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Otago Witness, Issue 2545, 24 December 1902, Page 3 (Supplement)

OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.

door with its richly carved lintels and superstructure. Further down the street is a curious covered bridge, which appears to connect the church with the opposite building, lying in deep shadow on the extreme right of the picture, and which might well be a palace, a monastery, or a prison, or perhaps, all three, so sombre and forbidding is its aspect. Further still we catch a glimpse of other streets and houses, with bright sunlight playing upon them. The foreground gives a fine effect of human interest, life, and movement. There are a number of women, young and old, their heads covered with the graceful Sr anish mantilla ; priests, frocked and hatted, and a few children. No vehicles are ap parent ; and, indeed, in the narrow street there seems no space for wheeled traffic; the tiny crowd of church-goers fills it from side to side. It is a charming scenej full of subdued life and motion, strong shadow, and brilliant sunshine, and reads like a page from some romance of the Middle Ages. 2. " Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany." — An old-world city, of quite a different type, full of the bustle of commerce. In the foreground a crowded wharf, and the lading and unlading of ships ; in the middle distance many boats, brigs, and barges, some with sails,, some without ; and in the distance part of a fine suspension bridge, and behind it, towering skyward, the spire of a cathedral rising among many houses and towers of lesser altitude, and dominating the whole conception like a thought of God. 3. " Street Scene in Berne, Switzerland." — A market place, with women clustered round a fountain. On each side quaint, strongly built houses, with of their shaded parlours. In the centre of the market- observed in Holland when, many doors and windows, crowned with wide eaves, intended place rises a fine, fluted column, crowned by a statue evening, the presents are as a protection from winter snows, but now catching the iof Justice bearing her scales. In the distance are gifts being brought in at ou intensely bright sunshine of a summer noon, which has I some verdure-clad mountains, with a church tower at every few minutes, and car: driven most of the inhabitants indoors to the coolness their feet. Tn this picture the effect of summer if they had that moment be

1. " After Mass, Majorca." — Here Mr Worsley gives us a peep at the capital of the Balearic Islands, that quaint, half Moorish city, lying far out of the beat of tourist traffic, which few foreigners visit, and fewer still appreciate. In this picture we see the crowd returning from Mass, gathered on and around the steps of the fine, old cathedral, which towers above them to a stupendous height, quite dwarfing the human figures below. We are at once struck by the plain facade of this huge building and its tiny windows, no less than by the great

and sunshine is admirably rendered. It is now the pro perty of the Canterbury Society of Art. 4. " Pampeluna, Spain." — This picture being more ii the impressionist style, does not lend itself to reproductioi like the previous ones. A ruined archway, a few laden mul« and th?ir riders — these are the most salient features of whal is no doubt a characteristic anc brilliant scene. 5. " Port Chalmers." — A bil near home. Shadow and shine ; luminous sky and water; a tin shed and fishing boats in the foreground, more or less reflected in the rippling water; a graceful church spire rising against the bright sky. Smoke, and fog, and mist in the middle distance, and over all the haze of our humid atmosphere, and the soft charm of a day in the late autumn, when all things are still, even in the busy port, and nature seems to wait for the sleep of winter.

Mistletoe. — These pretty berries fo closely associated in our minds with Christmas merrymakings are, it appears, used for other than their lawful purpose. Though highly poisonous if eaten in large quantities, a fewdo no harm, and engender in the person eating them a condition not unlike ordinary intoxication It seems that porters and other persons employed at Covent Garden, when they have not the money for drink, eat about five or six of these berries, wh'ch effectually satisfy their cravings. The Giving Lasts Longer. — An odd Christmas custom is towards the end of dinn~^ in the distributed. Instead ol' all the ise, the servants ring the door-bell •y up the parcels one by one, as en delivered at the door.