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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13491, 21 September 1914, Page 7

Arrangements have been made for a number of native meetings to be held throughout the North during the approaching summer -months, telegraphs a .Whangarei correspondent, for the purpose of compiling a record of Maori stories, legends, and traditions of the early days m the North of Auckland.

An Australian who visited German New Guinea says ' that what impressed him more than anything else his vessel steamed along' the coast of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land was the mysterious silence of the place. For great distances there is not a sign of life. "Your vessel,". he wrote recently, "is gliding through the blue, sunlit waters along the coast, the northern section of south-east New Guinea. Inland, range upon range of mountains reach far away into the distance. In the early morning the towerimr peaks are obscured by a thick blanket of mist that rises 'from the swamps and valleys. Later m the day the less distant ranges stand clear against the sky, their sides made glorious by patches of green and grey and brown. _ The tropical vegetation, a dense, impenetrable deep green wall of palms and bamboos, huge spreading banyans and strong, cruel vines, m many parts, grow right to the sea. The wide, white beaches, bo striking a feature of the islands of the Eastern Pacific, are here barely met with; The coast line is rugged, and often precipitous hills of great height rise sheer from the water's edge." Along the coast there are some good harbors, and there is one splendid river, the Kaiserin Augusta, which has been ascended .m • a steamer drawing 12_ft of water for more than 300 miles inland. There are enormous possibilities m this great tropic land, never again, it may be assumed, to be Kaiser Wilhelm's Land.