An Interesting Book.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXII, Issue 6871, 22 April 1897, Page 4

An Interesting Book.

An interesting and amusing book has recently been published in London by Messrs Swann, Sonnenschein, and Co., called "Parts of the Pacific," by a Peripatetic Parson. The author lived for some years in North Queensland, and visited many of the less frequented regions of the Pacific. His statements have been revised by experts on such subjects as Emigration, Missions, the Kanaka, Labor Question, and the general treatment of nations, so that they may be relied on as accurate. But the majority of readers will relish the book for its colloquial and e3sy-goir.g style of gossip on topics strange, as well as for the admirable illustrations which accompany the text. lusecfc life seems inciedibly developed in Queensland, where "at bedtime I could not at first see my bed across the room for mosquitoes," and at a baptism the basin of water was filled with myriads of moths beetles, and creeping things. The parson's tall hat brought more people to church than his sermons did, so he gave it to the children to play football with, but some aborigines seized it and greedily converted it into stew. He experienced a cyclone, watching the ruin of his house while he lay on the bed. " I saw the roof go off the room piece by piece. I saw everything go, until there was nothing left at my side of the house but me and my noble bed." South Sea cannibals are said to prefer parsons to sailors, as the former do not as a rule chew tobacco, which habit is said to "make the meat rank." At the funeral of a man who had all his life saturated himself with spirits, one of the mourners said, " The corpse might be put to far better use at a distillery. Good stories abound, but we should not deal fairly by our author did we filch them for our readers. Be it said, however that a Judge in Queensland asked for a bath at a time when only a little water remained for drinking purposes. His request was refused, but he was found inside the tank, and all the answer that remonstrances induced was, "The water will not be soiled, I am using no soap." And due honor should be paid to the industrious lady who, stricken with fever, ordered some hens' eggs to be put into her bed so that she might not be idle, and what is more, she actually hatched them ! The perij)atetic parson's moral is "Go ( ahead boys. Go to some other part of the Empire, where the bright sunny world spreads out before you, laden with treasure, which some of you must bring to market sooner or later." i