REVIEW.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 118, 19 July 1873, Page 2

REVIEW.

KIORANA.* Could the worthy Baron Munchausen revisit the “ glimpses of the moon,” he would stand aghast and confounded at the • daring ingenuity of his modern imitators. Such flights of fancy as are indulged in by New Zealand writers in the “ Australasian” and “Leader,” put the Baron into the shade. His wildest romance is mathematical truth, in comparison with the astounding contempt for fact in many of the sketches of New Zealand life to be found in the Australian periodicals. The latest specimen of this peculiar bent of genius is called “ Kiorana,” and is published in a professedly respectable journal, the Melbourne “ Leader.” If the writer is to be believed, and it would require an unlimited stock of credulity to enable any rational creature to credit a tithe of his story, he has survived an ordeal equal to the combined hairbreadth escapes of all the heroes of Mayneßeid, Tennyson, Cooper, Gustave Aimard, and all the host of manufacturers of high-spiced sensationalism. Our hero sets out by referring to the period when he was “ a wanderer in New Zealand,” a species of person unfortunately too well known in many of the settlements, and generally well watched by the police He goes on to say that he was 11 a tall fellow nearly six feet high,” and, judging from the character of his story, we think he has, for once, considerably understated the mark. Well, the “ tall fellow” joins the Mounted Defence Force, and forthwith proceeds to some mythical battle-field, which the New Zealand annals appear to have overlooked. Here, his extraordinary and brilliant career begins. He is immediately selected for a forlorn hope, becomes entangled in “ abominable creepers” (supple jack), and proceeds in a “dead silence,” which he tells us was “not broken by bird or beast,” except “ the tread of the horses’ feet, the clang of sabres, and curses,” we presume, not “ loud, but deep.” Then come a perfectly bewildering mixture of hills, swamps, more supple-jack, with a few vollies, and some bad imitation of Milesian brogue just thrown in to give tone to the affair. Our hero’s bete noir , however, appears to be the “abominable creepers.” The very pa is “surmounted and interlaced with supple-jack.” But, now comes the tug of war, —a “tremendous volley,” “hideous gaps” in the ranks of the Defence Force, “ shouts and yells,” “ strange oaths,” “hoarse shouts,” and a good deal of sound and fury and confusion. Rum-tum-tum —a “wild confused noise,” and clashing of weapons, amicst which one of the enemy thrusts the barrel of a gun into our hero’s face, when, of course, “the weapon fortunately missed fire.” Rum-tum-tum —a shout in the distance, which acted 11 like a shock of electricity upon the yelling mob and, after a few more madly exciting events, and some howling, blessed calm succeeds. Having Avorked himself up to the requsite pitch in the first chapter, our hero proceeds to accomplish greater things. He opens the next with the folloAving spirited sentence: —“ I had not galloped a hundred paces, Avhen a bullet, fired by some lurking foe, took the cap clean off my head, and slightly grazed my scalp.” Naturally indignant at this wretched imitation of William Tell, our hero “recovers himself” and pursues the audacious plagiarist. It would be a thankless task to follow this bloodthirsty story-teller through the maze of superhuman obstacles he now surmounts, and in which the inevitable “supple-jack” plays a conspicuous part, but at length .he stands triumphantly “ over the prostrate form of the Maori,” who proves to be a woman, and who, he tells us, “ stood bolt upright and opened upon me two (our hero is precise) of the largest dark eyes I ever beheld.” [lt may be remarked, parenthetically, that Ave have ere noAv seen Maori ladies with but one exceedingly dark eye.] Then, of course, folloAvs a conversation in broken English, a la Fenimore Cooper, with some choice moral philosophy on the ethics of murder, spiced with maudlin Platonic sentiments, in the same dialect ; suspicion on the side of the heroine only overcome by that Pakeha ingenuousness of countenance Avhich is so common amongst troopers in Avarfare ; and finally

our hero, with the weakness common to all heroes great and small, begins to fall in love. He tells us “the girl looked like some queen ©f the gipsy race as she stood there in the crimson sunset gloAv, amid the flickering shadows cast by the feathery fern tree.” This of course “ fetches him,” and he accompanies ‘ ‘ the young queen” to her home in the forest, but of course he could not resist the temptation to throAv in a trifle more supplejack to relieve the monotony of the journey. The narrative does not end here, hoAvever, and Ave shall aAvait with feverish anxiety the grand denouement of this wonderful story, which, in its rich imagination, and rigid adherence to the marvellous, almost surpasses the “Arabian Nights.” As a firstclass story teller the author has the real grit in him. He has only one slight blemish, pardonable in a young author, and one which, with a little more practice, he will certainly completely overcome a tendency occasionally, though rarely, to forget himself by approaching too closely to the realms of truth. The story of -the bullet that shaved his scalp is, hoAvever, sufficient to stamp his character as no ordinary writer, and it must be a subject for devout gratitude to all who take an interest in the struggles of young authors that his scalp was of sufficient density to prevent fatal consequences, and to preserve for the enlightenment of posterity so bright a genius. *“ Melbourne Leader,” June 28, 1873.