INDIA, LAND OF ENCHANTMENT

Evening Star, Issue 23128, 30 November 1938, Page 17

INDIA, LAND OF ENCHANTMENT

MISS UZADBETTER'S TALK A most charming talk on India, illustrated by lantern slides, made from photographs taken during an 18 months’ residence in that country, was given by Aliss Joan Leadbetter last evening to members of the Otago Women’s Club. Miss Leadbetter, who is making a tour of New Zealand with her aunt, Airs E. Leadbetter, was welcomed by Mrs R. Gilkison, and she very quicidy transported her audience in imagination to that huge Empire of India, with its tremendous contrasts and its tremendous mixture of ancient and modern in the same land.

Life in the jungle was one very interesting section of the talk, the accompanying views of the people, the vegetation, and the animal life proving most fascinating. “ Life in the jungle,” said the speaker, “ goes on the same tor hundreds of years, and men there are the same as when the world began.”

India, too, is a land that must have water, and many primitive methods of irrigation were shown. The lecturer took her audience through the great state of Rajputana, showing pictures of its handsome men and its beautiful women. She also showed the marvellous range of vegetation from beautiful tropical flowers right through the alpine plants in the far north-west. Finally she conducted her. audience through the famous Khyber Pass, with its rugged fastnesses and its primitive, as well as modern, means of fortification.

In conclusion, she pointed out that to-day. for the first time in 6,000 years, India under British rule is free from internal warfare, and js enjoying greater unity than it has ever known before. Miss Leadbetter is travelling under the auspices of the Victoria League.