VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 219, 15 September 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

LORD DUFFERIN’S LETTERS A CEUISE IN THE ABCTIC. When we speak of English literature we conjure up thoughts of Shakespeare, Milton, Bryon, Macaulay or a dozen other great names . The realm of literature may be likened to a realm in the real sense. The latter is composed of cities wherein is centred the culture of the race and these may well stand for the foremost writers who, out of the raw material of everyday language, manufacture and refine until a thing of beauty is produced. In the broad rivers, sweeping majestically to meet the ocean, we may find a counterpart in the great poets. But while these rivers and these cities are such important features in enabling us to determine the general characteristics of the realm of our illustration they are not all. There are the highways and byways of the countryside, pretty spots seldom visited and requiring some little search to discover. There are also streams which, while they do not bear rich argosies on expansive waters, arc beautiful for their placid surfaces, mottled by the reflection of the sunlight filtering through the leaves of the trees upon their banks. To these scarcely known lanes and hidden streams we may liken those writers who have contributed to literature but whose names are almost forgotten. Among the highways and byways the reader who happens upon Lord Dufferin’s “Letters from High Latitudes” soon realises that he lias made a delightful discovery. Although this book has had a large circulation since its publication in 1856, in these days it is seldom mentioned. And yet, in these “Letters,” we have one of the finest naratives of travel, told with rare touches of humour. Brilliant Political Career. We are not surprised, when we con ! aider Lord Dufferin’s genius as an author, to learn that he was the great- , grandson, on his mother’s side, of Richard Brinsley Sher:dan. . Frederick Temple Hamilton Temple Blackwood, Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, was born in Florence on June 21, 1826. He was educated at Eton and later went to Oxford. On his subsequent entry into society he revealed those political ambitions destined to play such an important part in his life and to be of lasting service to the Empire. When he had attained his majority he professed allegiance to Lord John Russell. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Olandeboye the following year, and in 1888 became Marquess of Dufferin and Ava. His services abroad were many. He was Commissioner to Syria in 1860, Governor-General of Canada from 1872 to 1878 and Viceroy of India, a term of office which Macan describes as a * * golden quadrennium. ” “Letters from High Altitudes” were the outcome of an expedition to Iceland, Jan Mayen and Spitzbergcn in 1856, when the world of politics had not claimed the author entirely and when tho spirit of adventure was high w T ith him. He had his schooner yacht “Foam” fitted up and, after a few delays at Scotland, set out from Stirnaway, in the Hebrides, “to sail beyond the sunset.” Was ever there such another party banded together for a sommon purpose! We have Lord Dufferin himself, a man possessing, as his biographer. Sir Alfred. Lyall, says of him, “keen yet good i-atured inight into strange and simple morals, manners and institutions, tne habit of taking mishaps and hardships with humorous philosophy, of dealing sympathetically with men of the rough, unvarnished world and of giving a comical turn to petty incidents and vexations.” Then there is the sailing master, Mr Ebenczar Wyse who, beaeatli an unnautical appearance accentuated by a smoking-cap, green shooting jacket, “flashy” sila tartan waistcoat amt a gold chain hung in innumerable festoons, conceals a rare knowledge of the sea. Yet another is Lord Dufferin’s servant, the desponding Wilson, of whom his master says: “Life in his eyes is a perpetual filling of leaky buckets and a roiling of stones uphill.” There is one character who, however, struts but a brief hour across the stage. This is a cock shipped at Stornaway who, with the voyage northward, is thrown into a state of bewilderment over cockcrow. At last when night ceases altogether it proves too much for him ami after a couple of sarcastic crows he goes melon c Holy mad and disappears. A Convivial Party. Of the adventures serious ami gay the pages of the “Letters” abuu.au. Amoug.->t luc lighter incidents figures a banquet at GvVernment House, Reykjavik, iceianu. There we;e speeches in French, English, and Icelandic, and Lord Dufterin, who says he “must have become polyglot in ins cups” even as pired to a Latin oration in response to one delivered by a bishop amongst the guests. Then there followed a • • babel of conversation —a kind of dance round the table, where we successively’ gave each alternate hand, as in the last figure ot the lancers —a hearty embrace from the Governor —and finally—silence, daylignt and t'resn air as we stumbled forth into the street.” Delightful as are the Hashes of humour, it is in the description of the rugged regions of the Arctic to which the “Foam’’ penetrates that the author reaches the heights. His narration of his passage through the latitudes of Jan Mayen must surely rank as the most giaphic of any’ to be found in the range of books of travel. With what a tfirill, alter following the course of the schooner yacht through the ice in its search of the peak of Jan Mayen, one must read of its discovery’.

“A few minutes more, and slowly, silently in a manner you could take no count of, its dusky hem, first deepened to a violent tinge, then, gradually lifting. displayed a long line of coast —in reality but the roots of Beerenberg — dyed of the deepest purple; while obed ient to the common impulse, the clouds that wrapped its summit gently disengaged themselves, and left the mountain standing in all the magnificence of his 6,870 feet, girdled by a single

zone of pearly vapour, from underneath whose floating folds seven enormous glaciers rolled down intq the sea!” For this picture and others of moments of excitement and. danger, for his account of the northern countries he visited and the people he met and the quiet humour wh’ch leavens the whole. “Letters f p om High Latitudes.” though perhaps little read, is established as a classic. JAMES O. HANLON.