A TRIP TO THE OLD COUNTRY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1610, 7 January 1903, Page 18

A TRIP TO THE OLD COUNTRY.

IMPRESSIONS OF MR AND MRS CAVE.

HOW NEW ZEALAND IS REGARDED AT HOME,

Mr and Mrs A. W. Cave, of. Masterton, returned on. Wednesday by the Victoria from a trip to the Old CountryThey left New Zealand in March last, and since that time they have had an enjoyable holiday in visiting the sights and scenes of tho Old World.

They went home from Sydney in the P. and O. steamer Britannia, the same vessel by which they returned. Arriving in Gloucestershire in the month of May, the travellers were charmed by the sight of the fields in their green verdure, the trees in beautiful white blossom, the banks yellow with primroses, and the copper beeches just coming into leaf. All this was the more welcome because when they reached the English coast the weather seemed in one of its disagreeable moods, with misty rain, and the air heavy with fog. While in England, they visited the Royal Agricultural Show, which was held this year at Carlisle. Asked as to his impressions of this show, Mr Cave told a “New Zealand Times” representative last night that in his opinion we in New Zealand compared favourably with the English farmers so far as cattle were concerned, and in regard to sheep he thought ours in this colony were oven better. “Of course,” said he, “there are many different breeds of sheep in England in which we do not compete with them; but in Lincolns and Downs I think we not only hold our own, but are ahead of them. It was in horses that they heat ns out of sight at this show. The jumping competitions were very fine, and the Shetland ponies looked well; but the Irish hunters took onr fancy particularly. The jumping of these hunters was really splendid.” Mr Cave i'evisited with groat interest the scenes of his boyhood in Gloucestershire. Amongst the most favoured days of his totur he counts three, on which he enjoyed some good hunting in that county—on two of these days he followed the Ledbury hounds. Then at his sister’s home in Gloucestershire He had some excellent partridge and pheasant shooting, bagging in one day nineteen and a-half brace of pheasants. “1 saw great changes in the cities of England,” he ’mused, “ but very little change in the small towns. London had grown enormously since I saw it previously ” —this was forty years before—- “ but the small towns, instead of growing, seemed to have actually become smaller.” And Mrs Cave told, with great merriment, how her husband, when he reached the scene of liis schooldays, stood in the street and burst into laughter, as he exclaimed that the place was smaller than when he went to school there, and that even the streets seemed to have become narrower. The travellers had an experience at Bristol, which goes to show what is thought of New Zealand at Home. Whilst they were waiting to have their luggage attended to. a gentleman, who had come apparently to meet some friends, shook hands warmly with the New Zealand visitors when he discovered what part of the world they hailed from. “You .are from New Zealand?” he echoed; “ then thank you for sending ns those good soldiers from your colony. You have only to say in London that you are New Zealanders to be received with the most cordial welcome.” Mr and Mrs Cave, who spent some time in Scotland, visited the shipbuilding yards on the Clyde, then went to Edinburgh, and enjoyed a tour amongst some of the famous Scottish scenery. Speaking of .New Zealand

produce, they state that they found New Zealand meat advertised freely ijfi the shops, both in England and Scotland, and that wherever it has been tried it is well spoken of. In Gloucestershire, Now Zealand cheese was consumed in the house where they stayed—an excellent tribute to the merits of the article from this colony, as appreciated in the home of the cheese-making industry in England. “I will say this,” observed one Bristol grocer to Mr Cave, “ that you send us one very good article from your colony.”

“ Only one ?” queried the New Zealander. ■' Ji:

“Well, I am speaking of what I know mpst about,” said the other, “and I know that you send us really good cheese from New Zealand.” :: Mr Cave induced one of his friends bo try New Zealand lamb, about which he had been rather diffident; and when he asked him for his verdict, it was one of unqualified approval. A good deal of River Plate and Australian meat, however, is sold as having come from New Zealand, and this, of course, does not assist the New Zealand produce trade in England. Moreover, New Zealand meat is often traded off as English meat. One instance of this came to the notice of the travellers when they found that a butcher had attached the black legs of Scottish sheep to his New Zealand carcases, passing the latter off then as the prime Home-grown product. The point of this story consists in the fact ' that when a buyer came along who wanted New Zealand meat and secured some of the joints, the butcher pulled off the tags, or black legs, observing, as he did so, “The meat belongs to you, but these things belong to me.” Presumably be wanted them for some fresh pieces of meat from New Zealand.

A visit to the Continent was part of Mr and Mrs Cave’s programme, and this was one of the most interesting features of the torur. It included Paris, and Mentone, and. Monaco, and Monte Carlo, and Lake Lucerne, and Nice, and Venice, and many other plaoes familiar to the tourist. They climbed Riga, in Switzerland, travelling by the railway which she ingenuity of modern engineers has run to the summit of that peak. “We didn’t want to go up, and told the guide so, because it was a cloudy, gloomy day; but he urged us to keep on,” §aid Mr Cave, “and when we did keep on, and had reached tfa& hotel at the top, we saw a sight which! we should not have missed for anything. The clouds which were above us when we started were now below our feet, and there we were, with brilliant sunshine all around us, playing on the snow, which lay to the depth of several feet on the mou’ tain. It was indeed a great sight.”

Mr and Mrs Cave, who were accompanied on their tour by Mr Mackenzie, also of Masterton, are to return to Masterton to-dav.