THE SUMMER OF THE WORLD.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3143, 13 November 1922, Page 7

THE SUMMER OF THE WORLD.

(By A. Migrant.)

A summer such as the one we have just tolerated in England makes a person who has lived for some years in one of the choicest climates of the' British Tmpire, wish he was back there. It is surprising that more people do not migrate from these rain-swept and incitement islands to regions under the British flag more beloved of the sun. There is a. big area of choice, but the sweetest, suavest clime I have ever visited is that of the Cape Peninsula. If I had my desire, I would live always in the sub-tropics where the winters are short and mild, and the summersl long and unclouded. How wistfully I recall a sequestered little villa on the seashore under the Lion's Head. near Cape Town! How delicious it was each morning before the sun became too hot, to slip on a dressing gown and walk a -few steps to a natural rock-bath, filled! every tide with cool sapphire water; to luxuriate a while' in that and then x ie on the white sun-warmed rocks before returning to dress. For eight summer months I used to indulge in this luxury. In these regions we never say Liooa morning; a fine day," or add "Weather permitting" to any project of picnic or sport. Indeed, the whole summer is one long picnic. A large proportion of the Cape Town folk used to migrate in early summer to the margin of the voluptuous mellow-voiced sea, where they lived a sort of amphibious life under* white canvas tents. The physical delights' of such an al-fresco existence are scarcely guessed by those who know only the fitful shade and! sunshine and the' vexatious disappointments of our northern summers. It is sometimes suggested that m these climates one wearies of the everlasting blue sky, and begins to long for one of those "grey days" we know ro well at home. I cannot recall that this was a very poignant longing. These southern summers never seem too long or too bright, and the winters, when they come, have none of the trials and discomforts of our semi-arctic clime. In. the regions of which I am speaking, winter "expresses itself chiefly in rain, not a thin and depressing drizzle, but rain glorious torrents which one can hear coming from afar, and is soon beating in thunder on the roof and churning the ground into waterspouts, until suddenly the uproar is muted and the storm passes away as it came. Then again, we are told these lovely climates are unhealthy, and morally and physically enervating. "In this respect our home climate cannot afford to throw any stones. It is true 'one works rather less remorselessly in the summer of the world, but then everybody does the same, and one gets a living with less effort than in our more strenuous zones. Moreover, these softer climes may claim a far better bill of health as regards the rheumatisms and chills and influenzas which infest the damps and glooms of Northern Europe. • One or two little concessions may be made. The sub-tropical year is rather less of an interesting drama than the "temperate" with its distinctly marked four seasons. And in the sunnier climes, where "at one stride comes the dark," the twilights, at least to me, were rather a terror. One sudden passage from a blazing tropical day to complete darkness acts on one's spirits like a pall, and I used to run indoors from the gloaming as from a sudden thunder shower, and sustitute the lamp and the candle for those brilliant natural lights which Nature was extinguishing too fast.