"OUT OF THE WORLD."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 260, 2 November 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

"OUT OF THE WORLD."

A COURAGEOUS TRAVELLER. MISS BOURNE'S IMPRESSIONS. Nearly two years ago there passed through New Zealand two women who were by no means the usual type of tourist: they wanted primarily to see New Zealanders as they really are, not as they appear when viewed from the eminence of tourist resort hotels and tourist .conveyances. They were Lady Bourne and her daughter, Pamela. Miss Bourne was born in South Africa and was a member of the literary staff of the "Cape Argus" when the idea of travelling in little-known corners of the world came to her. The conclusions she drew from these journeyings are contained in her book, "Out of the World" (Geoffrey Bles) which is illustrated with photographs by the author. She and her mother sailed from Capo Town to Australia by the Thermolylae, a Norwegian cargo vessel. Technically they were passengers, but, discovering that the crew was a man short, Miss Bourne offered to fill his place and, strangely enough, was taken at her word. For the whole journey she worked the requisite 91 hours per day as a sailor but takes no credit for having done the job as well as any new man. "It was not a matter of wearing the mate's overalls, Larsen's cap and the bo's'n's socks, and looking business-like. In' the days that followed from the moment at 5.30 a.m. when a figure appeared at the door of my cabin and roared 'Turn out!' to 5.30 in the afternoon when an equally powerful voice bassooned those magic words, 'Knock off!' my world was paint, ropes, aching muscles, shackles, winches, derricks, hatches, salt pork, 3weat, rust, and surprising conversation, all cleaned and sweetened by the scent of wet salt which is the smell of the wide ocean."

In New Zealand. The chapter on New Zealand is a charming tribute to a people she found hospitable and lovable. Setting out from Picton, she and her mother walked down the Buller to Weetport, and on to Franz Josef. In Wellington she discovered they epoke of the Coast "with the. awe of a New Yorker talking of the wild and woolly West of the 'nineties," but riding on their cream lorries, accepting lifts from them in all kinds of conveyances, drinking innumerable cups of tea with them and boiling billies over roadside fires with them, she found the West Coast people to have hearts of gold and a philosophy all their own. Particularly for the women she formed a great admiration." Here again was that golden content which I found in so many places down the coast. Isolation holds no terror for these women. They are far too busy tending the men, who far outnumber them, to bother about the lack of excitement." Similarly she stood amazed at the prodigious amount of work done on a Lake Hawea run at shearing time, not by the shearers but by the women, who fed 27 people seven times a day, did all the cooking, serving and washing up themselves and still contrived to be slim, smart and gay. She rode on horseback from the Fox Glacier down the west coast, over Haast Pass and down the Makarora valley to Pembroke. Voyage in a Windjammer. - Frankly Miss Bourne could not abide the common type of tourist, and for this reason Queenstown was spoilt for her. She took very few clothes with her on her travels and was at one stage so shabby that, as she says, small boys shouted after her in the street, but she was intent upon something more important—understanding the people she was mixing with, and her theory is a sound one. "To travel in'one stratum in every country is useless. You learn much more about life by staying in your homo town. Strange sights lose' their significance unless you can grasp the point of view of people to whom, they are ordinary. To gain that point of view you may have to sacrifice comfort, and perhaps suffer the bewildered scorn of your own stratum."

_ Impossible to do justice to her descriptions of her visits to the islands of the Fiji group, Tonga, Tahiti and Rarotonga. In all these pluces she and her mother lived either among the natives or in close contact with them, finding life there neither as idyllic nor as vicious as it has been painted, but infinitely various From Australia she left by the Hcrzogin Cecilie, a Norwegian windjammer loaded with wheat, having signed op as one of the crew; and during the four months of the journey back to Belfast via the Horn she worked as hard as any man. The Herzpgin was her great love and no one who has any spark of admiration for sailing ships can but be thrilled by her descriptions of hor ship in all moods and weathers. .This makes the last chapter the finest in the book. The style is breezy and racy and- the philosophy deeper than one would at first expect. Yet the personality of the author is elusive, for she speaks little of herself. One receives aii impression of a warm tolerance, a keen wit and ready understanding combined with an unusual capacity for. making friends.