Boulder Bank, western landing, Hauturu. The large boulder represents an ancestor of the Ngati-Wai, according to the Maori. his warrior silence to express his annoyance at the parrots that were flying and screeching all around us; they were in astonishing numbers in that deep forest. “Ka-Ka-Ka!” he said, scolding the birds flapping about him; “you're like a lot of women, for ever chattering with your Ka-Ka-Ka!”

White Kiwi, and the “Pinto.”

That rara avis, a white kiwi, came into the Hauturu story every once and again. The custodian “got a good look at it by the light of the full moon,” one night and several times afterwards. It seemed a kind of spirit bird, a forest ghost of the night. The Maoris would have tapu'd it thrice over. It is an albino bird caught in the Taupo country and taken to the island. Native folklore of the Tongariro-Taupo district invests white birds, whether tui or pigeon or kiwi, with an aura of sanctity, infringement of which brings dread penalties. “Should a man kill a white bird in these woods,” an old warrior of Ngati-Tuwharetoa told me, “he would be punished by the fairy gods of the mountains and the forests. Te Ririo, the atua of the mountains, would come for him and drag him into the wild lands, and if he survived to reach his home and people again, he would be demented, talking a strange tongue.”

This lone albino of Hauturu struck up acquaintance early with the brown kiwis. At any rate, one day Mr. Nelson, when travelling up a gully, saw a young vari-coloured kiwi; its head feathers were white, its back and breast brown, like the North Island species, its legs light yellow, and the hinder parts white. “It looked pretty,” he wrote in his report. And in the following year he reported again that the al-

(Continued on page 44.)

<name type="work" key="name-410627"> <hi rend="c">Our London Letter</hi> </name> by Arthur L. Stead

Railway Progress In 1938

AhappyNew Year to all! Railwaymen the world over may look back with satisfac-faction on their efforts during 1938. Here in Britain the railways have by no means regained their one-time prosperity, yet bearing in mind the trials and troubles of the past months, our four big transportation systems have made a really admirable showing, and as the New Year develops one and all anticipate more prosperous times. The year that has just drawn to a close will be remembered as one in which the main effort of the railways was concentrated on the speeding-up of both passenger and freight train services. The extended utilisation by the European lines of road transport was another worth-while feature; container movement showed a praiseworthy expansion; while electrification made marked progress in many lands. Streamlined passenger trains have definitely come to stay, these mostly being of the light-weight type. Railcars, too, have a most hopeful future.

Freight business, which dropped off heavily in the latter half of 1938, is now picking up in Britain. Very striking is the progress made in freight handling methods, first and foremost among the improvements effected being the introduction of large numbers of fast goods trains, giving a next day delivery wherever possible. These trains run at average speeds of from 40 to 45 m.p.h., and many cover journeys of over 100 miles non-stop. Container transport has filled a long-felt want. In 1928, the Home railways had 1,574 railroad containers in use. Today, 14,000 containers of various types are in service. Road motor collection and delivery services have grown apace in both city and rural areas. Some 3,000 country stations now enjoy the benefits of these rail-road links. The last few years, too, have seen vast sums of money expended with good results on new warehouses and warehouse equipment. New and more commodious marshalling yards also have been opened at suitable points. The goods wagon stocks of the four groups have been well maintained, and so far this season there has been no serious wagon shortage. Several interesting new types of truck have recently been introduced. On the Great Western, a type of ventilated box car with slotted gauze-covered ends and sides has been provided for the movement of fruit and vegetables. Shock-absorbing wagons are another introduction by the G.W. and L. M. & S. Companies. On the L. and N.E. line orders are now in hand for 1,000 new covered wagons for the conveyance of fish from East Coast ports. The same system, also, is building in its own shops an interesting type of trolley wagon, designed to carry a load of 120 tons. This design is intended for use in the movement of heavy machinery without transhipment to continental destinations by way of the Harwich-Zeebrugge train-ferry.

New Deepwater Quay at Southern Railway Docks, Southampton.

Changes in Central Europe.

Great changes continue to be made to the railway map of Europe. The Austrian Federal Railways have ceased to exist as a separate system, and have been swallowed up in the German National Railways, many elaborate reorganisation schemes having been brought into play. The latest development is the replacement on the Austrian lines of the sleeping and refreshment cars of the International Sleeping Car Company by those of the Mitropa undertaking. The International Company is a Belgian concern, while the Mitropa is a German firm. In Czechoslovakia severe pruning of the railway system has followed the handing over of territory to Germany, Hungary and Poland. Prague continues the head-quarters of the Czech lines, but the inflated railway system which arose out of the Treaty of Versailles is now no more. All these changes in Central Europe naturally affect long-distance train services as well as local, and at the present time the various railway organisations are busy working out new routes and new regulations concerning the running of many of the regular cross-European expresses.

(Photo., Emit, London) Florence-Bologna electrified tracks, Italian State Railways.

Train Speeds in France.

Passenger train speeds on the continent of Europe continue to improve. France, in particular, has made tremendous progress in this direction, while maintaining an enviable reputation for safety. Two typical mainlines illustrating recent accelerations are those between Paris and Lyons, and Paris and Bordeaux. From Paris to Lyons, on the P.L.M. system, is a distance of 318 miles. This is covered to-day in 4 hours 50 minutes. On the 365 1/2 miles run from Paris to Bordeaux, the journey time has been cut to 5 hours 44 minutes. Some very fine fast runs with heavy steam trains are found on the Northern Railway, between Paris and Calais, over which route there is operated the world-famous “Golden Arrow” Pullman, providing the shortest and quickest connection between the French and English capitals. Actually, the two fastest timings in regular daily service on the French railways are those of the “Sud Express,” which covers the 70 miles between Poitiers and Angouleme in exactly one hour; and a 68 m.p.h. run from Valence to Avignon. Railcars attain high speeds in daily service on the principal French lines. The Paris-Longeau daily run at 76 1/2 m.p.h., and the 73 m.p.h. flight between Paris and Nancy are two typical timings.

A Luxury Boat Train.

With more settled conditions on the continent, travel between Britain and the mainland of Europe promises to increase very markedly during the coming months. One of the most popular routes to the continent is that operated by the L. & N.E. Railway by way of the port of Harwich. A new luxury boat train, the “Hook Continental,” was recently introduced between Liverpool Street Station, London, and Harwich, running in connection with the railway steamer sailings to and from Holland. The train consists of eleven carriages, having seats for 84 first and 240 second-class passengers, and two Pullman seating 44 first-class passengers. Most of the carriages are of the saloon type, but by a clever arrangement of seats a considerable degree of privacy is assured. Each section in the first-class coaches seats four passengers on revolving chairs which, with specially-designed tables, enable the occupants either to sit facing the table during meals, or to turn away from the table at other times. In the second-class sections, seats for six passengers are provided. The train is electrically lit throughout, and all cooking is performed by electricity. Air-conditioned and sound-proofed, the “Hook Continental” leaves London every evening conveying passengers for all European centres.

Britain's Railway-owned Ports.

Harwich is but one of the many railway-owned ports scattered around our coasts.

Express Railcar, French National Railways. The biggest railway port from the viewpoint of passenger traffic is Southampton, where the docks are owned and operated by the Southern Railway. Southampton Docks have just celebrated their centenary, the Southampton Docks Company having been established in 1838, and rail connection with London secured in 1840. Cross-Atlantic services have, of course, for many years been a feature of the port, but in recent times there has been a welcome increase in the New Zealand trade, for which the Southern Railway provide special services in the way of cold storage and so on. After the formation of the Southern Group in 1923, the new owners spent enormous sums on improvements and enlargements, these including the provision of the largest dry-dock in the world.

Educational Railway Films.

Exhibitions of educational and instructional films produced by the L. M. and S. Railway film organisation this winter are being attended by more than 100,000 members of the company's staff. The film units are making a tour of the system, involving exhibitions at 200 different points, and the travelling of approximately 20,000 miles. In the larger centres the films are shown in halls and institutes, while the more remote parts of the line are reached by mobile film units—cinemas on wheels having a theatre capacity of fifty persons per vehicle. Three of these mobile units are in constant use, and five new films have been prepared for the current tour. These cover such subjects as the repair and overhaul of an express steam locomotive at Crewe; scientific research in the railway laboratory at Derby; handling holiday traffic; and the daily work in a locomotive running shed.

New Zealand Verse

Road Harvest. The roads that run, criss-cross, around the world, Bearing unending loads with endless calm, Bannered with joyous memories unfurled Whose reminiscence brings to tired souls balm: These roads can show a harvest which no farm Or gorgeous garden, snug round its abode, Can grant to gleaners fenced from all alarm; Such may not reap the yield of open road. Bare you must go, small pulse within your scrip. (But, oh! the glories of the moonlit hills.) Light purse—light heart! Sweetness of chance-found lip Shall be your anodyne for worldly ills: Brightness of vagrant eye your unease stills. Joy for the sunshine, fortitude for loads, Patience with well-meant charity that chills: So shall you garner sheaves along the roads. When, toward the journey's end you sit and dream, (See, in the embers how the trails unfold.) Friends shall step down—by bush or hill or stream, Trysted from time-worn tracks—they ne'er grow old. Again with one you feel the Arctic cold, And, with another, watch the crowd that showed Black on the flood-lit streets in days of gold …. Glad gleanings from the harvest of the road.

L'Envoi.

Princess! Come, leave the fatted soul of things, Break with the fetish of the tithings owed.

Taste vagabondage sweet, around which clings Full fragrance of the harvest of the road.

—R. Morant.

* * *

<name type="work" key="name-410628"><hi rend="c">At the Grave of Jessie Mackay</hi></name>. The holiness of lillies is on her breast, The daffodils make glad her feet Where here she lies, The singer, beneath the lark-enraptured skies. She seems to rest, Yet is she not withheld from pilgrimage, Who goes To look upon the last consummate Rose. She sang the valley of Rhona That trembles never to the march of day— Rhona the timeless whose twilight Hears a new voice, whose gray Enfolds the lost, the pilgrim gentleness. Her sleep abides Among the forms of peace, the grass, the trees, For she was one with these In quietness, and the larks, the larks her long Dreaming roof with song. —J. R. Hervey.

* * *

<name type="work" key="name-410629"><hi rend="c">Thought Dying</hi></name>. Suggested by last phrases in Rupert Brooke's hand, quoted in the Memoir by E.N. “Nothing remains,” he wrote, and yet we hear How like spread grain those volumes multiply, Those slender tokens of his empyry Among the dawn-crowned of this latter year. His written canon holds. It need not fear Oblivion's courtesy. He shall not die. In those young hearts that seed shall fructify. Day that he loved to them shall be most dear; But we to whom his legend brings the thought Of other broken shafts, of books unwrit Of senates unaddressed, of suits unfought, Con those authentic phrases all unknit To any fabric, and the breath is caught, As if the Aegean sighed “The waste of it.” —C. R. Allen.

* * *

<name type="work" key="name-410630"><hi rend="c">Awakenings</hi></name>. I heard a quiet tapping on the path, I heard a quiet laugh, I turned to see him smiling on a child, A blind man with his staff. I watched him as he shuffled on his way, The child tossed her head, He could not see her curls, yet heard The pretty thing she said. I wondered at the trust she showed in him, That child who blessed the day, I wondered how that man deprived of sight, Could tell where danger lay. And after they were lost within the crowd, I saw myself anew, I saw then how misfortune and the times When pain had come were few. What right had I to feel depressed and worn, To feel so much in need? What right when one with sightless eyes could laugh? —That sight had sown a seed. —Josephine Rae.

<name type="work" key="name-410631">“The Vigorous Enderbys”<lb/> <hi rend="i">Their Connection with New Zealand</hi> <lb/> II.<lb/> <hi rend="c">Charles Enderby</hi> </name> (By C. H. Gordon .)

(Concluded.)

Samuel Enderby having passed away, the firm became known as Enderby Brothers, and consisted of Charles, Henry, and George Enderby. Charles Enderby was a Fellow of the Royal Society; one of the original members, and for several years a Council Member of the Royal Geographical Society, and a Fellow of the Linnaean Society.

Like his father, Charles Enderby instructed his captains to lose no opportunity for exploration and discovery. Not only were the masters of whaling vessels so directed, but more than once ships were sent out largely, if not wholly for the purpose of discovery.

Discovery in the Antarctic.

Two of the ships so commissioned were the Tula, commanded by John Biscoe, R.N., and a tiny cutter, the Lively, under Captain Avery. In February, 1831, Biscoe, sailing in the Far South discovered the coast which he named Enderby Land. After wintering in New Zealand he again went south, “and continuing his circumnavigation of

(Photo, Thelma R. Kent.) The Leyell Stream, near Kaikoura. the earth at a high latitude, he discovered Graham Land, which although connected with land already known to the sealing community, gave a considerable extension to them. Biscoe earned a high reputation amongst explorers of the Antarctic.”

Also under the auspices of Enderby Brothers, a voyage of great importance was made by John Balleny, master of the schooner Eliza Scott. In 1839 the Eliza Scott, accompanied by the cutter Sabrina, started from New Zealand, and crossing “the Antarctic Circle in longitude 177 E.,” Balleny, unlike former voyagers directed his course to the west instead of the east. He thus discovered Sabrina Land, and a group of islands now known as the Balleny Islands.

These voyages were made at considerable cost to the firm of Enderby Brothers; and the captains and crews of the vessels engaged, suffered hardships so great that Captain Scott—who well knew the Antarctic—describes them as “extraordinary.” “Yet,” he says, “in spite of inconceivable discomforts they struggled on, and it does not appear that any one of them ever turned his course until he was driven to do so by hard necessity.”

As Samuel Enderby had done, so his son Charles urged the speedy colonization of New Zealand as the only way to prevent acts of insubordination on the part of British crews. A further proof of Enderby's wide interests is shown in his being one of the men brought together by Dr. Junius Smith, in 1838, to form the basis of the English and American Steam Navigation Company.

Decline of British Whaling.

About this time, 1838, whale fishing as a British industry began to decline. The Americans seemed to monopolise the trade. According to Bullen, Englishmen had never been really as much at home in whaling as were the Americans, who employed many hundreds of ships in the whale fishery. England now had to buy whale oil, British whalers being unable to supply all that was required.

In 1846, Charles Enderby received from Mr. T. R. Preston a letter written on behalf of several men connected with British shipping interests, who had become alarmed at this decline in the whaling industry, and at the consequent dependence of Britain on foreign nations for whale oil. Believing that on such matters there was no more competent authority than Enderby they asked him to suggest some method of reviving the whaling industry. In response, Enderby laboured to bring about the re-establishment of the British Southern Whale Fishery, and in this he was successful.

In the following year, 1847, he obtained from the Crown a grant of the Auckland Islands, in recognition of their having been discovered by one of his father's captains—Abram Bristow—and also for other services rendered under the firm's auspices in the Far South. Enderby's intention was to make the Auckland Islands a base for the prosecution of whale fishing, and he published a pamphlet stating his reasons for so doing, and also showing the advantages that the islands offered to settlers. In proof of his faith in the enterprise, he purposed going himself to superintend the establishing of the settlement. “I proceed to the colony,” he said, “with the full support of Her Majesty's Government, and the assurance from the Admiralty that a vessel of war will visit the islands once in every month. The interests of the general body of the settlers, will, therefore, be amply protected.” It was proposed to use, not the usual expensive ships of large tonnage, but vessels suitable for bringing the oil from the whaling grounds to the base at Auckland Islands, from whence it would be re-shipped to England or elsewhere in other vessels “freighted for the purpose in adjacent colonies.” Thus there would always be ships on the whaling grounds, or else returning from thence with produce to the station; “always supplies of oil awaiting shipment to England, and always full cargoes on the way thither.” Already the islands were much frequented by whaling vessels for purposes of refitting and when waiting for the season to begin.

Though of quite secondary importance, colonization of the islands was expected to proceed along with the establishment of the whaling station; but it would be a whaling colony, the land being cultivated to supply its needs. Such, in brief, was Charles Enderby's plan.

In general, Enderby's proposition met with approval; it was also adversely criticised. A writer in the London Times of November 1848, strongly condemned

(Rly. Publicity photo.) Lake Gunn, South Island. the Auckland Islands as a site for a whaling station, Otago being suggested as a much better situation. Enderby was referred to sarcastically as “Lord of the Auckland Isles.”

The Times, in commenting on this letter, said that Mr. Enderby had been offered facilities for carrying out his scheme, in Australia, Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand; and it was only a belief in the peculiar fitness of the Auckland Islands which had led to their being chosen. In view of subsequent events, it should be noted that Charles Enderby had been influenced by the opinion of important men who had visited the islands, particularly by that of Sir James Clark Ross, who, in 1840, stayed there for three weeks. Ross, in speaking of Enderby's proposal, said: “In the whole range of the vast Southern Ocean, no spot could be found combining so completely the essential requirements of a whaling station.”

Pending the finalisation of the Auckland Island scheme, Enderby wrote to Sir Henry Pelly—Governor of the Hudson Bay Company—suggesting that Vancouver Island should be made a branch station for the whaling ships from Auckland Island. If this plan were effected, the colonization of Vancouver Island would be assured. Furthermore, a British possession would reap the advantages attendant on the visits of whaling ships; some of which might be employed in trading to India, China, Japan and other places in the Pacific Ocean, thus extending British commerce, as also connecting British interests in those seas.

The Enderby Brothers handed over their grant of the Auckland Islands to the British Southern Whale Fishery Company, and as Charles Enderby had been appointed Lieutenant Governor of the islands, the company deputed him to act as their commissioner there. By about the middle of 1849, arrangements for launching the enterprise were completed. Prior to his departure from England a public dinner was held in Enderby's honour, many men of note being present.

Founding of the Whaling Settlement.

In August, 1849, the first ships left England to found the whaling colony at Auckland Island, bringing with them the Lieutenant Governor, medical men, clerks, a surveyor, a storekeeper, bricklayers, masons, agriculturalists and labourers; with sixteen women and fourteen children. Arriving at their destination in the following December, work was at once commenced. A twelve-roomed house provided for Enderby by the company, was set up; also about twenty-five other houses, and a store. In due time whaling operations were begun.

The settlement had been established for some ten months when Enderby wrote to Earl Grey, stating that all on the island (seventy-two in number, irrespective of seamen) were enjoying good health. The fact that in June gooseberry and currant plants, brought from Hobart Town, were coming into leaf, showed that the season had not been as rigorous as had been expected. This letter was written from Wellington, whither business had brought the Commissioner.

In June of the following year Enderby wrote to the Directors of the Southern Whale Fishery Company, telling them that it was his intention to embark on the Black Dog for New Zealand, one object of the visit being to confer with the Bishop on the subject of engaging a clergyman to reside as Chaplain at Port Ross; and also to obtain a medical man who would assist him (Enderby) as secretary in place of Mr. King, who had resigned. The Commissioner also stated that twelve persons were about to leave the islands, the number remaining would be ninety-five, and to provide animal food for these would require twelve sheep weekly. While in New Zealand he would try to buy 300 sheep; failing to do this on reasonable terms, he would proceed to Two Fold Bay, on the east coast of New Holland.

Enderby arrived at Auckland, New Zealand, on the 29th of August, sailing later for Australia, where he secured the sheep and also such stores as he deemed necessary. He left Sydney for Port Ross on 16th October.

Possibly, Enderby's ideas of the amount of stores necessary for the small colony, were extravagant. Dr. Dakin mentions that in looking through some old letters of Robert Towns—a Sydney shipowner, and also a kind of agent for the London Company—he noted that Towns expressed surprise at the quantities of stores ordered, stating that he couldn't “think of sending a tithe of the order.”

Failure of the Colony.

The Directors of the Company were dissatisfied with the reports of matters concerning the settlement, and decided to send Mr. George Dundas, a director, and Mr. T. R. Preston, secretary of the Company, to visit the Auckland Islands and investigate affairs there. In December, 1851, Dundas and Preston, furnished with full powers to act as special commissioners arrived at Port Ross.

Briefly, as a result of the inquiry,

Enderby resigned his position as chief commissioner to the Company, but he refused to leave his house, considering it to be his residence as Lieutenant Governor. However, the house was the property of the Company, and the Commissioners ordered some of the furniture to be removed from it, and later compelled Enderby to accompany them when they left the island on board the Black Dog. According to Enderby, they threatened to put him in irons if he refused to go with them.

Immediately on the arrival of the Black Dog at Wellington, Enderby brought an action for trespass against Messrs. Dundas and Preston, the case—which occupied three days—being heard before Mr. Justice Stephen. The Welling Independent, after briefly reporting the case, concluded: “The judge ordered that in both cases each party should pay their own costs.”

Enderby appealed to Sir George Grey. Sir George pitied him and showed him much kindness, but felt he had no jurisdiction in Enderby's quarrel with the commissioners.

Later, Enderby wrote to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, seeking redress, but without getting any satisfactory result, as the trouble was entirely between himself and the Company. The Company accused Enderby of mismanagement, while he complained that the mode of managing the Company's affairs and of conducting the fishery had not been carried out according to the plans he had submitted to the public.

Opinion of Otago and Sydney.

The whaling settlement at Auckland Island was a complete failure, a failure which caused great disappointment both at Home and in the Colonies; whaling in the South Seas being considered a trade of national importance. Toward the end of August, 1852, the Earl of Hardwicke arrived at Otago, bringing the remnant of the Southern Whale Fishery's staff, crews, and property, including the Governor's house, which was offered for sale. The Otago Witness contained an article which expressed regret, but not surprise at the abandonment of the settlement. Some portions of Mr. Enderby's plan were considered well worth adopting, but it was a mistake to have chosen the Auckland Islands as a site in order to prevent the desertion of crews; the result had been that the men regarded the island as a prison. Whales were plentiful enough, but the difficulties attending the capture of them were so great, owing to the boisterous weather, that scarcely any oil was obtained.

To many people in Sydney the failure of the scheme brought no surprise; the site being considered bad, and the attempt to colonize—folly. It was said that £30,000 had been spent on buildings and improvements at Port Ross, whereas, had Port Jackson, Newcastle, or Port Stephen been chosen as the whaling base, no more than £2,000 need have been expended on the erection of a store and dwellings for the labourers.

Also instead of a Chief Commissioner, who as Lieutenant-Governor, required a staff, the seven or eight ships employed could have been managed by any Sydney merchant with the help of an extra clerk. Never again would the Southern Whale Fishery be likely to form a base south of Otago.

Final View of the Colony.

The evacuation of the settlement was carried out under the supervision of the H.M.S. Fantome, anchored at Port Ross. R. E. Malone—an officer on board the Fantome—wrote an account of affairs in connection with the Company, which, he said, had been misled and had lost heavily. Apparently, Enderby had at least not over-rated the health of the colonists, for, according to Malone, though for the greater part of the year the weather was wet and windy, yet the colonists presented a thriving appearance; a proof that the climate was healthy. The cattle, too, were in good condition.

In the month of June herbage was springing up in all directions, but it grew only to be stunted by the wind. The farms were failures, nothing growing to any size—the turnips resembled miserable radishes.

(Photo. Capt. J. C. Mercer) An aerial view of Broken River and the Midland Line, Canterbury, South Island. Malone also notes that three horses, brought to the islands from Sydney, had been useless owing to the swampy nature of the ground.

There had been discontent among the seamen on the whalers. Shortly after the Fantôme's arrival at the islands, the Hardwicke returned from a four months’ cruise, with hardly any whale oil, and the ship's company in a deplorable state from rebellion, sickness, and shortage of food. The captain said he had been for three weeks beating off the island, unable to get to the anchorage.

From all accounts, Charles Enderby was not fitted for the task of governing a colony, planning its food supply, and managing a whaling station. Like many another enterprise, the Southern Whale Fishery colony at Auckland Island failed, chiefly through miscalculation.

Not amid the gloom of failure, but rather with the light of achievement shining on him, would one take leave of Charles Enderby—the man of whom “Scott of the Antarctic” wrote: “To the disinterested exertions of Mr. Charles Enderby and to the zeal of his officers was due the discovery of Graham Land, Enderby Land, Sabrina Land, Kemp Land, and the Balleny Islands.”

All honour to “The Vigorous Enderbys.”

<name type="work" key="name-410632"> <hi rend="i">Excursions into Beauty</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">Milford Sounds</hi> </name> (By Michael Conway )

To all of us … perhaps as we smoke our placid pipe in front of the fire … perhaps as we gaze wistfully from the office window on a sunny afternoon … comes that relentless urge … that irrepressible desire … to see what lies just around the corner … beyond the horizon. There seems to be in the mind of every New Zealander the feeling that “the grass is always greener in the other fellow's yard” … a feeling that we must look far afield to discover beauty and the peace of mind that comes with it. So it is, at some time or another, every New Zealander turns his back on his homeland and journeys to far lands, always searching … always seeking that indefinable something … the beauty of Nature. But just as surely so do they return, satiated but unsatisfied, to find that what they sought lies where it always was … at home.

This wanderlust has led the restless feet of New Zealanders to the four corners of the world. To sunny California … to the depths of darkest Africa … to the simple beauty of Killarney. Let us take you in imagination to one of the beauty spots of the world … the Norwegian Fiords, with the majestic grandeur of their scenery and the simple philosophy of their peasants. Here we are at the head of one of the beautiful Norwegian Fiords. Softly across the now placid waters comes music. It is late evening and in the twilight Norwegian girls perform one of their folk dances. Gracefully they move on the patch of green in front of the little farm. On the shore, leaning idly against one of the little fishing boats are two men … the elder drawing placidly at the pipe, obviously a resident, the younger … keen and interested … just as obviously a visitor. Let us linger a while. The visitor is drinking in this scene of placid beauty.

It is a far cry from the majestic splendour of the Norwegian Fiords to our own little country. Have we anything at home to compare with their rugged grandeur? What can we offer the disciple at the Fount of Beauty.

Come with me to our own Fiordland … Milford Sounds. We could, of course, take one of the steamer excursions to this most beautiful of spots, but let us on this occasion approach from the other side … let us drink in the beauty of the Milford Track slowly, until at last we reach the champagne

(Thelma R. Kent, photo.) In the Rees Valley at the head of Lake Wakatipu, South Island, New Zealand. of it all … Milford Sounds themselves. From Dunedin a service car takes us to Lake Te Anau, in itself a thing of placid beauty, where we stay the night. Early in the morning a launch leaves Te Anau for Glade House, the forty-odd miles of lake voyage slipping behind us pleasantly in three and one half hours. Here in this bush-land beauty we feel we could stay forever, but we must continue … . always seeking. We set our questing feet in the wondrous Clinton Canyon. Under towering beech trees lies the pathway … soft with fallen leaves. Always with us is the pleasant music of the murmuring river, and here and there we catch a glimpse of its surpassing beauty. Soon we reach the saddle of the McKinnon Pass, its precipitous peaks standing sentinel-like in majestic grandeur. Onward we walk, and suddenly as we round a bend in the bush we see the Pompolona Huts. We are home, for to-night, and a cheery meal awaits us. Another day … and off we set for Quinton Huts. The heavy bush of yesterday becomes groves of ribbonwood and the track becomes more undulating. Suddenly we conquer McKinnon's Pass and before us lies Lake Ella reflecting the surrounding peaks in its placid waters. We lunch in Nature's beautiful dining-rooms and then once more onwards … ever onwards, until in mid-afternoon we reach Quinton Huts, still in our minds the picture of a rock cairn standing on the edge of Lake Ella … a monument erected to the memory of Quinton McKinnon, a man who sought beauty and found it … here. We rest a while and then stroll gently along the mile that leads to the brightest gem of all … the Sutherland Falls … a necklace of sheer beauty with three strings. These majestic Falls, the highest in the world, fall in three leaps, the top one 815 feet, the middle 751 and the lower 338 feet. Truly has Nature painted a scene of everlasting beauty. We return to Quinton Huts with a feeling of humility … a feeling of dissatisfaction at Man's puny efforts to emulate Nature. The third day from Quinton to Milford Sounds is easy going. We follow the valley on the banks of the Arthur River. We wander pleasantly among native forest, dwarfed on either side by mighty mountains. The river is now broad and deep, and wonderful vistas open before us as we journey. Ahead, and to the right, the Sheerdown Range lifts its majestic head to a height of four thousand feet, its turretted heights impressing us with the suitability of its name. We press steadily on through scenes of ever changing beauty until we arrive at the Arthur Falls … the end of the actual walk. There a launch awaits to take us the remaining two miles to the hotel at the head of Milford Sound. We have arrived at a home which offers us the comfort of a city but the beauty that only Nature in its most glorious moments can design. Here, actually at Milford, are beauty spots innumerable. The majesty of Mitre Peak, Monarch of Milford … the thread-like beauty of Stirling Falls. There are walks and launch trips … excursions into beauty. We feel that we could stay forever in this haven of rest and beauty, but Time relentlessly calls us back to the smoke and bustle of the city. We start on the return journey feeling that we shall return … we must return. There are other sights to see, other paths to follow. But they will keep for another day. And so we leave, feeling that when we return … soon we hope … the beauty of Milford will greet us again … fresh and undimmed.

(Thelma R. Kent, photo.) Looking up to Eros Saddle, from Arawata Valley, South Island.

A little fancy bowl of snuff exhibited in the window of a city tobacconist the other day in Auckland attracted some attention. Snuffing has so long been out of date it is hard to realise that in days gone by it was as popular as smoking is now. Will smoking ever go out of date? Well, there seems small likelihood of that for every year shows an increased consumption all the world over of “the soothing weed.” Formerly all the tobacco consumed in New Zealand had to be imported. But the coming of “toasted” has altered all that, and at the present time the heavy demand for the five renowned toasted blends, Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Cavendish, Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold is a tribute to the success achieved by the manufacturers in producing tobacco not only of the choicest quality, flavour and bouquet, but comparatively harmless owing to the elimination of most of its nicotine by the unique toasting process employed. There are no better or purer tobaccos manufactured than those enumerated.*

<name type="work" key="name-410633">Lost to Te Reinga</name> (By Mona Shakespeare)

Far away in the Urewera Country TeIa Herewini sat idly dreaming. Some day, her father had once told her, long trains would come rushing past with sirens ablow! heralding their approach and bringing many pakeha people into their environs.

Time had rolled on, but no foot of white man had ventured near, nor had trains been seen nor heard there.

Never either, had TeIa been permitted to venture beyond the interior of the Urewera Country; should she do so, the Tohunga told her, her soul would seek to find Te Reinga in vain.

This prophesy so possessed TeIa's superstitious Maori mind that never had she dared try to satisfy her desire to seek the pakeha people's country, which lay beyond the surrounding hills. One time, so her people told her, it had all belonged to the Maori people, but from far away beyond. Te Moana, and where the rays of Ra fell, and Rangi, the sky father shed coloured lights, the pakeha people had come upon great White-winged Birds, and taken their land from them. Eventually they had become brothers with the Maori, and together they had ultimately settled down in perfect harmony.

All this information TeIa had eagerly devoured.

Since then, her desire to see the part of the world where dwelt the pakeha increased. Far away up in the place where Rangi dwelt, daily now TeIa saw huge birds fly past. One Maori, Apanui Whititi by name, had recently ventured far into the pakeha people's land and returned bringing glowing tales of the world beyond their own hill-encircled environs. The great birds which daily flew overhead, he told TeIa, were known as “aeroplanes” and carried people upon their backs to other places.

TeIa's eyes widened as she listened. How she ached to see all these wonderful things for herself, but the warning of the Tohunga held her back still. She confided her fears to Apanui.

Scornfully he laughed, saying: “He mahi miharo te mahi a te pakeha,”—translated this meant that the work of the White Man was wonderful, and he went on to tell her how they would not believe such superstitions as the Maori people held, and assured her that she had no need to fear the threats of the Tohunga.

“Go,” said Apanui, speaking in his native tongue, “Haere ra! kia ora!” (depart in peace, good luck!)

TeIa answered: “E kore ahau e moe akuanei i te mataku” (I shall not sleep to-night through fear).

“Nonsense, TeIa,” Apanui retaliated, still in Maori.

“Take this opportunity and go in the morning before our people awake. Be brave, and have the courage of your ancestors in your heart, for you are a true rangatira (chieftainess).”

Dawning! and Rangi the sky father had shed silvery light along the hill-tops.

TeIa found Apanui waiting in readiness for her as she made her way to where they had arranged to meet, and together they made their way towards the White Man's territory.

Beautiful as the night when Marama shone softly, was TeIa Herewini. Graceful as the fleeting deer which roamed in her native bush. Soft Maori-brown eyes had she—deep, like the still pools whereby the mamaku drooped, and the tui and weka came to quench their thirst at twilight ere the taniwha moved abroad.

Leaving her at long last at the edge of one of these pools, and indicating the

(Photo. J. Cowdrey) Lake Taupo, North Island, New Zealand. path which TeIa must traverse next morning, Apanui left her with a message of goodwill, and added: “Hoki mai ra!” (come back to us!), then with a final wave from the far hill-top, he disappeared into the bush on the return journey.

TeIa, thoroughly exhausted after her long trek over mile after mile of rugged country, sank down, and drawing her woven costume around her, she soon fell fast asleep, lulled by the waving nikau palms which abounded nearby.

* * *

Breathlessly Larry Hamilton came to a halt after scaling a particularly rugged portion of the Urewera Country. He had penetrated parts which he understood had never previously been penetrated by white man, and was returning full of fresh knowledge. Larry had been born and bred in New Zealand amongst the Maori people, and was consequently a fluent Maori linguist, but until now, he had never explored this part of New Zealand.

He proceeded to make for a clear pool of water which he could see sparkling in the distance as the last rays of the setting sun shone upon it. Imagine his amazement when on arriving at the pool he beheld the figure of a lovely Maori girl asleep on the grass by the water.

Larry stood looking down at her, with his fine eyes expressing his surprise and deep admiration.

There, with her nut-brown arms bare, and her native costume of black and white dyed pingao grass and kiekie wrapped around her, she indeed presented a most picturesque vision to this handsome stranger.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Larry who had already partaken of his light haversack meal, and quenched his thirst, to quietly undo his rug and throw it partly over the sleeping girl, then gathering the rest around himself, he made a pillow of his coat, for he too was dead tired, and there seemed no one else near, then softly, in order not to wake the tired girl, he made himself comfortable, and he too fell asleep under the wide Maori sky.

Stranger indeed is truth than fiction, and TeIa in her dreams that night dreamed of splendid white men whom Apanui had told her made love even as the Maori people did, but their customs were different he had told her.

Larry dreamed, too, that night—dreamed of a lovely wild young thing of nut-brown with hair black like the tui-bird of her native forest, and eyes that opened and beheld him with the startled fright and surprise of the soft-eyed deer that he had so often seen.

TeIa was the first to awake as the first kea flew by in search of prey. Coming to her full senses, sudden realization of where she was came to her, then glancing at the man by her side and the rug over herself, she sprang to her feet with an exclamation of fright.

The man awoke!

“Tena koe!” he said with a smile and rose quickly. Then, in fluent Maori he proceeded to explain to TeIa how he came to be there and how he had found her asleep, and gradually her fear left her and she smiled, showing teeth that shone like the paua shell, charming the man. Her voice, too, was musical and low as she answered him in Maori.

Presently, reaching for his knapsack, Larry produced food, saying at the same time in English: “Do you speak the language of the pakeha?”

TeIa shook her head, and in her own tongue said: “I do not know what you are saying. You must be speaking the pakeha tongue.”

Larry nodded and said as he proffered her some food: “Ma maua tetahi kai” (a little food for us two).

Shyly she smiled her appreciation, and helped herself to the food, and in return brought out dried fern-roots and birds from a woven kit of flax.

“Ka pai” (good) Larry said, tasting them for the first time.

“What food is this?” he asked indicating the fern-root.

“E hamu ana matou i te pakakohi” (we are eating fern-root) TeIa replied. Then moving under the shade of a tree she said: “E pakakinakina ana te whiti o te ra” (the shining of the sun is hot).

“Yes,” agreed Larry moving to the shade also, and speaking in the Maori language all the time now, “but you have not yet told me whither you are bound, nor why you are so far from your own people?”

“Do I have to give you an explanation of my actions, pakeha?” asked Tela with some dignity, holding her head erect.

The man thrilled as he beheld her natural pride and a slight colour leapt to his cheeks under the healthy suntan.

“I very much should like to bathe in yonder stream if you will go away, please,” she said simply.

“Go right ahead, and when you have finished I shall have a dip.”

Hurrying down to the stream TeIa unbound her mat and was soon splashing about and bathing like some dusky nymph as she sported in the sparkling water.

She soon finished and dried herself and returned to where Larry lay.

“Your turn now,” she said.

“Good. Do not go away, I shall not be long,” he said.

She smiled.

“I find some more food for my journey now,” she told him, taking her basket and looking about.

When all was in readiness, TeIa looked a little sadly at the pakeha who had come over beside her after his bathe in the stream, and shyly she looked at him saying: “I must go now to Rotorua before darkness overtakes me again.”

(Photo, Thelma R. Kent.) The ferny way over Mt. Messenger, North Island, New Zealand.

“I, too, am making for Rotorua. May I come with you?”

Unmistakable pleasure showed on her lovely face as she answered: “Oh! Yes I should be glad of your company for I am alone as you see.”

“Fine, then let us go now, eh?” Larry said, swinging his rucksack over his shoulder and falling into stride beside TeIa. Many more miles were traversed and by mid-day they came to their destination—Rotorua!

No one took much notice of the beautiful Maori girl in her native garb walking along beside the sun-tanned tourist. Maori guides were quite a common sight in Rotorua and no doubt passers-by thought this was just another Maori guide showing a tourist the sights. How surprised they would have been had they known it was vice versa!

TeIa had unfolded all her family history to Larry's listening ears that day as they wended their way over rugged country and through stream and bush, and he had proved a willing and interested listener—drinking in with joy all her quaint Maori charm and conversation, till he was thoroughly enslaved and intrigued by her. He learned that she was an orphan with no one to consult about her actions—hence she had risked the displeasure of the Tohunga, to steal away and see the territory of the pakeha, and Fate, or the powers that be, had made it possible for her to become acquainted with a pakeha at the outset, but her heart grew a little heavy now that Rotorua had been reached, for very soon she felt that she must bid good-bye for ever to this splendid pakeha, who looked a real chief and behaved like one.

How amazed she felt, and how her eyes widened as she beheld houses and people and steaming cliffs and boiling mud pools, and many more new and strange sights as Larry piloted her along.

Some hitherto unknown and strange feeling presently came to her primitive heart, above the glamour of all the scenery, and suddenly TeIa felt that she was going to miss her companion dreadfully when he took his departure and she was entirely alone again.

Looking up at Larry suddenly, very shyly, and as with an effort she asked: “Would it be very immodest for a Maori girl to ask a pakeha man to show her his world, Rari?” (all this still in the Maori language, and she had learnt his name that morning and pronounced it the Maori way).

Looking down at her as she raised her great brown eyes to his, full of trust and sweetness—Larry Hamilton suddenly felt that she was the most desirable thing to him in the world, and as he halted a moment he drew her arm through his with fingers that trembled, and blue eyes gazed into deepest brown as he replied: “It is a little unusual, Tela, but I intended to show you my world if you would allow me to, and” he added boyishly, “I am going to buy you some pretty pakeha girls’ clothes and show you how to put them on, and” he continued, “after that I am going to show you what it is like to eat a real pakeha meal at Rotorua's best hotel—”

“But—Rari—” TeIa interjected.

“Don't interrupt,” he said, not giving her a chance to say any more as he went on—“and then you are going to rest your tired little body in a real pakeha bed there, instead of away out under the stars.”

Sweet wonder was in her eyes as she listened and tried to ask him if this was customary, but still he kept on: “First of all though,” he said we shall just step over the road to that little church there,” and he proceeded to lead TeIa across the street.

“Why do you take me there, Rari?” she asked.

“Well, dear, that man on the steps is called a ‘parson,’ and he and that church are the only entrance to the world I intend to show you,” he said as he opened the gate and led her in.

* * *

Far away in the Urewera Country, the Tohunga told his people that the soul of TeIa was lost to Te Reinga! (the Maori heaven).

What mattered it? She had found a heaven on earth with her “Rari.”

<name type="work" key="name-410634"> <hi rend="i">Lyttelton—The Gateway to Canterbury</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">An Historic Harbour</hi> </name> (By D. G. Dyne )

A view of Lyttelton in 1863.

How many travellers from the North Island have had their first introduction to the South Island by arriving early on a cold, bleak morning on the deck of the Wahine or Rangatira as she steams alongside the five miles of craggy cliffs (which O. E. Burton has likened in “The Silent Division” to the entrance to Lemnos Harbour of deathless memory), with screaming gulls skimming the wake? The vessel swerves out by the moles, goes into reverse and backs neatly into Lyttelton's inner harbour. Here at the ferry wharf the passengers change from ship to electric train which whirls them off from New Zealand's third largest port, through New Zealand's second longest railway tunnel, which pierces the “fire-fused line of the Port Hills,” and which is the gateway to the far-famed Canterbury Plains.

And how few have appreciated or even observed the charm and rugged beauty of this historic port and harbour.

Even “Robin Hyde,” in “Passport to Hell,” when telling of the escape of the immortal Starkie over the hills from the Kittewa, describes Lyttelton as “a disconsolate hill-slope of blackened houses, inhabited only by officials who can afford to live nowhere else.” Were she to see the bathers at sparkling Corsair Bay and the white sails of the Lyttelton yachts gliding on the azure bosom of the waters of the Raupo Harbour, as the Maoris called it, in the golden summer months, perchance her opinions would be less harsh.

Rugged they are, these great hills, once the crater rim of a mighty volcano, yet when they are covered with a mantle of pure white snow arising from a still sea as calm as if frozen, with tiny ships creeping along the wide sea lane below to the haven of port, they stand as calm and solid, as eternal and uncaring of the works of Man as the Sphinx. And indeed the toes of Mount Herbert are not unlike the toes of the carven riddle of the sands.

In the changing lights of evening the green slopes turn yellow and grey, as flat and unreal as the stage scenery of a pseudo-epic play, yet with a beauty that must be seen to be believed or even imagined. And when the cold winds of winter whip the ruflled surface of the sea into tossing waves, and white spray dashes itself against the rocky cliffs, the snow-white ethereal clouds pour down over the hill-tops as they are forced down by wind-streams, into the hollows and valleys to hang like a mantle of snow covering the peaks and hillsides with a fascinating and entrancing beauty all its own.

Through this portal of the plains the whole cavalcade of Canterbury's history has passed. The scrubby bush has vanished before the invasion of houses, streets, foundries, shops and oil-tanks of the busy port, yet the hills themselves are unchanged since the far-off days when the white sails of the little barque Charlotte Jane (aboard which Fitzgerald wrote his “Night-watch Song of the Charlotte Jane” on the self-same voyage) appeared around Officers’ Point, the first of the first four ships, bringing to the tiny British settlement a cargo of picked settlers to found here in the Antipodes a newer England free from poverty, class strife and hide-bound tradition, a modern Utopia.

To this very day on the 16th December, Canterbury Anniversary Day, as great modern 10,000 to 20,000 ton overseas liners glide into port throbbing with the power of their great motors, the quaint little castle-like signal station on the point flies the original signal, “Barque sighted, Charlotte Jane.”

In the quiet evening when the inner harbour is as calm and unruffled as a mirror reflecting all the myriad lights of town and wharves and shipping, the inter-island steamer express glides out between the red and green port lights at the end of the moles, all her portholes and masts gleaming with lights in the surrounding darkness, and turns, bound for the open sea, the living link of empire connecting the South with the Capital City and the North.

Perhaps the fact of being able to see all of the port and town from almost any one of the houses on the hillsides—the great cranes on the wharves loading grain and wool and produce from the Plains for ships to carry to half the countries of the earth, and the scene of the ships entering and leaving port down there before your eyes—adds a greater interest to the scene.

Rly. Publicity photo.) Akaroa Harbour (South Island) as seen from the Hill Top.

Upon that trig-topped peak behind the town a scene of the wild times of old Maoridom was enacted long years ago when the victorious Maoris from the little pa Rapaki, still extant further up the harbour, defeated the local tribe in battle down there where the wharves now stretch into the sea, and placed a basket of their severed heads upon this Place of the Basket of Heads as an offering to their goddess Kahukura.

The streets of the port were named after English bishoprics, Canterbury being then solely Church of England; Norwich Quay, Canterbury, Ripon, Exeter, London, Winchester and Oxford Streets. The celebrated track, the Bridle Path, which crosses the hills behind the town was made for the Canterbury Pilgrims to reach their future homes on the wide plains on the other side of the hill. Over this Path between 1899 and 1902 rode the Canterbury mounted riflemen of the New Zealand Contingents to ship for the South African veldt, and that worthy foeman, the brave Boer.

Scott and Shackleton both called in here on their way to the frozen South. Down at the wharf to-day lies the old sailer Raupo, which once had for mate Lt.-Commander Sanders, V.C., New Zealand's mystery-ship hero of the North Sea. This old sailer was destined to go the way of the old Kuku, Cygnet and Calm.

Around the road to Sumner are the remains of the old barracks, rifle ranges and gun emplacements, relics of the Russian scare of the Eighties. Across the harbour other parts of the fortification scheme known as Fort Jervois still stand. There is a perfect little concrete diamond of a fort called Ripa Island. Here in 1917 Count von Luckner, the Sea Devil, sojourned as a prisoner of the Government after his ill-starred attempt to escape from Motuihi Island, Auckland.

Quail Island, the island in the centre of the harbour which can be reached by land at low tide, saw less happy days as a leper station. It is now a picnic resort.

Just past the library up the Sumner Road stands Godley's old house, still occupied, but soon to be demolished.

The old Lyttelton gaol has gone, but parts of its white stone walls still stand, though its inhabitants have changed from uniformed warders and slouching prisoners to children at play in their school grounds.

The butchers here deliver their wares on horseback, which is still the best mode of transport along some of these steep, narrow hillside streets. Some of these little gabled houses were built in the Sixties, or before, of lasting hardwood timbers, though many were gutted in the disastrous fire of 1870, which wiped out the entire heart of the town.

Perhaps the most poignant of all Lyttelton's tales is that of the dredge Manchester, which steamed out with many local men aboard, en route for Australia, and after passing Cook Strait was never heard of again, a tragedy then, a legend, perhaps, in the years to come.

The port also has her quota of famous sons. Billy Webb, one-time world champion sculler, William Pember Reeves, New Zealand writer and legislator, and Dalley, the 1924 All Black were “local boys,” as were “Curly” Page, captain of the New Zealand cricket team which last toured England, Cecil Matthews, British Empire running champion and Olympic competer, and a former Prime Minister, Mr. G. W. Forbes. And in the New Zealand yachting world Lyttelton yachtsmen stand second to none in their sport and their far-famed hospitality.

<name type="work" key="name-410635"><hi rend="i">The English Scene</hi><lb/> Kent and the World's Smallest Railway</name> (By F. A. Hornibrook )

(London)

Miniature Canadian type locomotive as used on the world's smallest railway.

If New Zealand visitors, finishing up their holiday in London, could arrange to spend the last week quietly in Kent (which is comparatively near London), they would find it one of the most beautiful counties in England—full of historic interest, enchanting scenery and a place where they would find the necessary peace and relaxation enabling them to start for home with nerves thoroughly rested and many pleasant memories to carry back. Kent offers much to interest the visitor.

First there is Canterbury Cathedral, one of the finest in the world—ideally situated—and with its peaceful cloisters, sculpture, and fine windows is almost unrivalled from an architectural view-point. The town itself, except for the presence of motor cars, looks much as it did a hundred years ago; and the surrounding country (rich farmland) is a treat to eyes tired from looking mostly in shop windows.

A few miles away is the seaside town of Deal, where Julius Caesar landed in 55 B.C., and opposite are the Goodwin Sands (plainly visible at low tide) and the famous Downs, through which about 20,000 vessels are said to pass in the course of a year. Deal is also known as the birth-place of the finest boatmen and the pluckiest life-boatmen in the world. Deal Castle, built by Henry VIII, is also a place of interest as it formed one of the chain of smaller coast defence castles.

Hythe, quite near, is famous for its Church of Skulls, under which, during excavations made years ago, hundreds of skeletons were discovered. These bones are now placed in the crypt where may be seen a wall of thigh bones some five feet high and over thirty feet long, while hundreds and hundreds of skulls in rows on shelves decorate the walls, making a gruesome but interesting exhibit.

New Romney, on the south east coast, comes next and is also worth visiting.

To anybody particularly interested in railways, the Romney, Hythe and Dym-church Railway is unique. This public

Pullman coaches at Hythe Station, Romney Hythe Dymchurch Railway. railway stands alone because it has the smallest useful gauge, sometimes termed the “minimum gauge,” of 15 inches, and, as the guide book says, it is attractive because its Lilliputian accessories are, as far as is practical, exact replica of a full-size railway system. At the same time it is no mere toy, for it is capable of carrying thousands of passengers per day, and tons of general commodities. The railway is also unique in that it is practically owned by one man—Captain Howey, who was always an enthusiast in things mechanical. He built the railway out of his own resources, supervising every detail of its construction. The Company is controlled by Directors and Share-holders, and is as strictly supervised as any large railway undertaking in the country. It is, nevertheless, the outcome of one man's enterprise and energy.

The railway, laid with a double track, runs from Hythe, through Romney Marshes to Dungeness. The miniature engines are just as orthodox in design

Typical scenes on the world's smallest railway. and construction as the monster locomotives which haul the trains to Scotland.

The line was commenced in 1920 and opened to public traffic in 1927. There are seven locomotives in use, five of which are the express type, designed on the lines of the engines of the London and North Eastern Railway. The carriages are most comfortable, each compartment accommodating four passengers. In the summer months some open carriages are used, and prove popular. Between Hythe and Dungeness (fifteen miles) there are no hills to negotiate, a fact which simplifies the operation of the line.

The main depot, offices, a machine shop, forges, power house, accumulator, and other accessories are situated at New Romney, where also is a locomotive shed, eighty feet by twenty-one feet and capable of housing nine locomotives.

For the further enlightenment of New Zealand railwaymen, I should like to mention that the rails used are 24 lbs. per yard British Standard flat bottomed section, spiked to 9 ins. by 4 1/2 ins., Baltic fir creosoted sleepers 3 ft. long placed at about 22 ins. centres—six spikes per sleeper and eight at rail joints. Points are either on an eight (125 ft. radius) or on a nine (150 ft. radius). The signal boxes are interlocked with standard tappet and tappet lever interlocking. New Romney and Hythe signal boxes have seventeen levers. At Romney Hythe and also at Dymchurch, there are three turntables each thirty feet long.

The small locomotives used on this railway can haul a train containing 300 passengers at 25 miles an hour on grades up to 1 in a 100. But this speed has been exceeded to more than 30 miles an hour on many occasions. It is also of interest to note that the total staff employed on this little railway number about thirty members. The terminus of the railway is at Dungeness, where is to be found one of the finest lighthouses on the coast.

Less than twelve miles from Hythe is the quaint old city of Dover. It is not a watering place in the accepted sense, but really a shipping port, and about nine miles behind the town are three coal mines employing over 6,000 miners. From the pit-head of one of

these mines a very ingenious arrangement is worked to convey coal right to the vessel to be loaded. It consists of a double chain of overhead buckets seven miles long.

Dover Castle, probably one of the most historic spots in England is a magnificent pile standing right up on a hill. The complete history of this castle which has sustained many sieges, has yet to be written, for although existing records take us back to 55 B.C., it is known that it dates back earlier than this.

In the castle also can be seen the Church of St. Mary, dating back to the 4th century. The walls of the Keep are 83 ft. high and from the top (469 ft. above sea level) one of the most wonderful views in England can be obtained.

If one desires something gayer and more fashionable, one may visit Folke-stone, about six mile away. It is much more prosperous, but not so quiet or restful. An endless stream of buses takes one all over the county, in most parts of which fruit and flowers are grown in profusion. It is probably for the latter reason that Kent is known as “the garden of England.”

If a visitor from New Zealand ended his holiday as I have suggested, instead of feeling wearied by the endless traffic noise and crowds of London he would carry home with him an imperishable picture of the real England, its beautiful countryside, and its towns and villages.

(I am indebted to Captain Howey for the technical details in connection with the railway and for the photographs which accompany this article.—F.A.H.)

A Tapu Isle Of Birds

(Continued from page 21.)

bino parent of this feathered piebald—the Spanish “pinto” would sound better—was still alive, and very fine and healthy. He saw it, as was the usual way, on a shiny night of full moon.

Life with Hauturu's birds was full of such almost faerie touches. There were strange and lovely intimacies with nature. The wood-pigeon, the kukupa, so lost its shyness that it joined the other berry-eaters on the trees around the house. “One can almost catch them with the hand,” said Nelson. He went out to the garden barefooted one night. A kiwi came up to him and rested its long beak on his foot. Nelson half-expected it to give him a jab with that sharp beak, but Mr. Apteryx was merely satisfying his curiosity in the course of his worm-digging.

The Fairy Tiora.

The stitchbird and the saddleback, birds which have quite vanished from the mainland, have a congenial home on Hauturu. They are only seen in the heart of the bush. The saddleback (tieke) was introduced from that even more secluded isle, the Hen, or Taranga. A Nelson diary item: “On one of the ridges I saw a very pretty stitchbird (tiora), a male. He was the most handsome of his kind I have ever seen.” Another time: “I saw a pair of beautiful stitchbirds on one of the ridges.” Again: “In one of the gullies, and near it in rough country, I saw fifteen stitchbirds, in pairs and small parties. They were all very tame, and sat preening their feathers quite close to me.”

“Kou-Kou!”

In this magic-belted isle of bird-song, every creature of the forest strives to chant “Creation's music.” Even the doleful owl must add his call to the universal chorus of joy and gladness. One evening, while the sun was still shining, and the bellbird and tui and other birds were singing cheerily in the trees near the house, the custodian was amazed to hear a morepork joining in the general song. Old Ruru sat sombrely on a branch by himself, the Ishmael of the bush, but he could not resist the urge to utter his “kou-kou, kia toa” as the Maoris have it.

A tuatara lizard was found living in a rocky retreat near the west landing. It was christened “Jim.” The old fellow used to come out when he was called to be fed, and submitted to being picked up and stroked. One would imagine this spiny creature about the least promising subject for petting, but on enchanted Hauturu all living things seem responsive to the magic call of aroha.

* * *

Men come and go, generations pass, but always let us hope the dawn music of bellbird and tui will ring on Hauturu:

“Mighty songs that miss decay; What are they? Crowds and cities pass away Like a day. Books are out and books are read; What are they? Years will lay them with the dead— Sigh, sigh; Trifles unto nothing wed, They die.”

But the Maori birds will chant “Song's Eternity” after we have gone. The writer of those lines, that most exquisite of nature-singers, John Clare, the Northamptonshire peasant, who found such joy in the bluecap's “tootle, tootle, tootle-tee,” might have been uplifted to even sweeter flights had he heard a dawn-time concert of tui and korimako in the forest-fringe, where the birds “sing Creation's music on” in rhythm with the sea on surf-washed Hauturu.

<name type="work" key="name-410636">Among the Books<lb/> A Literary Page or Two</name> (By “Shibli Bagarag.”)

The music of words, the ripple of neat phrase, the symphony of a nicely-balanced sentence, all these things to delight the literary mind and ear you will find in “Remembering Things,” a collection of essays by J. H. E. Schroder, of the Christchurch “Press,” and published recently by Dent's.

Very few books have come from New Zealanders that may be described as real literature. Mr. Schroder's book may be added to the small company which will be distinguished by its advent. Just as Australia is proud of its Walter Murdoch so we in New Zealand are proud of our Schroder. I will even run the risk of offending our most loyal New Zealand literary enthusiasts when I say that not all of the essays in this book are 100 per cent. For instance, the first essay on the Otira Tunnel left me with somewhat of the feelings of a critic at a show. The critic anticipates from the first turn that the next must be ever so much better. Even so, I must confess that it was only when I came to the third essay, “On The Decline and Fall of the Straw Hat,” that I commenced to sit back and really enjoy myself. “A man I know buys a straw hat every spring. Summer gradually toasts it to a rich brown, and in the late Autumn he puts it tenderly away. Its colour as it deepens, is to him as beautifully and as sadly symbolic of Summer's lapsing into age and death as the deepening gold, red and brown of the trees.” Ah, yes—there is a delicate measure of words here—a touch of Leonard Merrick in sentiment, of Norman Douglas in cultured regret. However, as I have a sentimental regard for straw hats I thought my feelings might have led me to over enthusiasm. It was when I came to the essay “On Not Carrying a Watch,” that I was really drawn into

the Schroder literary net—a net that holds, although it is so delicately meshed. I am a watch carrying fiend, and in spite of the arguments of Mr. Schroder, so suavely and shrewdly advanced, I will remain one, because the balance, precision, timing and workmanship of this essay reminded me so forcibly of one of those perfect levers our

Ex-Libris Violet Wakelin The book-plate designed by W. A. Percy, for Mrs. Violet Wakelin, Hon. Secretary of the New Zealand Ex-Libris Society. grandfathers used to carry in the good old days. So I could go on dwelling on the thoughts of our elegant essayist but, in the words of one of the best essays in the collection, I must “Draw It Mild.” I must have some space left for other reviews and paragraphs. Even so I have given Mr. Schroder much more space than I usually devote to any one book. But he deserves it.

* * *

The New Zealand Department of Tourist and Publicity is to be congratulated on the artistic excellence of its advance brochure in connection with the Dominion's centennial. Of quarto size and printed in colour and sepia on heavy art paper the brochure tells in a most readable way the history and development of the Dominion and shows its proud position to-day. It is an all-New Zealand production with Mr. Arthur Messenger as designer and editor, the Government Printing Office as printer, and New Zealand artists and photographers as makers of the illustrations. The fine colour pictures are the work of Oriwa Haddon, a brilliant young Maori artist, Arthur Messenger, M. A. Poulton, and F. O. Bianchi.

* * *

S. Elliott Napier, the Australian writer, who visited these parts recently in search of health, is a friendly fellow though he is so frail of body that at times one fears he may fade away completely. I have the feeling that the only thing that keeps him attached to life is a sense of humour. His smile, when it appears, would do credit to a fourteen stone optimist with a rich credit in health and monetary savings. Elliott Napier is a most versatile writer. He has written stories, travel books, essays and verse. I did not know of the last-mentioned accomplishment until I was the recipient after his return to Australia of a volume of his poems, “Underneath the Bough,” published about a year ago in Sydney. It is a collection covering forty years of contributions to English and Australian publications. Because of its simplicity and sincerity the poems appealed to me greatly. While I remembered the smile that shone from him in New Zealand, I was surprised, however, to find a sombre, sometimes cynical note in a number of his poems. However, there are by way of a contrast many beautiful poems appreciative of friendship, of Nature and of books.

* * *

There are many fine poems in Douglas Stewart's latest collection, “The White Cry,” recently published by Dent's, but there is one that for sheer

beauty outshines all the others. It is entitled “To Be Cut In Stone” (In Memory of J.L.S.) and is as follows:—

This lady carried a moon within her breast, And the white dreaming holiness of waters Sighed in towards her out of all men's hearts. When she grew old her hands and hair were moonlight, And like her undying sister of the sky Through cloud and wind she shone the tenderer, Silvering with beauty the dark tide of the world. Therefore, when the moon rises, remember her.

* * *

Reviews.

“Collected Essays,” by Walter Murdoch (Angus & Robertson, Sydney), will be welcomed by hundreds of admirers of Australia's delightful essayist. For the last eight or nine years Professor Murdoch has been an assiduous writer of essays and they have been collected from time to time and published under titles familiar to many of us, “Speaking Personally,” “Saturday Mornings,” “Lucid Intervals,” etc. These volumes have had a splendid sale, so much so that Angus & Robertson conceived the ambitious idea of publishing an omnibus of them all. And for a literary holiday what more pleasant omnibus wherein to be a passenger. Some of the company is delightfully familiar—“The Bloke” (full of humour and engaging philosophy), “On Whiskers and Eternity” (incidentally a fine tribute to the genius of Jane Austen), and “On Reading In Bed” (which should really be called “On Reading Browne”). Then we met others who at first glance appear to be interesting strangers but whom, after a few words have been exchanged, are also old friends. Then there are some real strangers (because we may not

have read and remembered all of Murdoch's 150 essays), and they are really excellent people to meet; all elegant, interesting folk—the people of the cultured mind of Professor Murdoch, Australia's notable man of letters. This is a substantial, splendidly produced volume of over 700 pages and it deserves, and I know it will receive, a grand reception.

* * *

“Titans of the Barrier Reef” by Norman W. Caldwell (Angus & Robertson, Sydney) is a fine big volume of further adventures of a famous Australian shark fisherman. This writer first attracted wide attention with his “Fangs of the Sea.” His latest book is no desperate attempt to “bulk up” a new volume on the strength of the first success. It is quite interesting and in many ways as full of excitement as the first book. Mere mention of the Barrier Reef conjures up exciting pictures of mammoth fish, but with Norman Caldwell as guide we meet many of the top-liners. Also he shows himself not only a fine fisherman but a graphic writer. In the latter respect my only complaint is that his stories are almost too vivid. His account of a fight in the dark with a crocodile is almost exhausting in its realism. White sharks and black sharks, sharks that spit, giant gropers, huge eels and devil fish leer at you from every page. Yes—the book is as exciting as a super-detective thriller.

* * *

“The Little Round Garden,” by Gladys Lister (Angus & Robertson, Sydney), should set the eyes and the feet of many a child dancing with pleasure. This little round garden with its little round house has in it all manner of delightful people. Of course, there are fairies, and one of their number is particularly interesting because he is a disguised fairy. There are Merle and Blueboy, a number of quaint animals and also the Little Mother and the Big Daddy. They all take part in wonderful adventures, enough to inspire Pixie O'Harris, who I know will never grow up, to illustrate the story with charming drawings.

* * *

On The Back Of “Shibli'S” Tram Ticket.

New Century Press, Sydney, publishers of the one time popular “Aussie” magazine, have commenced publishing Australian books retailing at half a crown per copy. I believe that L. L. Woolacott, one time editor of “The Triad,” is in charge of the new enterprise.

* * *

The most substantial prizes ever offered for short stories are listed for the “Bulletin” competition, closing on January 31st. First prize £70.

Wife Who Was Cross And Touchy Not Fit to Live With Put Herself Right with Kruschen

“I am 39 years of age,” a woman writes, “Yet some days I have been feeling and looking 100 years old. I would get fits of exhaustion for no good reason at all. I was not fit to live with because I would be so cross and touchy. I did not seem to have any ambition to do my housework or go out anywhere, and I was so tired all the time that I began to feel it was too much trouble to live.

“Two years ago I had sciatica all down my left side from the hip. My doctor says all this is caused through my nerves. I took Kruschen and found it helped me very much. Since I started taking it I am a different person. I am beginning to find life is worth living. My work seems a lot easier and I have a lot more energy.”—(Mrs.) G.M.

In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the cause of ill-temper is ill-health. A soured mind has its source in a soured inside—the result of sluggish eliminating organs that allow waste matter to accumulate and poison the blood.

The “little daily dose” of Kruschen puts an end to all this because it restores the eliminating organs to proper activity by providing them with the daily reminder and daily aid that they require.

Cleansed and invigorated blood is sent circulating all over the system, carrying new vitality to every nerve and new vigour to every limb. You are healthier, you are happier. You begin to believe that everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

Kruschen Salts is obtainable at all Chemists and Stores at 2/3 per bottle.

<name type="work" key="name-410637"><hi rend="c">The Magic Island<lb/> Chapter</hi> IX.<lb/> <hi rend="c">Home Again!</hi> </name> (By Nellie E. Donovan.)

The children cried out with fright as they saw the goblins rushing towards them. “Oh, what shall we do! What shall we do!” cried Barbara.

“Use your stick,” panted Michael. The goblins were on them from the front and from the back. They bit, kicked, and screamed. The children did their best with their sticks, and many a goblin lay on the ground winded with a sharp thrust from one of the sticks. Peter was fighting his very hardest, hitting out with his fists. Tiny Toes and Dimples were having a hard time of it, but they, too, were using their tiny fists to good advantage. Of the goblin who had rescued them there was no sign. The goblins seemed to be coming from everywhere. The position was becoming decidedly serious, when there came a shout from round the far corner of the Palace.

“I'm coming!” shouted a deep voice. “I'll save you!”

“Kingi!” gasped Barbara as she poked a goblin in the middle. Kingi, the kiwi came up with a rush, kicking with his powerful legs to right and to left. Behind him ran the sphenodons. And every goblin that fell before Kingi's terrible kick, they tramped over. Kingi was clearing a path for the children. Suddenly he shouted, “Run for it!” Barbara and Michael needed no second bidding. They ran! But poor Peter seemed rooted to the spot. He just stood, his legs refusing to move. At the gate, Barbara noticed Peter's plight. She ran back, as she remembered the penknife in her pocket. A ring of goblins had gathered round Peter. She must break the spell the goblins had placed on Peter. She threw the penknife with all her might into the ring. The goblins scattered and Peter ran smilingly over to her.

“Quick!” cried Barbara. They ran out of the gate, followed by Kingi and the sphenodons. The fight was over, and the goblins lay in all sorts of attitudes on the ground. They were not dead but only badly winded.

They ran through the gloomy woods, Tiny Toes and Dimples leading the way, and the sphenodons bringing up the rear.

“Stop! Stop!” cried a tiny voice. “Wait for me, please!”

There was the goblin who had helped the children, running along as fast as his little legs would go.

“Oh, Kingi!” shouted Michael, “That goblin's our friend!”

“He's my friend, too,” answered Kingi, “for he released the sphenodons and I, when we had been taken prisoners by the goblins outside the Palace gate.” He ran back to the goblin and had placed him on his back before you could snap your fingers.

It was not long before they reached the fairy boat. It was still tied to the tree, where the elves had left it. The children tumbled into the boat.

Kingi stopped short. “Can't we come with you?” he asked.

“I'm afraid not,” answered Tiny Toes. “You're far too big for the boat, and I can't use the Reducing Powder on you.”

“The goblins were on them from the front and from the back.”

“Can we come?” squeaked the spenodons together.

But Tiny Toes shook his head. “The boat won't hold you,” he replied.

“But it will hold me!” cried the goblin, as he jumped into the boat.

“Oh, we can't take you back home,” said Barbara. But her heart softened as a look of dismay appeared on the goblin's tiny face.

“I do so want to come,” he pleaded. “I won't be any trobule.”

“Oh, all right,” said Michael, “but you must be very, very good.”

The goblin nodded his head vigorously.

“So this is good-bye,” said Kingi sadly.

“Oh, dear,” sighed the sphenodons.

“Won't we ever see you again?” asked Kingi.

“Couldn't you build a raft and sail to New Zealand?” suggested Peter.

“What a good idea!” Kingi brightened up. “We'll do that, and I'll bring the sphenodons with me. Hurrah!” He danced madly round in a circle.

“We must be away,” said Tiny Toes. Dimples untied the rope and pulled up the sail. Gradually the boat began to rise. “Hold tight,” said Tiny Toes. “We have a full load, you know.”

“Good-bye. Good-bye,” chorused the children.

“We'll see you soon. Don't let the goblins catch you!” shouted Michael.

“Good-bye! Good-bye!” shouted Kingi and the sphenodons.

Higher and higher the boat rose. The goblin nearly fell overboard as he waved his cap into the air. “Hurrah!” he shouted. “We're off!”

“Oh, look!” exclaimed Barbara as she pointed to the Palace in the distance, “There are numbers of fairies and elves flying away from the Palace!”

“Yes,” replied Tiny Toes, “by throwing that knife into that ring of goblins you not only broke the goblin spell over Peter, but you broke the goblin spell over all the fairies and elves in the Palace. Those canaries you saw in cages were fairies who had been turned

into canaries by the wicked goblin King. The elves and fairies are all flying back to their home in New Zealand.”

“Oh, I'm so glad!” exclaimed Barbara.

Kingi and the sphenodons had now become dim specks on the island below.

Barbara sank back onto the seat. “We're safe!” she breathed.

“Aren't the kiwi and the lizards nice,” said Peter.

“Lizards!” exclaimed Michael. “You'd better not call them that! They're sphenodons!”

“Ugh!” grunted Peter. “Same thing.”

“What an adventure we've had!” sighed Barbara. “I wonder what Mummie and Daddie will say, when we tell them.”

“I'm glad I'm going home,” said Peter. “It wasn't very nice having to read musty old schoolbooks all day and then having to tell that great fat goblin what I'd learnt. You kids had all the fun.”

“Perhaps it will teach you not to hurt a goblin any more,” said Barbara.

Peter reddened slightly. “I didn't hurt him,” he muttered.

“How did they catch you in the cottage?” asked Michael.

“When I went down the rope, they must have been waiting at the bottom for me, for they grabbed me and I remember nothing more until I woke up in that room in the Palace.”

“There's one thing we don't know,” said Barbara. “Who is Mr. William Wiggins?”

The goblin spoke up. “Mr. William Wiggins? What is he like?”

Barbara described the man.

“Oh, him,” laughed the goblin. “Didn't you know? He is our goblin King, and he is able to change himself into a mortal whenever he likes.”

“Goblin King!” said Barbara and Michael together.

“Where does he get his long shoes from?” asked Barbara.

“Well, you see,” explained the goblin, “when he changes himself into a mortal, all the goblin in him goes down to his shoes, see?”

The children didn't quite see, but they nodded their heads as if they understood.

“I wonder if we will see him again?” asked Barbara.

“You never know,” replied the goblin, “he may want to have his revenge on you.”

“Oh I hope not!” shivered Barbara.

“What's your name?” asked Peter of the goblin.

“Name?” the goblin was puzzled. “I haven't got one.”

“Do you mean to say your Mother and Father forgot to give you a name?” asked Barbara.

“Goblins don't have names.”

“But you must have a name,” said Michael. “I know! How would you like Gobby for a name?”

“Good as any other, I suppose,” replied the goblin indifferently.

“Right!” exclaimed Michael. “I name you Gobby!”

New Zealand ahead!” cried Dimples, from his lookout at the bow of the boat.

“Good-bye! Good-bye!” shouted Kingi and the Sphenodons.

It did not take them long to sail down the North Island of New Zealand, until they came to the little township once again. They glided low over the houses and fields.

“Why, look!” cried Michael, “The Crazy Cottage is no longer on the cliff!”

“No,” answered Tiny Toes, “the goblin King has no further use for it now.”

They glided right down over Barbara and Michael's house and up to the children's bedroom window. Dimples tied the boat to the window-sill and they all jumped into the room.

“Oh, it's lovely to see our bedroom again!” exclaimed Barbara.

“You'd better make us our right size again,” said Michael.

Tiny Toes shook the Fairy Growing Powder over their heads, and they were their right size again before you could blink an eye-lid.

“Oh, Tiny Toes and Dimples,” said Barbara, “however can we thank you for what you've done for us.”

“We have only done our duty,” replied Tiny Toes. “We will receive sufficient reward from the kindly smile and the words of our Fairy Queen when she says ‘Well done, my elves. You have carried out my orders as they should be carried out.'”

“But we must see you again,” said Barbara.

“Perhaps,” replied Tiny Toes, “when our Fairy Queen says we may. Now we must go.”

“I can hear someone coming!” exclaimed Peter.

“Please put us in our boat,” said Tiny Toes.

Quickly Barbara and Michael put the elves in their boat. The rope was untied and the fairy boat began to glide away.

“Good-bye! Good-bye!” cried the elves, waving their caps in the air.

“Good-bye!” shouted the children.

The fairy boat slipped away into the sky.

The bedroom door opened and in walked Barbara's and Michael's Mother. She stopped in amazement as she saw the children.

“I thought I heard a noise! Where have you children been?” she cried, as she hurried over to them.

“Oh, Mummie!” exclaimed Barbara joyously, “We've had the most exciting adventure!”

“Exciting adventure!” said their Mother in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“We have been to the Magic Island!” replied Peter.

Their Mother seemed to have just noticed Peter.

“Peter!” she cried. “How did you get here? We thought you were kidnapped! You must sit down immediately and tell me all about this wonderful adventure.”

The children needed no second bidding. They sat down on the edge of Barbara's bed, and Barbara, who seemed to have appointed herself spokeswoman, related their adventure, with many interjections from the two boys.

Their Mother smiled as the story came to an end. “It really is the most amazing adventune I have ever heard!” she exclaimed. “But I think you have let your imagination run riot. You have been reading too many adventure books!”

“Oh, no, Mummie, it's true! We can prove it!” said Barbara. “We have brought Gobby, the goblin back with us!”

“Gobby, the goblin,” laughed their Mother. “Where is he?”

The children looked round the room, but Gobby was nowhere to be seen!

(To be concluded.)

<name type="work" key="name-410638"> <hi rend="i"><hi rend="c">“He's Tellin’ Us</hi>!!”</hi> </name> (Perpetrated and illustrated by Ken Alexander.)

The idea of Ideas.

Charlie Chickweed is a philosopher. “It's me animal friends that does it,” he explained. “Every man is the reflecshun of the company ‘e keeps. Daily associashun with these ‘ere little varmints ‘as inflooenced me mind with benefishul results. No ‘uman bein’ can consort regular with animals without bein’ improved in ‘is mental an’ moral conserps. My observashuns ‘ave led me to the conclushun that man lost ‘is ‘appiness when ‘e lost ‘is tail an’ will never regain either until ‘e gets back both. Animals ain't ‘ounded by ideas like ‘umans. Y’ might say that animals are ruled by three N's—eatin', sleepin', an’ courtin'. Slip them an extra idea an’ they get as contrary an’ miserable as ‘uman beings. Take a seal, sir! As ‘appy a bit of streamlinin’ as you'd find anywhere, gettin’ an appetite day by day chasin’ its breakfast in the briney instead of losin’ its appetite wonderin’ where its next breakfast is comin’ from like many ‘uman victims of conflictious ideas. But, take a seal out of ‘is natural element an’ teach ‘im new tricks, an’ what ‘appens? Well, sir, ‘ave you ever noticed the expression on the face of a performin’ seal?

“Ismism.”

I've seen the same ‘aunted look on the faces of trained fleas an’ vacuum-cleaner salesmen—kind of ‘Oliver-Twiss-askin'-for-more.’ Ideas! That's what's the matter with the world to-day. Too many people with too many ideas to get off their chests. Some nut ‘oo's failed in all the natural pershoots of life such as mindin’ his own business, bein’ happy with ‘imself an’ tolerable with others, thinks up a ‘cause’ from all the odds an’ ends of ignerance at ‘is disposal, gives it a name endin’ with ‘ism’ and persuades other nuts nuttier than himself to fight for it. This ‘ere ismism, which ‘as spread like an epidermic through the ranks of civilisation, ‘as never took toll of the animal kingdom. That's why I like ‘em an’ respeck their intelligence. They are not took in by anything that don't smell like the real Mackie. They've got a nose that detecks delooshuns and snares. It's a pity, sir, that ‘uman bein's ‘ave lost the art of sniffin’ trouble, on account of livin’ so long with their noses stuck up in the air instead of gettin’ them down to earth.

Scents and Sense.

You don't catch no animal fallin’ for false ideas that don't smell like something ‘e can eat. ‘Uman bein's die of indigestion of the brain through swallowin’ ideas that look right but don't smell right. They are the victims of complicashuns, self-inflicted.

An’ that's why I like runnin’ an animal shop where straight thinkin’ goes ‘and in ‘and with straight eatin', an’ nothin’ changes from day to day to confuse the mind an’ contaminate the emoshuns. Let the nuts outside talk of the ‘changin’ world.’ Me an’ my little varmints knows that the only change in the world is the exchange of old stoopidities for new.

“Charlie Chickweed is a philosopher.” Talk about the pershoot of wisdom an’ knowledge! Why, lorluv-yer! There's more simple wisdom in this ‘ere shop of mine than in all the seats of learnin’ that ever rubbed their trousers shiny wrigglin’ after knowledge.

Look at Jezebel, sir, sittin’ on ‘er perch as wise as Solomon's wife, an’ with not ‘alf her opportoonities. A parrot of discretion, sir, in spite of bein’ soiled by ‘uman contack through bein’ born in a bar an’ chewin’ the demoralisin’ ends of corks. ‘Er only ‘umanlike accomplishment is that she talks without knowin’ what she's sayin’ but, unlike ‘umans, she's saved from disaster by the fact that she don't believe a word of it. Just get a close-up of that eye, sir, but keep yer fleshy parts away from the Black Douglas. Magpies ‘ave a great sense of ‘umour. Many a gent the Black Douglas ‘as nipped in the bud, so to speak, when bendin’ to tickle the guinea pigs. Jest good clean fun, sir.

The Modesty of Genius.

I always regards Douglas as an objeck lesson, sir. Sort of clerical ‘e looks in is black an’ white an’ a face that y’ might meet at the bar. Put a wig on Douglas an’ I guarantee you'd ‘and ‘im six and eightpence kind of automatic. Many a ‘uman bein’ with a face like that would feel bound to walk ponderous an’ look solemn as though ‘e knew things which was a mystery to everyone else. They'd make money out of a face like the Black Douglas's. But Douglas ‘as the modesty of genius. ‘E knows that there's not much fun in jest ownin’ a face and sellin’ it at six an’ eight a time. ‘E knows that the real fun of life is seein’ gents jump an’ lose their dignity which ‘as cost them so much misery to cultivate.

Excuse me, sir, while I lift Columbus off your collar. Explorin’ little things, white mice, ain't they? Nearly killed an ole gent, Columbus did. ‘It's got me!’ moans the ole party. ‘It's goin’ up me leg. It's creepin’ paralysis.'

“‘Tut, tut!’ says I, takin’ a rumble to the situashun. ‘That's not creepin’ paralysis, that's creepin’ Columbus.’ An’ sure enough, there was Columbus examinin’ the ole gent's suspender which was branded ‘Made in U.S.A.’ It took two dog powders to bring the ole gentleman round.

Dogmatism.

Y’ can't beat dog powders for steady-in’ the nerves. That ole gentleman was a changed man when ‘e left, sir! The last I saw of ‘im ‘e was chasin’ a butcher's van down the street. Well, ‘e could do worse, sir. Dogs can teach ‘umans a lot about the secrets of ‘appiness an’ the ole-fashioned virtues. There's more loyalty an’ affection to the square inch in a dog than there is in the average marriage lines. It don't matter whether ‘e's purebred or kind of involved, y’ can't beat a dog for doglike devotion. Now look at Adolf ‘ere! Y'd think that ‘e'd spend ‘is life nursin’ a

“No need to cover the goldfish bowl when you sneak a quiet one in the evening.” secret sorrow with an underslung chassis like that, an’ no wheel base to speak of. But, no; beneath that sausage-skin of ‘is there beats an ‘eart of gold. Y’ might think e's a fox terrier that has been through a wringer an’ then treated with free air but that's the way ‘e was born, sir. A ‘uman bein’ sentenced to a bit of bodywork like that would grow bitter an’ spend ‘is life stirrin’ the aloes, so to speak. But Adolf is the essence of sweetness, the whole three feet of ‘im. One thing about dachshund y’ get plenty of dog for your money.

There's Gold in That Thar Bowl.

Goldfish, too, ‘ave got life down to fundymentals, just goin’ round an’ round their bowls without any corners to bump into. That's the trouble with ‘uman life, sir—corners! Instead of a well rounded existence like that there bowl ‘uman beings spread corners about to bump their shins on. But with goldfish it's always smooth goin'; they just swim round and round seein’ everything from every angle an’ gettin’ broadminded an’ tolerant.

“Bad Form” There's no need to cover the goldfish bowl with a towel when you sneak a quiet one in the evening or use a knife on the baby's money-box. They see so much of life that nothing shocks ‘em. An’ yet there are people who even suspeck goldfish. A lady comes in the other day, looks at Wilkins doin’ ‘is acquatics with ‘is usual languid grace, an’ says ‘Is ‘e a good swimmer?'

“‘I can't guarantee it, lady,’ says I ‘All I can tell you is that ‘e's been him-mersed in that water ever since I've ‘ad ‘im and ‘e's never cried ‘elp'! once.'

You don't want to worry about their expression, sir; they've not really sneer-in’ at you. They get like that through constantly swallowin’ water. ‘Oo wouldn't, sir? It must be ‘orrible. But their expression makes ‘em difficult to sell, sir, for no gent likes to think that the goldfish sneer at ‘im even if ‘e is married.

Well, good-bye, sir. Any time you feel sort of fed-up with yourself come an’ sit with the animals. They won't mind.”

Leading New Zealand Newspapers.

New Zealand … Nursery Of The Thoroughbred Horse.

(Continued from page 13.)

Out of twenty races for this classic prize of the Australian turf, ten have come to New Zealand, seven by our own stock, and three, in Prince Humphry, Biplane, and the dazzling Gloaming, horses born in Australia but raised with the benefits of New Zealand environment.

Many years ago, Mr. G. G. Stead once won an Australian programme, and feats nearly as great are reasonably common. At the A.J.C. Spring meeting, for instance, in 1934, New Zealand horses won fourteen out of twenty-seven races.

Now this recital of high romance does not end with the story of Musket and his descendants. I could fill a score of pages with the names of famous New Zealand horses known all over the world from Cruciform to Limerick, from Desert Gold to Sasanoff.

But it is not often remembered that our Sir Modred went to U.S.A. to remain at the head of the maternal winning sires’ list for many years. In India we have had a quartette in Heremia, Karapoti, Martara and Heritage, who have beaten the cream of England and France in such races as the Viceroy's Cup and the other great prizes of the Indian turf.

It is no accident that the two greatest horses bred in the Southern Hemisphere in Phar Lap and Carbine should both be New Zealanders. The blood lines that were established and are flourishing here to-day are emerging as the most potent in the world. We shall not lose our leadership. Our studmasters carry on the tradition; close study, practical knowledge and love of the thoroughbred horse, and surpassing conditions of terrain and climate, still work together for good.

I know of no more brilliant administrative achievement either, than the Premium Stallion scheme just put into operation here. Like all “first things well founded” it has been flawlessly constructed. The stallions to cost the microscopic price of four guineas, are a ranking array of aristocrats, and the results are certain; from hunter to utility hack, the horses of New Zealand will improve in increasing ratio.

I should like to make one final observation. Racing in New Zealand is a universal outdoor recreation for the public, and not a means of gambling concentrated in a few cities.

Every country town has a well-appointed course which is now and again the Mecca for a gay crowd of holiday-makers. Training establishments are ubiquitous, and the control of racing is vested in a Racing Parliament, elected on a democratic system which is unique in the world.

We should be proud of the history of racing in New Zealand. It is a golden book; it adds a sureness to the claim that those far-sighted forebears of ours, dreaming of building a Brighter Britain, wrought better than they knew.

<name type="work" key="name-410639">Our Women's Section</name> By Helen

Hair up — Hair Down Are Edwardian Coiffures Becoming?

Brush out your hair, and then, with a comb, a mirror and a few hair clips, decide on your new hair style.

First, brush the hair back from the brow and fold it in a roll across the top of the head. Does this add dignity, or make you look plain? Perhaps flat curls on the brow line, or rolls at the side of the head will suit you better. Study the effect, profile, and full face.

Now some attention to the nape of the neck! Here a critical friend may be more helpful than a mirror. Brush your hair up at the back and hold it with a comb. Study the profile and the back line of the head. Does the hair grow neatly at the nape?

If you are satisfied, you can brush your hair up to a crown of rolls and curls. A back comb will help you, and for outdoor wear have one of the new hats with a bandeau.

If you honestly realize that “straight Edwardian” doesn't suit you, choose a simpler but equally charming style with hair brushed away from the brow and ears, and with flat curls at sides and back.

Simplicity suits the young girl. I suggest a soft curl across the top of the head and the ends turned under or up in a neat roll at the back.

Electric Comfort.

Sally blinked her eyes as James clicked on the bedside lamp and glanced at the clock below it. She heard him switch on the current to heat the water in the teapot (part of the same bedside fitment), and drifted into dreams again. The exaggerated rattling of a teaspoon close to her ear roused her.

“Oh, James, I don't want to wake up.”

“Lazy-bones! Here's your tea. Say thank-you.”

“Oh, I do! Ummm! I'm really waking up now. Isn't it a lovely present, Jimmy? I love the clock just under the light, and that rectangular tea-pot is cute. Pass me a biscuit.”

Presently, after a hurried shower, James called Sally to her bath while he came back into the bedroom to wield his electric shaver. “Nice work!” he murmured as he caressed his chin.

Breakfast was easy. James attended to the electric toaster while Sally, at the electric cooker, prepared bacon and eggs. The latter dish, covered, waited on the electric plate-warmer while the two young people dealt with grapefruit and cereal.

The coffee, meantime, had been bubbling in a glass percolater beside them. When it was the right colour, Sally served it, pouring it from the lower portion which was shaped like a jug. Milk for the coffee had been warmed at the table by means of an immersion heater suitable for any kind of liquid. And when James switched off he didn't go fumbling about the skirting-board, but reached out his hand to a plug panel at a sensible level.

James helped Sally with bed-making and then set off for the office. Sally put the milk and butter in the refrigerator at the same time checking up on the egg supply in the special containers,

placed the rest of the food in the larder, and piled the dirty dishes in a tray with wire mesh bottom. The tray she slid into the dish-washing machine. When the switch was turned on, strong, moving jets of very hot water played on the dishes from above and below. In 1 1/2 minutes the dishes were clean, as Sally could see through the transparent window in front. She switched on the rinsing spray and in another half minute switched off and slid the tray out on to the bench. The dishes were so hot that they would have dried of their own accord, but Sally preferred to rub them over with a tea-towel.

A quick run over the bedroom and diningroom carpets with the vacuum cleaner, quick dusting and re-arrangement of flowers, and, forty minutes after James's departure, Sally was ready to put on her hat and leave for the advertising studio where she worked.

Immediately on arrival she ‘phoned a few household orders, and then forgot about domesticity completely (except for a brief interval when she met James for lunch) until 5 p.m.

She was home by 5.20, switched on the electric oven immediately, changed, slipped a roast into the oven, and set to work, quite leisurely, to prepare vegetables and a sweet.

The table set, she had time to think of the friends who were coming for the evening. They would start with a fruit-juice cocktail, which she must cool in the “frig.” Later she would toast sandwiches on the electric sandwich toaster. There would be coffee and the home-made cakes she had bought. Tasty enough!

Meanwhile dinner at seven. And afterwards she must press her frock. She had been a lot more confident with silk things since buying the new iron with the labelled heat controller.

It sounds a breathless day, but things really went smoothly without worry, owing to the efficiency of electrical helps. Her advertising job was so interesting that Sally didn't want to give it up, yet, when she did, there would be no need for Mrs. Tasker to come in twice a week to clean. The laundry also could be dispensed with if she bought a washing machine. At an electrical display she had been very interested in an electric drying cupboard with bars for clothes and a permanent current of warm air. That was fine for flat-dwellers, but she had the garden. Another electric contrivance which she coveted, but didn't need in a roomy house, was a table cooker, containing a rectangular dish for a roast, and two smaller dishes for vegetables or pudding; alternatively, these receptacles could be lifted out and a pie or cake baked on the grid.

She must tell Sybil about it, and about the electric hair-drier fixed to a stand so that both hands are left free. She had also been interested in an electric engine-warmer which some car-owner would appreciate.

Dinner was almost ready, and here was James, holding something rather bulky behind his back.

“Present for a good girl,” he called. “Have we plenty of maple syrup?”

“You greedy thing!” said Sally, as she unpacked a waffle iron. “It's just as well electricity is inexpensive.

* * *

The Small House.

The British Institute of Architects has been holding an exhibiton which offers solutions to problems of small house construction. Problems are:—

Necessity for close settlement owing to high price of land.

Access to main roads.

Ensuring privacy.

Aspect (chiefly in relation to sun).

Photographs, English and European, show how leading architects and planners have tackled these problems.

On a slope, houses may be built in terraces. Each house has a view over the one below it. Terraces are parallel or at right angles to the road, or are free-planned in relation to it. The method is economical in construction and in land coverage.

Another terrace system is planned at right angles to the main road which is screened by hedges and trees. Access is by small footpaths.

The cul-de-sac method is successful. Houses are grouped round communal parkland from which there is a safe outlet to the main road.

If houses must be built along a busy road, they should, if possible, be screened by trees.

A very interesting diagram gives the ideal aspect for different types of rooms. I will translate it for use in the southern hemisphere.

Larder and stores.—No sun. S.

Kitchen.—Early sun. S.E.

Bathroom.—Early sun. N.E.

Diningroom.—Morning sun. N.

Bedr. and sleeping porch.—Morning sun. N.

Study.—Afternoon sun. N.W., W.

Living r. and covered terrace.—Morning and afternoon sun. N.W., W.

Excellent preliminary plans for rectangular and L-shaped houses placed room accommodation according to the foregoing table.

The keynotes of photographs of interiors were simplicity and fitness. Much attention was paid to the extension of the house into the garden, where, by the way, it was suggested that existing trees be retained if possible. One living-room was separated from the garden by large, sliding windows. If there is no verandah outside the living-room, an area of garden may be paved and an awning stretched over it.

In the small flat, the dining-table may be pushed up against a wall-slide, giving direct access to the kitchen.

Central heating gives rise to the radiator problem. A wall which is nearly all sliding windows may have a window seat covering the radiator along its length.

Bedrooms have built-in cupboards deep enough for coat-hangers. Cupboard doors have no awkward mouldings or ledges to catch dust. Beds are placed so as not to face the light.

Inset shelves over bath and basin are of great utility.

Health Notes. “Safety Week” In The Home.

Every week should be a “Safety Week” in regard to the preservation of health. One positive danger to health is the house fly. This human enemy is the carrier of many infectious diseases, and is the greatest menace in the home in the summer time.

A single fly lays from 100 to 150 eggs at a time and does this five or six times in a season. In selecting a site for the laying of the eggs, the fly prefers the medium which will provide heat and food for the development of the maggot, the ideal being decaying vegetable matter such as kitchen refuse, etc.

In structure, the fly has a proboscis, salivary glands, a large crop which holds food laden with germs, and a stomach. Now the salivary glands are the only digestive glands and can deal only with the starches and sugars, therefore it must get its proteid foods in a pre-digested form. The former it gets from the dining table and the latter from refuse, etc.

Unfortunately, the fly has but few natural enemies and therefore it falls upon all to exert every effort in its destruction. Therefore, the only way to minimise the danger, is to “starve it out.”

Firstly, we must see that we do not provide suitable breeding grounds and should never leave rubbish unexposed. Burn what can be burnt, wrap up in paper what has to be put in the dust bin, and bury deeply (if you can) whatever cannot be disposed of otherwise. Make free use of the various contrivances for the destruction of the fly, and above all, see to the protection of the food. Safes should be protected by fly-proof netting, and foods, especially those which do not require cooking, such as bread or sugar, should be carefully guarded.

Of course, we all know, that we should never sit down to a meal without first washing the hands carefully, and we usually follow this time-honoured custom. However, we should always be careful that our hands are clean when we have the “bits and pieces” between meal times.

If we allow six flies to escape us at the beginning of the season, then the homes have to cope with a progeny of 3,600. If these 3,600 flies also escape destruction, then their progeny results in millions of flies being produced to perform their deadly mission as germ carriers.

The life history of the fly makes gruesome reading, but unless we face the facts, we are somewhat inclined to waiver in our effort to rid the home of this enemy to health and cleanliness.

Swat That Fly is a phrase that cannot be too strongly stressed, for the fly is definitely detrimental to health. Destroy the fly and the health of the nation benefits accordingly.

Swat That Fly.

* * *

Recipes. Bread Savoury Pudding.

Put into a deep basin enough stale bread pieces to fill a pie dish. Pour over it some boiling stock or gravy well seasoned with salt and pepper. Cover, and leave until the bread has soaked up all the liquid. Fry in good beef or bacon dripping, two chopped onions, and a minced apple, and flavour with 1/4 teaspoon of dried herbs, or just powdered sage. Beat the soaked bread with a fork, add the fried apple and onion, and when well mixed stir in a beaten egg. Turn into a well-greased piedish, cover thickly with dried breadcrumbs, dot with butter, and bake for one hour.

Apple Relish.

Peel and chop a very small mediumsized eating apple and a medium-sized onion. Put in a screw-top jar with a little chopped chilli, a teaspoonful of sugar, and a pinch of salt. Cover with cold vinegar.

This is delicious on buttered savour biscuits, or with cold meat or any salad, and it is cheap and easy to make. It will keep well, too.

Cream Puffs.

Put one cup of water and 1/2 lb. of butter into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir in 1/4 lb. of flour (that has been sifted with a good pinch of salt) and keep stirring while it boils for two minutes. Turn into a mixing bowl and allow to cool a little, then beat in 4 eggs, one at a time. Beat this batter well. Butter some paper, put teaspoonsful of the batter in ball shapes on this, and bake in a hot oven for 30 minutes. When cold, slit near the top, fill with sweetened whipped cream, flavoured with vanilla.

Date Creams.

Wash and stone the dates, fill with coloured and flavoured foundation cream. Press into shape and roll in desiccated coconut or granulated sugar.

“… Where the crystal waters flowing In untiring melody …” —Margaret Thomas. Hidden Falls River, Lower Hollyford Valley, South Island, New Zealand. (Photo., Thelma R. Kent.)

<name type="work" key="name-410640">Panorama of the Playground<lb/> <hi rend="c">The Olympic Games</hi> </name> (Specially Written for “N.Z. Railways Magazine,” by W. F. Ingram.)

The decision of the New Zealand British Empire and Olympic Games Association to select a smaller representation than usual and to make provision for the team to have a longer period in England before the commencement of the 1940 Olympic Games in Helsinki (Helsingfors), Finland, has been generally approved by those who are keen to see New Zealand occupy a prominent place in world sport.

New Zealand has always been a keen supporter of the Olympic movement and has invariably endeavoured to live up to the ideals of the founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who placed the joy of competition above the thrills of winning.

In past years, New Zealand has insisted that nominees for places in the Olympic teams shall have returned performances which would have gained them sixth places at the previous Games. The difficulty has been that such nominees, for many reasons, have not been able to reproduce such form abroad. There is no disputing the fact that V. P. Boot and C. H. Matthews were both up to Olympic standard in 1936, but neither man reproduced New Zealand form. Training on cinder tracks—bringing with it shin-soreness—was one reason for their loss of form.

It is now intended that an even more stringent test be set nominees and that they be given ample time to get acclimatised before the commencement of the Games. Here again there is a conflict of opinions. How long does it take an athlete to become acclimatised? When the New Zealand Olympic team of 1932 arrived in Los Angeles it was thought they would be acclimatised by the time the Games commenced. Actually they were far from that desirable state—they had been in California too long and the climate had sapped their vitality. Had they been able to compete three weeks earlier they would have been in better shape.

The long sea-voyage, the change of climate and the difference in food all play a part in making it difficult for a visiting athlete to reach top form. American athletes invariably do their training at home and arrive at the Games only a few days before the competitions are due to commence. This, unfortunately, is not possible with New Zealand athletes, and it is remarkable that the best performances by New Zealand Olympic representatives were in 1920—at Antwerp—when all four representatives—Miss Violet Walrond, George Davidson, Harry Wilson and Darcy Hadfield—competed in the finals.

This team arrived only a few days before the Games commenced, but had gone via a round-about route and had had competition in Australia and South Africa. Davidson qualified for the semi-finals of the 200 metres by defeating the great Charlie Paddock, who predicted a great future for the young New Zealander, who, unfortunately, did not take the sport seriously enough in later years. In the first semi-final, Davidson filled third place to Loren Murchison (U.S.A.) and H. F. V. Edward (Great Britain), with Maurice Kirksey, later to compete in New Zealand, fifth. Davidson was fifth in the final, trailing Woodring, Paddock, Edward and Murchison and defeating Jock Oosterlaak (South Africa), who later competed in New Zealand.

Miss Violet Walrond, New Zealand's youngest Olympic representative, finished third in the first heat of the 100 metres women's swimming event and fifth in the final. Although qualified to start in the final of the 300 metres, after placing second in her heat, Miss Walrond took ill and had to withdraw.

Harry Wilson ran into exceptionally strong competition in the 110 metres hurdling event. He filled second place in the first heat, third place in the semi-finals and fourth in the final. Although no better than fourth, his time in the final was only one-fifth second outside the previous world record, the winner, Earl Thomson (Canada) breaking the record of 15 sec. by one-fifth second.

Darcy Hadfield, who later won the world professional sculling championship, won his heat of the sculling championship and placed second to J. B. Kelly, the ultimate winner, in the semi-final. In the final, Hadfield placed third to Kelly (U.S.A.) and J. B. Beresford (Great Britain).

This team benefited from competition during their voyage to Antwerp. Had they been there a month or two earlier it is doubtful if they would have done any better. The time comes when the body undergoes a change brought on by altered living conditions and once this starts it is not a matter of months or weeks before the nervous system is adjusted; it runs into years and no country can afford to send athletes over a year or two in advance.

The Value of Coaching.

Wellington athletes have been slow to show appreciation of the coaching being given by Mr. A. L. Fitch, American athletic coach under engagement to the Wellington and Canterbury Centres of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association, but the athletes of Canterbury, where training facilities are much better, have been taking a keen interest. D. Herman, who won the national shot-putting title last season with an effort of 40ft. 9 3/4in., has been exceeding 43ft. in competition this season. The only other New Zealand competitor to reach this distance in competition was Peter Munro, who won the title on thirteen occasions. Other athletes to show improvement under Fitch's coaching include Eric Phillips, who has beaten the New Zealand broad jump record in training and gone close to the best performance by a New Zealander in a high jump.

“The Railway Workshops Gym.”

In the December issue of the “Railways Magazine,” I made brief reference to the activities of the Workshops Gymnasium at Moera (Wellington) and stated “… although I do not possess any official figures, I am confident in stating that representatives from this popular sports rendezvous have won considerably more matches than they have lost.” I have since received a copy of the annual report of this sporting club in which it is mentioned that the Club has been represented by more than two boxers at every professional contest fought in Wellington and the Hutt Valley and representatives have also travelled to tournaments held in Wairarapa, Dannevirke, Wanganui, Gisborne and in Christchurch. Representatives took part in 106 bouts, for 61 wins, 11 draws, and 34 losses. The record of the Hutt Workshops Gymnasium is unique in New Zealand and the illustration on this page will give some indication of the number of young New Zealanders who reap physical and mental benefit by participation in its activities.

Sir Julien Cahn's Eleven.

New Zealand will be entertaining a

(A.P.F., photo.) Members of the Hutt Workshops’ Gymnasium. happy band of cricketers this season when the team brought by Sir Julien Cahn does battle against our representatives. Sir Julien is a wealthy Englishman who “collects cricketers” as a hobby and takes them on tour to various parts of the world. Many a promising young cricketer has had his way made much easier by the interest shown by Sir Julien Cahn, and it is pleasing to New Zealanders to know that Stewart Dempster, considered by many critics to be the outstanding amateur in England to-day, has returned to his homeland as a member of the touring team. Although a privately financed team, the strength is equal to, or better than, the last M.C.C. team to visit New Zealand, and some interesting play should be seen.

Sports Facilities at St. Patrick's College, Wellington.

An example of self-help that deserves publicity is the effort of St. Patrick's College (Wellington) to secure a sports ground. Unlike the newer college, St. Patrick's (Silverstream), which has the best sports ground of any New Zealand college, the Wellington seat of learning has never had a ground on which the young pupils could secure exercise. The front of the college is hilly, with two ashphalt tennis courts, and the back section is of gravel. Improvements, however, are being made. Despite the handicaps under which pupils of this school have trained it is remarkable to read the list of New Zealand representatives who attended St. Patrick's College. In Rugby there appear the names of the following New Zealand representatives: E. Harper, J. McKenzie, T. Lynch, Father P. Kane, L. Brownlie, M. Brownlie, Father P. McCarthy, J. Blake, T. Corkill, A. Mahoney and J. Best. Dr. McEvedy and A. B. O'Brien represented England, V. C. Redwood, A. Tancred and R. Westfield wore the Australian jersey and J. Henrys represented Argentine. At cricket B. McCarthy, H. C. Hickson and C. H. Tattersfield have represented New Zealand, while C. S. Harper, E. T. Harper, W. J. O'Kane, J. Prenderville and A. C. Evenson have won New Zealand athletics titles. With a sportsground on which the pupils will be able to work out under the guidance of their popular sports-master, Father T. Cleary, even better performances may be anticipated.

Wit And Humour

Reassuring Mummy.

Fortune Knocks at The Smiling Door

A postcard from a small boy evacuated from London during the recent crisis read:—

“We have been having grand fun and a boy was nearly run over yesterday.”

* * *

Bad Luck.

The train roared past the station. Above the noise the stationmaster heard a yell. Rushing out to the platform he saw a man sprawled alongside the tracks. A little girl was standing by.

“Did he try to catch the train?” asked the stationmaster.

“He did catch it,” she replied, “but it got away from him.”

* * *

Long-winded Speakers.

Josh Billings once remarked that when some speakers strike oil they forget to stop boring.

After an hour and a half of preaching, a clergyman who was given to both long-windedness and fanciful flights of oratory, was just getting warmed up to his sermon on immortality.

“I looked up to the mountains,” he shouted, “and I said, ‘Mighty as you are, you will be destroyed; but my soul will not.’ I gazed at the ocean and cried, ‘Vast as you are, you will eventually dry up, but not I.'”

And then he wondered why his hearers smiled.

* * *

Disappointed.

Little Gladys was seen to be weeping bitterly when she returned from her first day at school.

“Whatever is the matter?” asked her mother, anxiously.

“Well,” said Gladys, as well as she could for her tears, “teacher told us that when our names were called we must put up our hands and say ‘present!'” More sobs—then: “So when she called my name I put up my hand and said ‘present’ but—I didn't get one!”

* * *

Gardening Notes.

He had been to the manager's office to ask for the day off so that he could dig up his garden.

“But, my good man,” said the manager, “Jones told me only the other day that you hadn't got a garden.”

“Well, someone must have taken it off the window-sill,” was the calm reply.

(By courtesy of the “Bulletin.”) “'E's bin goin’ to them mannequin parades.”

The Air Service.

“Well, Tommy,” asked the lad's uncle, “are you in the football team at school?”

“Yes, uncle,” replied the youth. I've got a good position. I do all the aerial work.”

His uncle looked rather puzzled. “Aerial work,” he echoed, “what's that?”

“I blow up the footballs,” was the reply.

Spilling the Ink.

A Glasgow merchant, famous in his way, came into his office one morning and found a young clerk writing a letter in rather a flourishing hand. “My man,” he observed, “dinna mak’ the tails o’ yer g's and y's quite sae long. I want the ink tae last the quarter oot.”

* * *

An Old Friend.

The very mean young lover approached the darling of his heart.

“Did you have any Christmas cards?” he asked.

“Yes, several,” replied the young lady. “There was one I liked especially. It wasn't signed—I thought that very artistic. I think you must have sent it.”

“Really,” exclaimed the youth happily. What makes you think that?”

“Well, you see,” smiled the girl very sweetly, “because I remember sending it to you last Christmas.”

* * *

Also Important.

The children's Christmas dinner was in progress, but instead of turkey they had been provided with a nice fat chicken.

“What part did you have?” asked one little boy of his neighbour.

“The wishbone,” was the reply.

“I had a leg,” put in another child.

One after the other they explained the various parts.

Presently little Jackie, who so far had not spoken a word, held up a skewer and exclaimed: “Look, I've got the perch the chicken sat on!”

* * *

Better Than Grass.

Mrs. Newrich (scanning the menu): Well, ‘Enry, shall we try this, ‘Patty de foy Grass'?

Mr. Newrich: No fearl That might be all right for Nebuchadnezzer, but it's too tame for me! ‘Ow about some Horses’ Doovers; That sounds to have a bit more kick in it!