THE CRADLE OF LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18897, 20 December 1924, Page 22 (Supplement)

THE CRADLE OF LIFE.

STRIFE WITH THE WATERS.

MAN AND THE MIGHTY PEA.

THE STORY OF VERXES.

PUNISHING THE WAVES

All life came Mom water, and the ancient cradle seems disposed to follow its children to their homes on the land. Engineers have lately begun the task of snatching hack 400 acres which the sea has seized in the Wash.

There are five million Chinese homeless in the province of Cliihli as the result of the flooding of their province for the second time within seven years. There are men at work day and night to keep the sea out of Holland, which lies for the most part beneath the level of the ocean; and there is a spectacle of the old M. Clemenceau, robbed already of 600 yards of his land by the sea, valiantly declaring that he will have the last word in the matter.

The strife between life and the waters is unending, and must be so, says a London paper, when it is remembered that the seas cover five-sevenths of the globe, and that from out of the lands humanity

inhabits there flows to the ocean every year 6500 million cubic yards of water by way of the rivers. It took mankind long to learn that its engineers arc its only .safeguards against the waters, and not its kings. One of I the strangest tableaux in history comes I to mind in this connection. When Xerxes. King of Persia and j Egypt, arrived 25 centuries ago with his vast army of fighting men on the Asian j shore of the Dardanelles, he caused a | bridge to be made leading to the other I side for the invasion of Greece. The sea j washed away this structure, so Xerxes | set himself to teach the sea a lesson. He ! gave orders that it should receive 300 strokes of the lash, that a pair of fetters should be cast into it in token of its j ignominy, and that it should be branded with red-hot irons. Those who thus chastised the. sea, said, ns they inflicted the strokes, " Thou bitter water, thy lord lays on thee this punishment, because thou hast wronged him without a cause, having suffered no evil at his hands. Verily King Xerxes will cross thee, whether thou wilt or no. Well dost thou deserve that no man should honour thee with sacrifice, for thou art of a truth treacherous and unsavoury." So Xerxes chastised the waves, and yet he may not have been so childish as I he seems, for while some of his men were punishing the sea the others were cutting off the heads of the men who had built a j bridge so easily destroyed.

There arc wonderful birds with shimmering plumage, huge butterflies with gaily-coloured wings, queer native villages, monkeys that howl in the soundless electric storms, when the jungle is illuminated as it' in some strange dream, a panorama of beauty that changes by day and night: and, abovo all, the mystery of the eternal forest, which even to-day is so little explored that the traveller may find himself in land where the foot of a 'whiteman has never trod in 400 years. Strange tales are told of the tribes that live in the jungle, untamed and savage, keeping to themselves like the wild animals that arc their neighbours. There is even a tale of an English sailor who was rescued from starvation by natives of the river-land, and settled down among them and became their chieftain. He was happy until the rubber traders came and robbed him of his plantation, and sent him and his tribe into the wilderness once more. No less than fifty thousand miles' of the Amazon and its great tributaries are navigable for big steamers. The sea-tide that comes up into the mouth of the main river for about 400 miles, working against the stream itself, produces the bore or wall of water known as the Pororoca, which is sometimes very dangerous for smaller craft, and is said to have given the Amazon its name, which comes from the Portuguese version of an Indian word meaning boat-destroyer. But apart from this navigation is a simple matter, and vast wealth in rubber, nuts, and other produce is borne down