AS OTHERS SEE US.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1400, 6 September 1923, Page 4

AS OTHERS SEE US.

AMERICAN JOURNALIST’S VIEWS Mr Mark Forrest, the American journalist has returned to Milwaukee from a visit to New Zealand, and has been giving some of his impressions to the folk of that city. “The Maoris of New Zealand,” says Mr Forrest, “delight in hideous facial contortions, and teach children to practice sticking out their tongues to an enormous extent; it is supposed to be terrifying to the enemy. “Of all the natural sights, the glow-worm cave at Waitomo impressed me the most. As we entered the cave we approached what is known as the cathedral, a great hollow in the cavern, and here the lanterns were left behind and the guide warned us not to make the slightest sound. “The guide conducted us down a flight of stairs which led to an underground river. Here the whole of the ceiling and the stalactite was entirely covered with glow-worms, which seemed to stretch away to an, enormous distance. But if the slightest noise was made, as a knock on the wall or against the side of the boat, all the glow-worms immediately became black.

“In the course of half an hour they again began shining, and at times the glow was so bright that one could read by it. It was one of the most remarkable sights I ever saw. There was the impression of going through a forest as these stalactites appeared like the branches and trunks of trees in the gloom.”

The paper from which the above report is taken adds that Mr Forrest took away with him many curios and photographs. “On the beach at New Plymouth,” it says, “he scraped up two bottles of pure ironsand, which requires no smelting—as there is no earth mixed with it. This deposit is being utilised by the islanders.” It will be news to the experimenters here to learn that Taranaki ironsand needs no smelting, and at the same time is “being used by the islanders.” Neither statement is correct. though hopes are still entertained that good pigiron may be made out of the deposits.