FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 858, 30 December 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” THE AFTERMATH My wardrobe is gtiy With new collars and ties. The collars, I’d add, Are of varying size. For the people who sent them, My person to deck, Were* quite unaware Of the girth of my neck. In addition to these, A large store I possess, Of kindred examples Of Christmas largesse. I’ve even a toothbrush. Which somebody biffed To show his resource With the Christmastide gift. So much for the presents That Christmas confers, But a sinister prospect My gratitude blurs. Though many the legacies Christmastide spills, The Avorst of the lot is— A large sheaf of bills! OUTSIDE OR IN A recent verse on the ancient theme, ‘‘Stone walls do not a prison make,” impels ”99/999,” of Albany, to send along a war-time experience. The unit was quartered in a large stone house, wherein that inevitable accessory, the clink, was placed behind an iron grating under the stairs. On Armistice Night a general celebration had unfortunate results. One of the company awoke from what may have been “a deep dream of peace” to find himself behind the iron bars, locked in the cell in an empty mansion. For an hour or so he struggled unavailingly to get out, pulling and wrenching at the bars. Then, resigned to his fate, he went to sleep again. In the morning he woke with a clearer head. He was outside the cell, and had tried for ail hour or two to get in. BIG GAME The Prince of Wales has expressed a wish to secure a rhiixpceros, a lion and a buffalo,, during his coming visit to Africa. Unless the standard of African hospitality has declined, it may be taken for granted that this will be managed. There are, of course, more ways than one of bagging a rhinoceros.' In the secret history of a certain famous football tour is the tale of a visit by a party of footballers to an African zoo. There they saw their first rhinoceros. It was yawning hungrily. That immense cavern of a mouth proved too much for one of the visitors. He thrust into it a bottle of lemonade. The rhinoceros took it, bottle and all. In the interests of harmony a veil was drawn over the subsequent proceedings. The effect on the rhinoceros was that of a powerful internal bomb. The heat of its stomach caused the bottle to explode, and soon a monarch of the veld, jungle or karroo —whatever was its moral and spiritual home —was breathing its last in a corner of the pen. * * * TURANOAKVMU Turangakumu Hill, where a car has plunged over the steep hillside, is not the scene of many accidents, simply because most motorists, knowing its reputation, take elaborate precautions when traversing it. This hill, the highest on the Napier-Taupo Road, and the highest main highway in the North Island, is probably the only place where service cars on the regular routes drop into low gear, not second, for a long portion of the descent. The road on this section drops 1,400 feet in a very short distance by the process of looping itself round and round a spur that runs down the hill. All this time there is a drop of several hundred feet within a few inches of the outer wheels of the car. It is little wonder that cautious motorists prefer low gear and a lot of tooting as they go up and down the hill, yet Turangakumu today is mild to what it was a few years ago, before the highways engineers took it in hand and provided a little more breathing space on those sinuous loops and corners. A BETTER ROUTE It has always been contended that a better route than the climb over Turangakumu could have been found by the original builders of the NapierTaupo Road. Near by is a profound gorge where the Waipunga stream pierces the hills to join the Mohaka River, and some claim that by forming a road in the gorge the heights of Turangakumu could have been avoided. However, the big hill, rising at the crest of the road to 2,700 feet, is not without its compensations. It gives glorious views out over the wilderness of sharp spurs and hilltops, and in winter both road and ranges are often deep in snow. Further on toward Napier is another big hill, Titiokura, rising 2,300 feet on the eastern banks of the Mohaka River. The foot of this hill was the scene of a bad coaching accident in the old days, which shows that even oldfashioned methods of transit were not without their perils. Today there are few accidents on the Napier-Taupo Road, considering the great numbers of cars that traverse it, and the fact that notices at each end of the hilly section warn motorists that “the next 50 miles are dangerous.”