FROM THE WHTCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 561, 14 January 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WHTCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

SCENES OF GLORY Mr. Lloyd George, who is convalescing from influenza, is to enjoy a yacht trip in the Mediterranean. He hopes to visit the Dardanelles, I’ve had a touch of ’flu, so let us go Out where the soft sirocco and the desert zephyrs blow. There in the sunny south by Sicily Where Etna casts its shadow on the sea I’ll convalesce. Ah, lazy, languorous days, For which my syndicated sobstuff pays l . . . Now, as regard for bravery compels, Suppose we set our proxo toward the Dardanelles. What memories will those crimson'd beaches call Bade from the dark recesses ! How we all Waged, gallant battles underneath Big Ben , We statesmen M fighting grimly with the lives of other men. Those rows of solemn crosses. Ah, how sad ! I remember, at the time, we thought it bad. And there's the cliff the Anzacs scaled. What men! They didn’t seem to worry if the chance ica's one in ten. Yes, when these frowning battlements I scan, 1 realise how magnificent and daring was our plan. . , . Ah, I’ve been sleeping. Phantom reveries Passed through my dreaming brain. This life of ease Allows of casting back to virile daps When life was life. Ah, how we lived. The bays Crowned us deservedly, despite this blunder That nearly rent a Ministry asunder And cost some lives. Still, history often tells Of minor errors. Ho, for the Dardanelles ! BEOWULF. A BULKY PACKAGE The comment of a small boy at the zoo yesterday, after prolonged study of the hippopotamus pond: Well, it's a good thing the stork doesn’t get his orders mixed.” * * * LONELY ISLET * One of the little-considered things about wireless is the complicating effect it will have upon authors of boys’ fiction. In his youth the L.O.M. read a wonderful story of piracy and intrigue upon Tristan da Cunha, which has been termed the world’s loneliest island. The butchery with which the story was suitably ended could not have happened had their been a three-valve wireless set on the island to keep the villainous sea captain in touch with the outside world. Yet a three-valve wireless installation is the very amenity which is now to be conferred upon the inhabitants. They are barely 100 in number, and are mainly descended from whalers and the remnants of a former British garrison. Tristan da Cunha, discovered by a Portuguese gentleman of that name in 1506, has the whole South Atlantic to itself. Ships call there about once a year, but even at that the place is really not as lonely as Kerguelen, the Crozets, and one or two other remote spots. Among lonely tropical islets is Saint Paul, far away from the coast of Brazil. It was made a port of call last year by a couple of Italian airmen hopping from Africa to Brazil. Surely the lonely islands can be certain of their solitude no longer.