IN ARIZONA.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20341, 26 June 1934, Page 7

IN ARIZONA.

Tourist Might be Dillinger, Police Thought. STURDY PIONEERS. (Special to the “Star."> WILLCOX. May 28 I had two surprises on entering this State during my Western tour. One was the abrupt change in colour ami topography, there being more green foliage, the sand redder, the mountains softer in contour and the lighting less severely brilliant, than in New Mexico. The other shock came from being stopped by a policeman, exactly as at a European border. It appears that Arizona very sensibly ; halt** all cars and examines the owners J papers. Mine were not altogether it order, and I had some difficulty in con- | vincing the officer that I was not ! engaged in transporting a stolen car i or that my name wasn’t Dillinger. It ! was not until I showed him a letter ot i introduction, signed by the assistant ! Commissioner of Indian Affairs, that he ! let me pass. This was not without itf i humour, sin e the same letter had beet ' conspicuously useless iu gaining mt ! admission to an Indian pueblo! Savages and Science. An amazing man i® Char lea Kellogg. ; J encountered him touring the country I in what he calls a “caravan”—a travel- . ling laboratory he made himself, fitted j with beds and all sort* of apparatus for | the etudy of sound. He was born with peculiar vocal i organs which enable him to imitate, bird*, and even make sounds too high, in pitch to be heard by the human ear. i Speaking of his life in China, and . among the I'olyneeiams, he eaid that ! science was constantly rediscovering i facts long known to primitive men and j forgotten in the process of civilisation, j For example, when Nansen went explori ing in the north Pacific, he on one occa- * sion travelled for three weeks by sea, | only on landing on an un- . charted 'lsland that the natives knew all about him. i There ia nothing myaterioua about it. j say« Mr. Kellogg. He showed me a J “lalli,” a boat-shaped contrivance about ■ 18in long, scraped out of wood by Fiji ! islanders. On being tapped with & wooden mallet it emits a sound which i can be “heard” for 20 miles or more, and recorded visibly on & sand-covered ■ drum. Incidentally,*Mr. KeTlogg ia workj ing on a process of ateriliaing milk by ! sound waves. Another instance of science rediacover- ! ing the wisdom of primitive man comes j from the. field of agriculture. Many savages, it is known, sow their grain i iu the full of the moon, to the accom- ! paninient of prayer and dancing. Now I it has lately been “discovered” that seed | germinate® most quickly in polarised j light. And inoonlignt is polarised light. The most fascinating thing about the I life of primitive man is the difficulty of determining which of his habit# are rooted in sound experience, and which arc holdovers that have lost their sense. It is not always easy to tell, and the more one learns, the more hesitant one is to make decisions. Outwitting the Slickers. Sturdy were the men who lived hereabouts in the old days. There was that intrepid Sen or Luna, for example, who drove SQDO sheep across Death Valley, from Sairta Fe to the coast—no mean journey even in a modern automobile, fie was paid 16 dollars a head for them, ■it gold. Then the slickers of the period went to work on him and tried to sell aim land. One of the parcel* offered him where Los Angeles now stands. But be was too sharp to be taken in by the realtors. He pocketed his 80,000 dollars ind started home. The second night on the road he got into a gambling game ind lost every cent. Was he discouraged? Certainly not. After all, there wasn’t much that money could buy in the New Mexieo of 1848. So he went home, rounded up more sheep and started for the coast again.— (N.A.X.A. 1