VISIT TO MAINLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18292, 8 January 1923, Page 7

VISIT TO MAINLAND.

CHILDREN FROM CHATHAMS. MANY NEW EXPERIENCES. FIRST TASTE OF ICE CREAM. [BY TELEGRAPH.—EBESS ASSOCIATION J CHRISTCHURCH, Sunday. A party of Chatham Island school children,, seven boys and seven girls, arrived at Lyttelton by the Rama early yesterday morning under the care of their teacher for a fortnight's visit to Canterbury. None of the children have previously left the islands, and everything is new to them. They are being privately billeted, and will visit various points of interest, including the exhibition, aerodrome, and various] mills and factories, under the guidance of the School Committees' Association, which arranged the visit. Mr. J. A. Thompson, the master in charge, said the trip had been calm practically all the way,, and the children were lucky, in seeing three whales, a shark and two large schools of porpoises. All the children were up at 2 a.m. as soon as Akaroa Heads were sighted, and had a clear moonlight view of the peninsula. On entering the Lyttelton Harbour the children were amazed at the size of overseas ships, and particularly a five-masted schooner, and the mass of buildings. The berthing of the ferry steamer settled a long-standing argument among the children as to whether it was possible to berth a vessel stern first. The youngsters said very little, but they were very wide-eyed at the railway station. One of the party is a nephew of Sir Maui Pomaro. S'irst Ride in Motor-car. The schoolmaster in charge of the party, Mr. Thompson, in returning thanks to the exhibition officials for their welcome, said that only two of the children had ever been in New Zealand before, and it was a wonderful experience for them. One little boy had his first ride in a motor-car during the morning and when asked how he liked it ho replied, " I laughed the whole way because I've never seen anything but sticks, stones, and sands before. ' The party broke up into sections under guides and visited the various exhibits and had their importance explained to them. Most of the children appeared to bo absolutely bewildered by the surroundings. AH' those things which the small boy on the mainland would consider absolutely necessary to sustain life were quite foreign to their little island neighbours. It was a pleasing sensation for a big good-natured man to buy boys of 12 years or more tho first ice creams they had ever seen in their lives. Only one "of them finished the dish and it was not a great pleasure for him because some minutes later he found that his teeth had begun to ache. Few of the party had more than one ice and it was quite well proved that an appetite for this delicacy is only acquired. Most of- the children had never seen ice before, and many enjoyed the pleasure of placing their hands upon great blocks of it for the first time, and the usual result was a speedy withdrawal. " It Might be Fairyland." One little girl, when asked what she thought of the exhibition, stood still for a moment and then replied: "Well, it might be fairyland for air I know." A very bright Maori bojy gave an interesting account of life on the islands. School began at nine o'clock in the morning and continued until half-past three in the afternoon. It took him about half-an-hour to get to the one school and he had several cows to milk in the morning before he set out. Likewise in the evening he had more cows to milk and wood to chop. "We've got a football over there," he said, " but we just kick it about as there is nobody to teach us to play the game properly. We would like to learn, but we can't." He then went on to say there were not a great many children able to swim, mainly because tho ocean was dangerous on account of sharks, and the water in Lake Hurl was very cold and full of snags. He had never tested an ice cream and had never seen a moving picture.