IN THE WILDS

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6520, 16 September 1924, Page 8

IN THE WILDS

WOMAN ARTIST’S ADVENTURES During one of her visits to the British Empire Exhibition Queen Mary accepted a picture, showing brilliant bougainvilleas growing in a Natal garden. This picture, one of a collection which is on view in the South African pavilion at Wembley, is the work of an Englishwoman, Miss Mabel Withers, who for the past 14 years has been painting in the “wilds” of Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. It was in 1910 that Miss Withers left England for South Africa, where for four years she travelled up and down. She spent five months at the Victoria Falls, painting their wonders.

“Of all the things I saw during the 14 years I was away from home, I believe I liked the Victoria Falls best of all,” she told a Daily Chronicle representative. Miss Withers had many adventures. One day, accompanied only by a little black piccaninny “about the size of a thimble,” as she put it, she painted away happily for hours. When she returned in the evening she was told that two lions had been prowling all day Efround the spot where she was painting and had killed cattle there. Another time her terrified servant pointed out two lions passing at some distance.

“He seemed to be trying to tell me something very important,” said Miss Withers, “but as I didn’t understand what he was saying I was not disturbed. It was not until later in the day that' it was explained to me that the servant had been trying to warn me of the presence of lions.” One day Miss Withers was separated from her friends by a troop of baboons, which capered and gibbered and barked like dogs. About the time the war broke out Miss Withers left Africa for Australia, and took the opportunity to travel extensively in New Zealand, taking in Tasmania by the way. She visited the extreme north of Australia, including the Baron Falls. She was caught in a bush fire in the Blue Mountains. Miss Withers is so entranced with the green magic of her first English spring that she. is painting the pictures of its mist veiled beauty to take to South Africa at the end of the year.