HERE AND THERE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVIII, Issue X, 8 March 1902, Page 465

HERE AND THERE.

The tourist traffic to Rotorua has been larger this season than in any previous year, and certainly the Government are sparing no expense to imprcve the beauty of the township, and to male the many marvels <f the surrounding country easily accessible. The Sanatorium Gardens look lovely, whether under the bright light of day or the evening brilliancy of the electric light. Thanks to occasional showers which serve to temper the air, and an abundant supply of water, the grass is as green as it is grey in Auckland just now. The bowling green—think of it, ye bowlersj—is a dream in the way of turf, as indeed it may well be, if as is declared, it cost the Government over £6OO to lay down. The Government information bureau is almost completed, and already one hears of new roads and new routes to be opened up, and even a Government hotel at Waimaunga, from the verandah of which you can at your ease view Waimaunga's vagaries, and escape the tedious and sweltering experience of dancing attendance on the geyser in the valley below.

Talking of 'Waimaunga, one cannot too often explain the great necessity for caution on the part of those who pay the geyser a visit. One soon gets accustomed to the terrific surroundings of the place, and is apt to become over-familiar with its chieflion. It seems such a simple thing to avoid the monster -when she plays up; one does not realise the risk. At any rate one would say that the cliff summit, the favourite look-out place even of the most timid, who shrink from the brink of the gulf below, was moderately safe. Yet it was just there that a party had a most unpleasant experience last Thursday. Without warning it would seem the geyser threw itself into mid air, and before the watchers beat a retreat, mud and occasional stones began to shower on them. One lady who tripped and fell as she was running was so bespattered with

the former, which was fortunately eold, that her dress was quite destroyed, and a stone fell not far from her twice the size of a hen's egg.

The paradise of sportsmen lies beyond Rotorua, on the shores of Lakes Rotoiti and Rotoehu, where some of the most beautiful North Island scenery is also to be met with. A gentleman who has just returned from a fortnight's camping in the locality, tells tales that sound almost too good to be true. What, say you to streams so full of trout, that from one small reach in a rivulet you could jump over twenty-two trout, the largest weighing close on 201b5., were taken in the space of an hour. What say you to teal in such numbers as to form a blaek ribbon on the water for a mile. This is at Rotoehu. Then there are pheasants in abundance, delicious wild pig, sacks of crayfish for the catching, and in the season literally tons of cherries and raspberries rotting on the ground. And heie we are leading a miserable sunbaked, dust-parched existence in the miserable town, when such a life awaits any one who is bolct enough to cut the painter from civilization, O, ye nymphs and dryads, what a contempt you must have for us poor slaves of convention.

Not- ‘'barbarian ” but “barbwirean” is the proper epithet to apply to the later phases of the Boer war. Who ever imagined that that prince of fencing material, so indispensable a factor in our rural existence, should come to such fierce uses as has been the case with it in' South Africa? Did its inventor ever contemplate that it would be put to any but the most peaceful purposes? And now behold it linking fort to fort with its terrible net calculated to enmesh and hold with deadly tenacity the boldest rider and steed. It has become hardly less important an engine of war than the death dealing Maxim, for without its aid the driving movements by which British generalship has been able to cope with the elusive Boers would have been impossible. The barb wire has another thing to recommend it, namely its ultimate usefulness, for while a vast amount of the material of the longcampaign must be useless when the war is over there will doubtless be a market for the tons of barb wire which peace will release for peaceful purposes; and the same article which has stemmed the flight of the Boer guerillas may serve to safeguard the innocent flocks and herds of the settled land.

Mr E. F. Knight in his narrative of the Royal tour falls into more than one error in his descriptions of New Zealand, as perhaps was not unnatural considering the hasty manner in which his views and impressions were for the most part gathered. Yet one is surprised to And the late Mr Ballance referred to as Mr Vallance. “Good heavens, is this political fame?” the New Zealand statesman may well exclaim. Is it possible that

a few years he nee we may find Mr Seddon referred to by observers equally as careful and not less trained than Mr Knight as Mr Heddon? Hardly. Our present Premier, thanks mostly to circumstances over which he exercised comparatively little control, need have little fear of sueh liberties being taken with his name. Again, Mr Knight in describing the scenery not far from Auckland speaks of our “fields being enclosed by low walls of volcanic stones that had been thrown up by the great eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886.” He is the first man to find “the kauri pine ” in the bush near Rotorua, or to discover the "many islanded” character of the lake.

The February number of the “Review of Reviews” for Australasia is to hand, and perhaps its most generally interesting article is Maclaren’s "Story of the Cricket Campaign.” Mr. W. H. Fitchett's vivid pen paints as his eleventh episode of British history, Quatre Bras, and the book of the month chosen for dissection and quotation is Harry Furniss’ “Confessions of a Caricaturist.” The number is more profusely illustrated than ever.