Through The Great Forest.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 270, 13 November 1937, Page 8 (Supplement)

Through The Great Forest.

[ (Continued from page 82.) Early next d-ay the canoe voyage ; down the Wanganui was begun. "On j getting into onr canoe we met two I canoes of people coming to see us at | Matai-whetu; other people came i marching down the steep sloj>es 1 below the mist-enfolded ranges." They carried great frond* of tree ferns to wave a farewell to the travellers and the sight reminded Maclean of the famous scene in "Macbeth." in which the branch-bear-ing army advancing seemed to the doomed man to fulfil the prophecy about Rirnam Wood coming to Dunsinane. A little later on. down the Wanganui River, where a pretty village. j with it-s hanledup or moored canoes, stood at every Kend or terrace, the , CJovprnmcnt agent reflectively eom- ! mented nn the general air of com- ; fort and plenty. At a large tribal 'crntherin<r at Pukehika he wrpte in j his journal : I ' When the natives of the wild. : broken interior of Wanganui can afford to feed 1400 people for three Mays and have tons of food to spare afterwards, how well might our j coTintryneople manage to live, even | in the wildest parts of New Zealand. I atid be much better off than in their ! present starved conditions." This I was an allusion to the povertystricken Western Inlands and other parts of hifl native highlands of Scotland.