OTHER LANDS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2687, 24 November 1908, Page 7

OTHER LANDS.

f WALKING ROUND THE WORLD FOR PLEASURE. Of late years quite a number of I men have started to walk round I tho world, mainly with the object of , winning a wager. M. Georges j Grandin, however, a French gcntle- , man, who, having twice made a | tour of. the world on foot, is now about to commonce a third journey, is actuated by quite a different motive. He is a gentleman of property and means, and the sole object of his self-imposed and ari duous task is the patriotic one of promoting the friendship of France amongst the various countries lie visits. Not only docs M. Grandin not bet or live on charity during his journeys, but he makes considerable profits by selling on the way books and pamphlets recounting the | interesting impressions of his tours, j and out of these profits he has ali ready given a considerable sum to a I hospital in his own commune. ! FROM PRISON TO PALACE. i One of his experiences was of a i particularly thrilling character. While passing through Abyssinia he was taken for an Italian spy, manacled, and imprisoned for a month. During this time he was terrorised by his guards, but succeeded by a bribe in getting them to remove his i chains. It was only after a march jof 800 miles through a desert, however, during which his guards threatj cned to shoot him if he tried to esj cape, that M. Grandin came across , one of Menelik's olficials, to whom he was able to explain his position, after which ho was treated with every consideration and respect. • • * • The huge walls of Tekin stretch away in a long line, from which, like giant sentinels, the many-stor-ied towers, marking the nine great gates, look out across the plain. The vast gateway which gives access to the city is closed as soon as the sun has set, and the traveller has finally left behind him the civilisation, the feverish haste, the very atmosphere of the twentieth century, nn.l has plunged into the Middle ! Ages. The city occupies a square, j facing the cardinal points, and each jof its walls is three miles long and contains two gates, equi-distant from each other and from the corners of the walls. From each gate a vast thoroughfare runs straight to the opposite one, dividing the city into nine squares. The Tartar, or city proper, is to the north, and in the centre of it rise the faded vermilion walls of the* Forbidden City, or Imperial I'alacc. To the south lies a walled in suburb, the Chinese city, where arc most of the shops, resta'iiants. and theatres. The whole scheme is admirable, and everywhere are visible the traces of a skill and foresight in design which, however has been allowed to lapse into decay. The Foreign Legations are all of Chinese architecture except the Japanese, being old palaces, whose main characteristics are preserved while Western comfort has been introduced. They lie close together in one quarter, the English being the largest. All are walled, and have heavy Chinese gates, while the Russian. British, and French have their own chapel and surgery within the grounds. There is no system of street-lighting in Pekin, as the majority of Chinese do not go out ftfter dark, and so do not need it. The only time such illumination is attempted is when the Governor is going his monthly round of inspection. The mutton fat dips oro lighted in the quaint cages which rise like beacons at intervals along the embanked roadways. A moonless night in Pekin is black indeed, and even when armed with a lantern caution is required to avoid leprous Ijeggars, cesspools, and pariah dogs i —all merged into the general inky j blackness. There is no system of j drainage in Pekin, and in the summer, when clouds of dust hang about i the city, watering is done with slops j and sewage. The result makes one prefer the dust. Street life in Pe- j kin is most varied and picturesque. The houses, with the exception of j temples and the Imperial I'alacc, arc J one-storied ; the shops, open in the j daytime, have very solid bars, which j form a grille at night, and through | this grille one may, after sunset, . catch a glimpse of the shopkeeper i and his friends sitting in a circle with their opium pipes. The Rambler. * • • • •

STEAMING ACROSS THE VICTORIA NYANZA. I wake up the next morning to find j myself afloat on a magnificent ship. Its long and spacious decks are as , snowy as those of a pleasure yacht. It is equipped with baths, electric light, and all modern necessities. [There is a n excellent table, also a well-selected library. Smart bluejackets—with ebon faces—are polishing the brass work ; dapper, whiteclad British naval officers pace the bridge. We aru steaming ten miles an hour across an immense sea of fresh water as big as Scotland, and uplifted higher than the summit of Ben Nevis. At times we a re in a complete cir- | clc of lake and sky, without a sjjrn ! of land. j At others we skirt lofty coast 6 covered with forest and crowned with (distant, blue-brow n mountains, and I thread our course between a multij tude of beautiful islands. •The air is cool a nd fresh, the scenjery splendid. We might be yacht- • ing oIT the coast of Cornwall in July. We are upon the Equator, in the heart of Africa, and crossing the Victoria Nyanza, 4000 ft. above the M« • Winston Churchill, in the "Strand Magazine." , * » * • • ! ; A BLEAK. UNINVITING ! COUNTRY. Most of us have read and learnt of it in childhood and conjured up a romantic vision of the last foothold of English earth jutting out into j the miles and miles of grey sea. It was the edge of the known world i for centuries, and its facination is ! still strong enough to bring thou- ' sands of visitors to it every year, j From all over England they come, and all over the world, and drive for miles packed by dozens into brakes and char-a-bancs just to see this one famous spot, and satisfy a , strong-felt .sentiment. And what . is it they see ? "By and by,': says W. H. Hudson in his new hook on the " Land's End." "after travelling half a dozen miles, they find themselves in a land unlike any place they know ; inhabited, f or are a few sad-looking granite cottages and forms and hum-

oect. and therefore in harmonv with

their emotions and preconceived idea* about the place. It is a treeless, barren country, hill and moor, with furze and brown heath interspersed with grey boulder stones, the whole dominated by the great desolate hill of Chapel Cam Brea. The travellers look out, straining their eyes to see the end ; but befoi-e that comes the hilly country is left behind, and at the last it is flat and tame, with a sad-looking granite-built village and the grey sea beyond." That is all—nothing grand, nothing romantic ! But still they come, to satisfy an almost universal sentiment—and, for the most part, to go away disappointed. It is a bleak, uninviting country, this Western Cornwall, to those whosa love of scenery is nurtured on tho kinder, sheltered beauties of trees and streams and meadows, pretty flower-grown villages, rich pastures, and quiet shady woods. There are no trees, but only rocks and harsh, stony soil, and great winds that are never at rest and make life a burden to those who are buffeted by them in their daily work. The coming of spring hardly wakes it into life and colour. "For more than half the year, from October to May, it is comparatively a verdurcless and fiowcrless land, dark with furze and grey with rocks and heather, splashed with brown-red of dead bracken."

Yet to the nature-lover it is rich, glowing with life—the life of plant, and bird, and beast, the movement of the sea. and the creatures who find their living in it ; and especially of the little understood race who till the berren soil and occupy their business in thei great waters. And the people who have been born there, and have been driven out to earn their living elsewhere, love it and come back, sometimes from the ends of the earth.—London "Mail."