GUEST OF HONOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 40, 15 August 1941, Page 6

GUEST OF HONOUR

HIS EXCELLENCY AT THE

N.Z. CLUB

His Excellency the Governor-Gen-eral, Sir Cyril Newall, was the guest of honour at a luncheon given yesterday byi the New Zealand Club. It was announced that his Excellency had accepted the office of patron of the club. In accordance with, the usual custom the chief guest was presented by the president (Mr. A. J. Luke) with a memento of the club in the form of a silver kiwi 'mounted on a greenstone pedestal.

In the course of a brief talk. Sir Cyril described conditions in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East with which the New Zealand troops overseas would be familiar. He dispelled a common illusion about the desert wastes, which, he said, were chiefly rocky and barren broken country, the actual patches of sand being few and far between. He touched also on the climate, with its warm days and cool nights in summer, and spoke of the flies, the Nile floods, and the strange mingling of the West and the East in Cairo.

His Excellency also mentioned the island of Cyprus, with its wealth of Crusaders' relics. It was not a particularly beautiful island, but it had a splendid climate, he said. In concluding an interesting and descriptive address, he expressed, the hope that he had achieved his object of drawing/ for the benefit of those who had sons and friends in Egypt, and who had not been there, a picture of conditions and places in that country.