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Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8196, 30 January 1907, Page 8

Colonel Gudgeon is one ox the few* Europeans who have taken part in the fire-walking performances of savage races. He walked over the hot stones of ;m oven made in Rarotonga by a priest from Raiatea, one of the Society Islands, and was unharmed. What is your explanation of the affair?" a reporter asked him last night. ''I believe," he replied, ■'that it can be accounted for by some perfectly natural law which as yet is unexplained." Two other Europeans. I)r William Craig and Dr George Craig, walked the hot stones with him, and the latter was badly burned, but Colonel Gudgeon says he is convinced that ho must have stepped between the stones on to some hot ashes, as he was burnt on only one foot. The only sensation Colonel Gudgeon experienced was a prickly feeling in his legs. He believes that the heat deadens the nerves, and that he did not feel pain. " I am quite sure," he says, "that any person can walk over the hot stones. I did it because, in the first place, it wa.s advisable to let these people know that what they could do Europeans could do, and secondly, because I wanted to see whether there was any trick in it. and that could be done only by actually walking over the stones. It is nonsense to think that something is done to prepare the feet, and it is also nonsense to suppose that there is anything supernatural in the performance. I do not think that a full adequate explanation has been given."