HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16416, 3 May 1921, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

UNCONQUERED EVEREST. Arrangements aro going ahead for the conquest of Mount Everest. Speaking at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Francis Younghusband (president) 3aid the attempt to climb Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, next year, was being organised by a committee formed of three members of th© Geographical Society and three of th© Alpine Club. There had been difficulties, he said, in securing the services this year of Briga-dier-General C. G. Bruce, the originator of the idea of ascending the mountain. but they hoped to benefit by his services next year when the main attempt to ascend tho mountain would be made. Meantime, they had chosen as chief of the expedition Colonel Howard Bury, who had travelled extensively in Asia. The actual reconnaissance of the mountain would be in charge of Mr Harold Raeburn, the most experienced mountaineer now available in the Alpine Club, and it was hoped that lie would be able to leave England about the middle of March. RESOURCEFUL. Admiral Beatty, when commenting on the need of resourcefulness amongst officers of the Royal Navy, told an amusing concerning a naval cadet “up for ” his oral examination in common sense and resource. Tho examiner. ho said, was a certain bluff old admiral of the old, old school. “How did you come here, m' lad?” was liis first question. “In a taxi, sir.'* “ And what, was the number or the taxi?” “’3548, air.” “ Good. You’ll do.” That evening tho admiral told the story to a friend, who said; “What a very observant lad! But how did you know he was telling th© truth?” “Truth be sugared!” said the admiral. “ It was devilish smart of the boy to give me any number without the slightest hesitation.” SHARP PRACTICE. History records that on one occasion a drover, putting up at a country inn for the night, handed the landlord a £lO note to take care of. Asking for it next day. the poor drover was aghast when tho landlord coolly denied any recollection of the matter; and, after turning it over in his mind, he went to a lawyer for advice. “ Get another £lO note.” said the lawyer. “ and go, accompanied by a friend, back to the inn. Apologise to the landlord for your mistake; attribute it to drink or absent-mindedness; give liim this second note to take care of in the presence of your frieud, and come back to me.” The mystified drover obeyed inductions to the very letter. “ Now.” said the lawyer, “go back alone to tho landlord and ask him for your £l9 when nobody else is about. Knowing that yo’ir friend saw him receive it, he will give back the second £lO note. Then take your friend with you next day approach the landlord, ask him boldly for ‘ that ten pounds,’ and as there was no witness to your receipt of the second note, he will be forced to return the first also.” The ruse proved completely successful. Tho lawyer sent in his bill next day. Io was for a fee of ~10. IN THE LAND OF FIRE. Tierra del Fuego means “ Land of Fire.” Where the fire originally came from nobody knows, for the natives have do knowledge of any way to make it. They may have got it centuries ago from a volcano. Certain it is that they take most anxious care not to lose it. In th© underground dwellings (covered over with brush), which are their only habitations, there is always a fire, the embers of which are never allowed to become extinguished. Every one of their rude dugout canoes has *n the middle a clay floor, on which a fir© burns or smoulders. At night these primitive people, in case of alarm, burn signal fir©3 on the mountain tops, and in the daytime the same fires, supplied with green wood 4 send up columns of smoko, which, being made inter mittent by smothering the. column with a skin blanket at intervals, convey messages in a sort of Morse code This is the most ancient of all means of distributing intelligence, and since prehistoric times has been employed in many parts of the world. Modem science has devised no more effective method of attracting attention and sending news over a wide extent of country. It is thought that these signal beacons suggested to Magellan the name “Tierra del Fuego.”

A MOTIONLESS DREADNOUGHT. Tho extraordinary undertaking of ‘ the United States Navy that initiated i the new system of artificial Gibraltars j is a marine fortress erected between i Luzon and Corregidor, in the Philip- : pine Islands. It is nothing less than a huge, stationary stone battleship, j built upon a stub of rock whoso sui- ! face area is practically no greater than tho concrete hull of tho motionless craft itself. Tho soldier crew of this ! queer fortress live and work in a pit | seventy feet deep, with vails fifteen ; feet thick, hollowed out of the solid ! rock. 3everal tiers of decks, always ! electrically lighted and ventilated, aro | mado comfortable by every possible application of modern science, and on the level main deck huge turretod guns j sweep tho horizon and guard ihe en- : trance to Manila Bay day and nigh;, j In outward form, the American fort is ! a ship, while the British “ ships ” are i forts , but aside from this wholly superficial distinction, the similarity is so marked as to warrant the classification of both as representative of a new order of naval architecture. A CITY OF STRANGERS. On© goes to th© boo to see queer | animals, but if you want to see queer j people, take a walk up the Grand Rue Per a some Sunday afternoon. Th© variety of races, religions, nation- | alities, colours and costumes cannot b© j equalled on any other street in th© ' world. Tall shakoed Cossacks stalk ; along jostling plumed Bersaglien; bright-eyed shifty Armenians mingle with stolid phlegmatic Turks; blase, complacent Britishers cast mildly reproving glances at unshaven, classical lestored Greeks; dashing and dandified Frenchmen gaze critical!v at the women who pass—some in rags, dome in latest Parisian fashions, some silken veiled, some painted, some beautiful, some starving. Slant-eyed Tartars, Arabs, Kurds. Bulgars, Americans, Ghurkas, Africans, Spaniards, Jews and priest?, of every fad and religion robed in black and wearing every curious and grotesque kind of headgear ever devised, mixing with hojas marked only by the turbans around their fezzes, all go to make up the hodgo podge of this bizarre throng. It is the veritable volley of humanity. And you won’t find a soul whom you know. SOMETHING ABOUT FEET. Reading persons’ characters from their feet is th© method Sir Robert Baden-Powell, th© chief scout, has admitted he employed in choosing his wife—“ the best wife 1 ever had. , Tlie secretary of a Boy Scouts’ troop gives these examples of foot reading: “ Short steps denote a fussy, swaggering little perron. “ Hurried, jerky steps, a nervous person. A slow slouch, a lazy man. a loafer. ** Smooth, quick steps, an intelligent. observant person ” \ Boy Scout observed that a stolid person often walks flatfooted IT. V. L. Ross, the walker, said i e * The walker T most distfust. ©specially where a woman is concerned, is the one who conies down hard on the heels. 1 believe tbi« r* a *4gn of a bad tempered person.”