THE MAGIC CARPET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19660, 11 June 1927, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE MAGIC CARPET.

BX ELSIE K. MORTON.

THE TROPIO ISLES. Sunrise in the tropics! Sky and sea are bathed in a crimson glow of light that fills the world with almost unearthly radiance. High up in the glowing sky the Magic Carpet sails swiftly toward a bank of opal-tinted clouds that gradually take shape and form a line of rugged mountain crests. We are nearing the island of Ovalau, one of the most picturesque and beautiful isles of the Pacific. A red-funnelled ship is feeling her way through the break in the snowy line of surf that marks the coral reef. With swift, gliding movement the Magic Carpet descends, and soon her voyagers are mingling with the sea-travellers as they make their way down the long wharf, eager for their first glimpse of life in the Tropic Isles. Next moment we are in a little township of Levuka, the former capital of Fiji. The street is filled with lithe, brown-bodied natives with great fuzzy mops of hair, and Englishmen with tanned faces, wearing the white, coo) suits of the tropics. The brilliant sunshine sets the air shimmering and dancing before our eyes, and it seems incredible that Auckland, only four days of seatravel behind, should be shivering in the grip of early winter! " Why, did yuu ever see anything like that!" cries one of our voyagers, as we pause beside a small building on the waterfront. " It is chained to the ground!" So it is, and a few yards farther along is a big tree, firmly secured by ropes! We learn that when the great tropical hurricanes sweep the isles of the Pacific, hous§s and trees are sometimes hurled bodily into the sea, so that those lying in more exposed parts have to be firmly secured to the ground in order to escape destruction. The main road of Levuka lies round the waterfront, and here we find all kinds of lovely flowers, crimson, pink and yellow hibiscus, the showy scarlet and orange flower of the lantana, and other

flowers we have never seen before. Here, too, are strange reptiles and insects that fill us with alarm at first sight, snakes and big bronze and green lizards sunning themselves on the rocks, enormous spiders almost as big as a saucer, and brillianthued butterflies darting from flower to flower. It is like an enchanted garden, where the flowers are made of lovely jewels, and fairy elves weave spells u dazzle the eyes of mortal Presently we come to a grove of palm trees, and a cluster of quaint little grass huts, with tiny brown children playing outside. Their only garment is a sti of gaudy cloth worn round the waist, and they are fuzzy headed and ugly as little brown monkeys. The gleam of a bright threepenny-bit entices one urchin from the group. We point aloft to the clustering cocoanuts, and with a shrill cry. young monkey-face makes a dart for the tallest tree. Up, up he goes, swarming up just like some quaint little animal, till he reaches the cluster of nuts. Then he flings them down at us, a native approaches with a huge knife, strips the nuts, slashes off the tops, and there is the loveliest, coolest drink of fresh cocoanut milk, brimming to the top. Later on we are invited to afternoon tea at one of the pretty homes built high on the side of the great mountain that frowns down on little Levuka. Native servants, neatly clad in loose, white garments, bring us all manner of strange and delightful fruits, mangoes, custardapples, pau-pau, golden passion fruit and guavas arid grenadillos, shaped like rockmelons, and filled with seeds like some enormous passion fruit. We eat carefully, feeling like modern Sinbads, flung ashore on some enchanted isle, perhaps being fattened up by our captors for some barbaric feast! All too swiftly the time passes, and the brief dusk of the tropics gives place to the jewelled mantle of night. The scent of strange fruits and flowers ig in the air; out on the reef the breakers are crashing in long, circling line of ghostly light. . : High up in tihe starry sky, the Magic Carpet ,glides *swiftly over the ocean bearing the happy voyagers homeward.