BONNIE LASSES

Bruce Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 2263, 8 May 1891, Page 4

BONNIE LASSES

During the Ministerial visit to the Forty Mile Busli settlements, the party were introduced by Mr Septimus B icon, who wanted redress for the Kermidec explorers, and in the course of the interview the Precuier extracted the foU lowing amongst other information, the report of which is furnished by the ' Wairarapa Sttr': — Tin-. Premier: What about Mr Bali's daughters? T hay are said to be tall, strapping girls; one over six feet, and able to travel with two cwt under her armpit 1 Mr Bacon launched into a grand description of the Bell homestead ; the habits of the family and life on the island, the girls he acknowledged were grand specimens of their sex. The taller one wad over six feet, and had a splendid figure. Like her sister, she never wore stays, shoes, or stockings until she came to New Zealand, and then they crippled her, Her out6t consisted of a Crimean shirt, a robe of grey calico fastened round the waist with a belt, and a hat made by herself from the cabbage tree. Thus attired she would climb to the top of the crater, near the beach j milk the HO&tn of a morning, and, can in band, descend down a precipice seventy feet in height, her tons grasping the jutting fragments on either side of a fissure. T'ten, the bottom reached, she W'iuld wa eh her opportunity to glide from rook 'o r<>ck between the waves. S'»me-im-si'i r-'iigh w^a'h'-r a wave wou'd

'V'Ttake her in sp.tf of her vigilance and (Mrry her nut, but she would swim like a mermaid, preserving bil'y and milk in s-afetv.