HOW COINCIDENCES ARE DOUBLE-BANKED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19268, 3 January 1931, Page 2

HOW COINCIDENCES ARE DOUBLE-BANKED.

CATHEDRAL SQUARE TO FAR OFF ALEXANDRIA. (By “TRAVELLER"). As someone remarked, it is a small world. This morning at breakfast I looked across the dining-room, and met the gaze of a girl I had not spoken to since meeting her on a steamer on the Panama Canal route. Half an hour later, when walking through Cathedral Square, I ran into an Englishman I left a couple of years ago on the shore of the Mediterranean at a delightful little spot called Stanley Bay, about five miles east of Alexandria, where we used to go in the mornings to try and get cool. The summer was early that year in Egypt, and a nor’-wester in Christchurch would be a cooling breeze by comparison. Naturally we were more than surprised to meet again in a spot so far from the land of the “Gyppo.” This Stanley Bay is one of the ideal bathing spots of the world. It is perfectly safe, has a surf, the water is crystal clear, and there is a perfect half-circle of clean sand to lounge on. Which reminds me, that in half an hour I was so badly sunburned that for three weeks afterwards I could hardly put my shoes on. The sun really shines in Egypt, without a cloud in the sky, and the first time I was there no rain fell for eleven months—not a single drop. It is a dry, healthy heat, and, providing one dresses sensibly, it is quite a livable country. Winter in Alexandria is a perfect season, glorious sunny days, cool nights and occasionally in the very early mornings just a suggestion of cool mist coming off the sea. Alexandria is one of the most cosmopolitan places in t.he world, and on the beach at Stanley Bay one can hear most of the languages of Europe, in addition to the Arabic of the country. One morning I was there I heard Italian, French, Greek, Arabic, and Turkish—the latter being spoken by a Turkish prince, who was there on his honeymoon. A feature of Stanley Bay bathing is the use of little flat punts, something the shape of a large “skiff’* one sees moored at Redcliffs, only not more than six feet long, eighteen inches wide, and four or five inches deep, and turned up at each end. One propels them with a paddle, and they are very handy for going out beyond the surf and diving off, or merely paddling about the bay in. They are painted white, often with a bit of colour, and bear fancy names—usually in French. Stanley Bay will be well-remembered by the New Zealand troops who were fortunate enough to be camped at “Alex” during the war, but, being the most desirable spot on the shore, it was tapu, “out of bounds,” and was reserved for the belongings of the brasshats. Several New Zealanders who were camped with the R.E. signallers vised to eye its limpid waters enviously, and freely cursed the “out of bounds” notice, which was invariably hung up outside any place that a fellow really wanted to visit.