THE GIRL IN THE KARPATHIANS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5861, 1 May 1897, Page 3

THE GIRL IN THE KARPATHIANS.

A TALK WITH MRS HENRY NORMAN (MENIE MURIEL DOWIEJ. (The Young Woman.) Mrs Norman's mother was a daughter of Eobert Chambers, and perhaps he transmitted to his granddaughter something of that love of natural history which ho enshrined in that once sensational book, " Vestiges of Creation." Both Mrs Norman's parents were Scottish. Her father was a Liverpool merchant, and she was born in England, which, she says, " cast a shadow over " her pure Scottish descent. " I was brought up in tho country," Mrs Norman tells you, " and to that I consider I owe everything. It led me to observe things accurately, especially things out of doors. Ido not £ee how a town-born child has the same chance. In London there are so many things which one would rather a child did not see ; but in the country that is not the case. My life in the country gave me a tremendous love of animals. I had no toys as a child, and never played with a doll; but I always had as many animals as I could take care of. was not allowed to take advantage of tho services of others, but did all for myself that I could. lam very grateful to my parents because they told me the names of flowers and trees . and things of that sort, and I have never forgotten them. It was my natural outdoor life which led me to have such a love for travel and for moving about in an unconventional way." After a time the family moved from England to a wild part of the Western Highlands, where they lived for three years on " a shooting." "It was a life like a settler's," says Mrs Norman, " and I learned to skin beasts, and sometimes>used to fetch home wood from the hills. Wnilthere, I had private lessons from a schoolmistress who lived near, and continued my English education by means of the St George's Correspondence Classes in Edinburgh. I also went to schools in England, Prance and Germany." When schooldays were over, Mrs Norman began to feel the irresistible attraction of London as tho place where she could best make a start in literature. She had scribbled many stories at school, and one of the first of those printed appeared in the People's Journal. Prizes were offered, including even bassinets, but having regard to her single state, the young girl received a Singer's sewing machine, of which she is very proud. After spending some time in Paris with her sister, who was an artist, Mrs Norman went to Germany, and thence to the Karpathians, on her interesting travels. "My idea was," says Mrs Norman — or Menie Muriel Dowie, as she then was — " to travel on horseback alone, save for a peasant attendant, and stop in any village that took my fancy. And that I did. For ten weeks I lived with the peasants, conformed almost entirely to their ways, and ate their food. For weeks together I saw no meat, vegetables, beer, or wine ; and night after night, when up in the high mountains, I have slept under the moon, wrapped only in my tartan cloak, on a layer of fresh-cut pine boughs. There are lux cats and wolves in the Karpathians, and I know that everybody will think that there are other obstacles for a girl travelling alone ; but that is not the case. " The one gown I woro had a short skirt that unhooked in a second and left me in all- the freedom of knickerbockers. My saddle-bag held a couple of clean shirts, and, not being afflicted with the hesitation of Hyde Park, I rode cross-saddle or bareback upon the little Hutzul horses. Unless riding or travelling, I hardly ever wore my socks and sandals, for T had at once adopted the charming " — (of course) — "foot" — (Trilby) — "gear of the people. I went barefoot everywhere, and I have found myself, when about to climb a hill, taking off my sandals and slinging them by their cord about iny neck, because the way was rough and I did not want them to get cut to pieces. This sounds somewhat inverse reasoning, but it never occurred to me that my feet mi^ht be cut to pieces, and that one wears shoes as a protection, because I woro my sandals as an ornament." But this strange journey "In Euthenia" was by no means free from danger. " I had in all the time I was away," says Mrs Norman, " a fair share of accidents. Bathing in unknown rivers, I was twice almost drowned; a fall very nearly put out my shoulder; and I did something inexplicable to a rib by falling into a river and striking on a sunk6n pine tree. I got a good deal cut one way and another, had sunstroke pretty badly, and so on — but you can do all that anywhere. I never met a bear face to face, and this disheartened , me a good deal for a time, for I would 1 , like to have tried my knife or revolver." Mrs Norman's " little knife" is 125 years old, and has in its time killed bears. Mrs Norman, is enthusiastic about the Karpathians. She considers that the centre of a continent is its healthiest point. " If," she says, " you want your lungs to feel light and springy, your voice to ring wifh clearness unknown in England, and your skin to be able to breathe as well,— if, in fact, you want to get rid of rheumatism, neuralgia and consumption you must go inland to the mountains, and you coukl not do better than try the Karpathians." When asked what led her to make such a journey a* to visit the Karpathians, she replied : "I do not know, and yet I have

i often been asked the question. There is something romantic about the name of , Poland, and I have met a good many people who have felt that." Mrs Norman had hardly been back in England a week when she was invited to read a paper on her travels to the Geographical Section of the British Association. This she did with great effect. Mr Stead Bays that, she " carried all before her, quite as much by her intense womanJ liness as by her other gifts." An- > other enthusiast gave the following vivid account of the reader •of the paper: "The low, sweet voice; the. real and the simulated naivete (one as good as the other) ; the original thoughts, the pretty bits of poetico-artistic description of places and peoples, the witty criticisms built upon a concrete of common sense, the information running warp and weffc through the entire fabric — the paper, in short, from beginning to end, gave us one of the most delightful treats ever enjoyed at a British Association Meeting. It was eloquent, clever, refined, wornanly, and vigorous." Everyone present, from tho President downwards, declared that "no more delightful paper had ever been heard, and that geographically it was of great value." Since those days Menie Muriel Dowiehas become the wife of Mr Henry Norman, one of the editors of the Daily Chronicle. In 1595 she accompanied him when he made his memorable visit to the Balkans, concerning which he wrote such graphic letters to his journal. But of that journey Mrs Norman says : "Hardship was not in the scheme. No endurance is needed to travel in the Orient Express." Last year Mr and Mrs Norman made a cycling tour in France. At present the height of ambition to which Mr and Mrs Norman aspire is to retire to a little country farm which they have just bought, and Mrs Norman's greatest delight is to study agriculture from the very complete little agricultural library with which she has furnished herself. ■