FRANK COFFEE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 10 March 1925, Page 9

FRANK COFFEE.

i AUTHOR AND TRAVELLER. ! THE PICTURESQUE PACIFICIAN. 1 Frank Coffee, journalist, author and I wanderer over tne world, arrived in I Auckland by the Aorangi. He has I been 22 times around the world by | devious routes, and much of what lie j lias seen and heard has been given us lin print. “Forty Years in the Pacific” lis a book that lias been read in all countries. Mr Coffee has now seen the Pacific in all it® moods for nearly 50 years—he has crossed and recrossed it I from end to end more, tifnes than you have fingers on your hands, and he is publishing another edition of his great work, for he says, “the accumulation iof much new material in the course of. half a dozen crossings of the Pacific since the first publication justifies it.” The veteran traveller, whose slight figure and snow white hair are a familiar sight to travellers who know America, Australia and New Zealand, has made all sorts of voyages in all sorts of craft among the islands of the great blue ocean, and he is full of reminiscences of the hard-ease old-timers of years long gone—traders, missionaries, black birders, kings with a partiality for roast pakeha, beachcombers, planters, capitalists and the. like. He crossed the Pacific in the earlier days in the old Aorangi, the beautiful clip-per-built, barque-rigged vessel which was as different to the new Aorangi las a gull to a penguin. Old Pacific i traders! He can give you the list. He j has travelled in the old Zealandia (a 3000-tonner), the Australia (a sister ship), the City of Sydney, City of New York, Mariposa, the old Aorangi, the Miowera, Moan a and Marama to the Makura and the Niagara. Coming to New Zealand some time ago, an American was told to he sure and see the Pink Terraces, the Waimangu Geyser, Pelorus Jack—and Frank Coffee. The latter was to he met “anywhere around somewhere.” The American found that the Pink Terraces had blown up, the Waimangu Geyser had disappeared, and Pelorus Jack had vanished and was thought to he, dead. But he found Frank Coffee—sure! y It is over a year since Mr Coffee was last- in Auckland. Since then he has slept only two weeks in private houses, the rest of the time being spent in ships, trains, motors—and clubs. “Oh, I can sleep anywhere!” says the traveller. ‘ Crossing Tennessee, on a long train journey, Mr Coffee expressed the opinion that he had done so much running around of late that lie must be getting the “wanderlust.” , “What!” ejaculated a fellow-traveller who knew his repute, “If you are onlv getting the wanderlust, now, what is going to happen to ns young coves?” “But travel doesn’t appeal to me now as it used,” said Mr Coffee to an Auckland Star mail. “It-seems to have lost its novelty. Think I’ll settle down in a few years.” Mr Coffee is a oleasing and picturesque personality, the soul of hospitality, and a record of reminiscence. Save for his snowy hair, some 70 years have sat lightlv on him. When he has “settled down” he will have earned his rest.