LORD FREDERIC HAMILTON ON HIS TRAVELS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18446, 6 January 1922, Page 8

LORD FREDERIC HAMILTON ON HIS TRAVELS.

“Since the earliest days of my boyhood the West Indies have exercised a quite irresistible fascination over me. This was probably due to my having read and reread ‘Peter Simple’ and ‘Tom Cringle’s Log’ over and over again until I knew them bv heart ; indeed. I will confess that even at the present day the glamour of these books is almost as strong as it used to be, and that hardly a year passdh without my thumbing once again their familiar pages.”—Lord Frederic Hamilton, in “Here, There, and Everywhere.” —“Here, There, and Everywhere.”— \ So does Lord Frederic Hamilton tell ns how he got his first instinct for roving, and great use has he made of it for our delight and his own. His new book is called “Here, Thqrc, and Everywhere” (Fodder and Stoughton, 15s net), and it is as certain of a warm welcome as its predecessors which made him so many personal friends—“ The Days Before Yesterday' 1 and “The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday.” The new book takes ns to India, to South America, to the Cane, and to the West' Indies, and everywhere one is glad of the writer’s genial and serene company. He is an ideal guide, and he. can tell good stories. Let us listen to one or two stories "while packing our trunks to accompany him f —The Babe Who Silenced the Archbishop.— Quite the most amusing of Lord Frederic’s''stories is that of his baby sister—afterwards the Duchess of Buccleuch—who silenced an Archbishop. When four years old she was being received in the Church by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Chapel Royal,. “During the service the Archbishop became inarticulate, and many of those present feared he had sustained a stroke. What had happened was this: As my sister was inclined to be fidgety and troublesome my mother had given her a packet ot I sugar almonds to keep her quiet. The j child was actually sucking one of these | when she arrived at tho Chapel Royal, i but was, of course, made to remove it. Unseen by anyone, she managed to place ] another in her mouth. “When the Archbishop took her in his arms the child, seeing his mouth close to hers, with the kindest intention in the world, took the sugar almond from her own mouth and popped it into the Archbishop’s. “Never had a Primate been in a more embarrassing situation! Having both his arms occupied in holding the child, he could not remove the offending abnond with his fingers. It would be quite superfluous on my part to point out how highly indecorous it would be for an Archbishop to—shall we say, to expel anything from his mouth—in church.” To other stories take us to / the Volga and to Trinidad. —Glasgow on the Volga.— Here is ah amusing incident from a voyage down the Volga. ‘“The Volga steamers were then built after the type of Mississippi boats with immense superstructures; they were the first oil-burning steamers I had ever seen, eo I got the captain’s permission to go down to the engine room. “Instead of a grimy stokehole, full of perspiring firemen and piles of coal,_ I found a clean white-painted place with one solitary but clean man regulating polished taps. The chief engineer, a bushv, red-hoaded, red-bearded man, came up and began explaining things to me. “I could then talk Russian quiet fluently, but the technicalities of marine engineering were rather beyond me, and I had not the faintest idea of the Russian equivalents for, say, intermediate cylinder or slide-valve. “I stumbled lamely along somehow until a small red-haired boy came in and cried in the strongest of Glasgow accents, ‘Your tea is waiting on ye, feyther.’ “It appeared .that the Glasgow man had been head engineer of the river steamboat company for 10 years, but we had neither of us detected the other s nationality. ” —Our Great Countryman, B.P.— “When I was at Trinidad General Badon-Powell came there in the course of his world-tour inspection of Boy Scouts. On the day of General Baden-PoweQ’s arrival, all the Radian boatmen and cabdrivers. struck work. On asking a Badian what the excitement was about the negro answered with infinite hauteur: . “ ‘Yon ask me dat, sir? Yon not know dat bur great countryman, General EADEN-Powell, arrive to-day, so we all go welcome him.’ “The Badians have an inordinate opinion of themselves and of their island.” —This Fascinating Archipelago. — It is evident that Loi 3 Frederic's special affection. goes, out .to Bermuda.’” “How on earth did Shakespeare ever come to hear of Bermuda?” he asks. “The still vexed I3e^ffloothes; ,, ■ *; “This fascinating' archipelago of coral islands forms an isolated little group in the North Atlantic, 600 miles from the United States, 3000 miles from Europe, and 1200 miles north of the West Indies. “Bermuda is the second oldest British Colonial possession, ranking only after Newfoundland, which was discovered by John Cabot in 1497, and occupied in the name of Queen Elizabeth in 1583. , Sir George Somers being wrecked on Bermuda in 1607 at once retaliated by annexing the group, though, as there was not one drop of water on any of the islands, there were naturally no aboriginal inhabitants to dispute his claim. “Bermuda is to me a perpetual economic puzzle, for it seems to defy triumphantly all the rules which govern other places. Here is a group of islands whoso total superficies is only 12,500 acres, of which little more than one-tenth is capable of cultivation. There is no fresh water whatever, the inhabitants being entirely dependent on the rainfall for their supply; and yet some 22,000 people, white and coloured, live there in great prosperity, and there is no poverty whatever. “They are the most delightful islands imaginable. On the dullest day tho water keeps its deen blue tint. IVhen tbs oleanders are in bloom, the milk-white houses peeping out from this sheet of rose pink, with the deep indigo ot the sea, and the sombre green of the cedars, make one of the most enchanting pictures that it is possible to imagine.” —The Tavern of the Ocean.— “1 like the name of ‘The Tavern of the Ocean,' formerly given to Capetown, and what a welcome break it must have afforded in the wearisome voyage from Europe to the Dutch East Indies, or to India proper. . “It was not until Simon van der Stel was appointed Governor in 1678 that any idea of developing the Cape as a colony was ever entertained. Van der Stel has left.his impression deep on the country. Though the vine had been already introduced by Van Riebeck, it ir to Van der Stel that the special features of Cano scenery are due, for we owe to him the splendid groves of oak of to-day, and he originated the Dutch type of building of which so manv fine specimens still remain. These old Dutch houses arc a constant puzzle to me. . . . ■ “I cannot believe that untrained Hottentots can ever have developed the craftsmanship and skill necessary to produce those fine pieces of furniture. I think it far more likely to be due to the influx of French Huguenot refugees in 1689. “Wherever three. French Huguenots settled they brought civilisation in their train, and proved’ a blessing to tho country of their adoption. , . . Here at the far off Cape thee; made the wilderness blossom and transformed its barren spaces into smiling wheatfields and oak-shaded vineyards. ... I suspect, too, that the artistic impulse which produced the dignified- colnnial houses and built so beautiful a town as Stellenbosch must have come from the French. “As a tribute to the adaptable climate, I may sav that I have myself seen on_ Sir Thomas Smartt’s well-watered farm apple trees and orange trees fruiting and ripen-ing-in the same field. Magnificent Cape Oaks.— “ I was certainly not prepared for the magnificent groves of oaks which are such a feature of Capetown and its vicinity. These oaks, far larger than any to which we are accustomed, beat witness to the painstaking thoroughness of (She

Dutch. Before an oak capable of Withstanding the arid climate and burning sun of South Africa could be produced it had to be crossed and recrossed many times. The existing stately tree is the fruit of this patient labour; it grows at twice the pace of our oaks, and attains far greater dimensions. It is quite useless as a timber tree.” Looking for “Tindamies.” — “As a boy,” says Lord Frederic, “whilst exploring rock pools at low water on the west coast of Scotland I used to thinks longingly ,of the rock pools in warm seas,'which I pictured to myself as perfect treasure houses of marine curiosities. Neither in Bermuda nor in the _ West Indies, nor even on the Cape Peninsula, where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet, could I find anything whatever in the rock pools. “To adopt the Sunday School child’s word, there seems to be no ‘tindamies’ on the beaches of warm seas. Everyone must have heard of tho little girl who fot he,r first glimpse of the sea on a unday School excursion. The child seemed bitterly disappointed at something, and in answer to her teacher’s question said that she liked the sea, ‘but please where were the “tindamies?” I was looking forward so to the tindamies.’ “Pressed for an explanation, the little girl repeated from the Fourth Commandment, ‘ln six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all the tindamies.’ “Tindamies,’’ adds Lord Frederic, “is quite a convenient word for star-fish, crabs, cattle fish, and other flotsam and jetsam of the beach.” As one closes this fascinating book one echoes the written words, “There is so much to see in this world of ours, and just one short lifetime in which to see it!”