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Traveller.

The Arab Horse and Donkey .-I"'Arab looks very well on horseback, thointh lie might not altogether suit the taste of the shires. His saddle is generally red. peaked before and behind, and placed upon several colored felt saddlecloths. The stirrup broadens out so as to give a wide space for the foot to rest on ; it is pointed at the cornos, thereby enabling the rider to tear the horse’s ribs even without the aid of a pointed stick or steel spear-like spur which he often pushes in between his slipper and the stirrup side. The Arab soldier, with his white burnous fluttering behind him. his high red saddleand saddlecloths, his knees high and body bent forward, with his long silver-mounted gun llonrishing in the air. looks, as he gallops forward in a cloud of dust, the very embodiment of the picturesque, exultant war spirit of past ages, not sobered down by scientific formulas for murder, but tree to to carry out bis own bloodthirsty purposes with as much swagger and ostentation as possible. As a horseman, I believe the Arab to have an excellent scat, but an execrable band; be loves to keep his beast’s head high in the air. and so he ceaselessly joggles at the hit, upon which he always rides, until one wonders how the wretched brute can put his feet safely down ; yet he does somehow. No one rides camels in this countrtf but the sultan is said to have some very licet dromedaries capable of doing marvellous journeys ; and. of course, in those parts of Morocco widely merge into the Sahara, the camel is indispensable. The I’arbary donkey’ is a short legged, lousr suffering, indispensable beast. It is easy to comprehend the ass existing without Tangier, but it is impossible to conceive Tangier existing without the ass ; his patient little body bears every possible burden, from the foreign minister’s wife, for example, who sits upon the pack with great dignity and, preceded by her Moorish soldier, pays rails upon other ministers’ wives, to the latest thing in iron bedsteads to be sold in the public maike.t. As an out let fur cruelty alone, the ass is very valuable to the. Moor; he is expressly enjoined to lie kind to the horse, and assured that it will be accounted to him later on, so the horse has a comparatively good lime of it. an 1 we have all heard agooddeal about the Aiab's love for his horse ; but the poor little donkey, the, horse’s remote an-(--tur. lias no divine consideration extended to him that I know of: at least, if he has, it mu-i be in s ,nie future stale. fdV bis earthly pilgrimage is a very sorry affair—he is baiter d and beaten and pr-dd-d, overloaded and underfed, iimil Ids poor old hide seems verily often to have too many holes in it to be able to hold his bom's. I have seen an Arab go gravely to a great aloe hedge, and. choosing one of (hose terrible thorn-pointed loaves, drug it otf with intent to quicken the panes of ins poor lii lie boast : nor would it lie pos-ibie, even if your vocabulary' pertiib.ud. to convince him that he was cruel. I have hoard those who were more competent to judge deny that the Arab is cruel, and ass-, n that he is very kind and gentle, and (hat what app ears to be cruelly is in reality merely an in-ensibilily to the pain suliercd around him. arising from a life in which pain tills so large a share. This may be so, but the result seems much the same, although it is only fair to say that, leniblc as his punishments are in barbarity—too terrible m be recounted here—yet, as far as I could sec, the Arab does not derive pleasure from the indicium of pain. Unlike the Spaniard, hi.- amusements do not necessitate blood to give the tlavor.

The Great Wall of China —Of course we had to goto the great, wall of China. This country abounds in great walls. Her mural defer.-es wire most extensive—walled country, walled cities, walled villages, walled palaces and temples—wall .after wall and wall within wall. But tiro greatest of all is the' great wall of China, which crests the mountain range and crosses the gorge from here some forty miles away. Squeezing through the last deep gorge and a deep rift in the solid rock cutout by ages of rolling wheels and tramping feet, we reacts the great, frowning double bastioued gatflsf stone and hard burned brick one archway tumbled in. This was the object ot our mission, the great wall of China, built two hundred and thirteen years before our era ; built of great slabs of well hewn stone, laid in regular courses some twenty feet high and then topped out with large, hard burned bricks, tilled in with earth and closely paved on the top with more dark tawny brick—the ramparts high and thick and castellated for Hie use of arms. flight and left the groat wall sprain; far up the mountain side -now straight, now curved, to meet the mountain ride tarreted each three hundred feel—a frowning mass of masonry. No need to tell you of this wall : the books will tell you how it was built to keep the warlike Tartars out —twenty live feel high by forty thick, twelve hundred miles long, with room on top for six hois' s to be driven abreast. Xor need I t-.-ll you that for fourteen hundred years it kepi those hordes at bay. nor that, in, the main, the material used upon it is just as good and firm and strong as when put in place. Twelve hundred miles ot this gigantic work built on the rugged, craggy mountain tops, vaulting overjgorges, spanning wide streams, netting the river archways with huge hard bars of copper, with double gates, with swinging doors and bars set thick with iron anu if-a wonder in the world before which the old time classic seven wonders, all gniio now save the great pyramid, were toys. The great pyramid has sn.innpopn cubic feci, the great wall fi.HAO.UCUt.tU)() cubic feet. An engineer in Seward’s party here srmir years ago gave it as his opinion that the cost of this wail, figuring labor at the same rale, would mne than equal that of all the lUO.OOO miles of railrwul iu the Cnitod States. The iuateri.il il contains would build a wall six feel high and two feel thick light around the globe. Vet this was done iu only twenty years without a trace of debt or bund. It is the greatest individual labor the world has ever known,

Dead Cities of Ceylon.— The extent amt beauty of the architectural remains of the great ruiueel cities in the interior of Ceylon, arc known'to but few. There are many of them, and they are full of archeological and also artistic interest. The city of Annradhapura. to instance only one of them, is in its way as wonderful as Pompeii or those great forest-grown cities of Centra! America. It is situated in a lovely spot among the green valleys and wooded hills of tile interior of the island, and whichever way the eye is east there are ruins, wonderfully beautiful ruins of shrines, r/uya/imv, pavilions and groups of tall, monolithie pillars earved from base to capital with a wonderful wealth of Oriental imagery. For miles the forest is strewn with these majestic monuments of a long since-perished glory. So vast are some of these great brick-work buildings that it is reckoned that the material of oneof the several at Anuradlmpura, would be sulUdent to build a wall more than ninety miles long, twelve feet high, ami two feel deep. The enormous artificial tanks, too, of tins city might almost be included among (he wonders of the world, so vast are the great hiintl* (dams) that coniine the waters, and so marvellous their construction, Tbev lienow embosomed in the thick forest, growth, and tbeir shining waters are solitary but for the Hocks id waterfowl upon them, and the crocodiles which lloat lazily <. u the surface, basking in the full glare of the vertical sun. The ouee busy banks are now completely d uelled, t \cepl by Ihe bands of chattering monk") -, wbiob haunt it by day, and herds ■.I To hims-'-loviim olephaiil-. whini, at nielli tinm, leavi- ilie inner depths of (tie forc,-l ami come there to bathe and drink.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAIST18870506.2.13.8

Bibliographic details

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue XX, 6 May 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Word Count
1,415

Traveller. Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue XX, 6 May 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Traveller. Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue XX, 6 May 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

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