Anthony Trollope in Otago

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 287, 31 August 1935, Page 19

Anthony Trollope in Otago

In the depth of the winter of 1837 Anthony Trollope, the well-known author, travelled from Queenstown to Dunedin by the public coach. Bad weather and awful road conditions made the trip one of six days instead of three. The coach averaged twentyfive miles a day, rumbling along at about three miles an hour. Mr. Trollope wrote the following description of the corrugated iron hotels and his experience in one: “The rooms are small and every word uttered in the house can be heard as in a shed put up without divisions. And yet the owners and frequenters of these domiciles seem never to be aware of the fact. As I lay in bed in one of these metal inns on the road I was constrained to hear the private conversation of my host and hostess, who had retired for tbe night ’So this Is Mr. Anthony Trollope,' said the host The hostess assented, but I could gather from her voice that she was th’nking much more of her back hair than of her visitor. ‘Well,’ said the host, ‘he must be a fool to come travelling in this country in such weather as this? Perhaps, after all, the host was aware of the peculiarity of his house and thought it well that I should know his op’nion. He could not have spoken any words with which at the moment I should have been more prone to agree."— N.E. (Wanganui).