OVER THE TEACUPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2545, 24 December 1902, Page 59

OVER THE TEACUPS.

I My dear Readers, — Our first words to one another to-morrow Mill be the dear oldtime greeting of "A. Merry Christmas, and many of them," I know. The lovely Christmas verses which stand above embody the deeper thoughts I want to share with you. One, "Happy Christmas," I copied for you nearly a year ago, too late I for the Christmas of 1901 ; it yet seemed to me so beautiful that it would await another Christmas. ''The Carol," at once so simple and sweet, I think will appeal to you as it does to me. And now to a brief, a very brief, glance I through our magazines ; a few words, a very few, on dress and odd topics, and then the little holiday, all too short, which ! spans the flying space of old and new year. I If I have* any Roman Catholic readers in . my circle, and it goes without saying that j I "have, I would recommend them to obtain, if possible, a copy of the Pall Mall Magazine for November. It contains a most interesting and beautifully illustrated article on the New Westminster Cathedral, which has been for the last seven years in course of construction at Westminster, ! and is now, as regards the exterior, practically completed. It is naturally of intense and sacred interest to devout Roman [ Catholics, as being the greatest material i expression of their faith since the Reformation ; but beyond that the building, as a building, is so distinctive, so unfamiliar, to English eyes, in its purely Byzantine arcliitecture, that it challenges the attention of even the most casual passer-by. It will be many years before the interior can be i completed, and staoid revealed in all the splendour and perfection of the architect's plans. It seems sad that Mr Bentley, the architect, should not have lived to see the realisation of those plans on which he expended himself, heart and soul, with such success that it seems probable that he, jdwjjzg known fun.QAir.MchJte.ct* aga "Gothic

the beauty of these fails of Iguazu, for my description is necesarily shorn of the exquisite pictures. I can only ask you to imagine the charm of the tropic forest which clothes the backs, clings fco each spraywashed islet, and climbs over every available point, to bathe in the eternal spray of thase exquisite falls. Passing to the tropic vegetation, the soli-, tude, the unfrequented paths by which they must be approached, the Falls of Iguazu 1 possess attractions which are so utterly dissimilar to the wonders of Niagara that any comparison is absurd, save in respect of actual volume and magnificence. Here, too, comparisons are rendered difficult by the fact that, owing to the peculiar formation of the banks of the Parana, and the set of the currents thus induced, there are, as it were, a double set of falls, and the spectacle from the Brazilian b2.Tik is quite as fine, though entirely different to that on the Argentine bank. But time presses, holidays wait. Take once more the kindest and heartiest greetings for the season from yonr attached EMMELINE.