OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue IV, 26 July 1902, Page 234

OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.

WITH ROD AND GUN

(.Continued from page 219.)

where the hawks were not likely to get at him, than we spotted another deer grazing a short distance away. A few minutes later he had shared the fate of his companion. We now changed our course, and went down on to the flats, where the green grass bordered the swamps, and after close examination discovered numerous fresh tracks. Resting quietly for a few moments, we heard a rustle in the swamp, and there stood facing us, not 70 yards away, one of the finest bucks that ever roamed the Waikato. It was only to entice us on, for with one wild bound he was out of sight in the close, thick ti-tree.

It being then ten o’clock we decided the bush would be the place for them at that hour, so off we went, up and down hills, until we came to a bush some three miles away, where we rested for a few minutes. Proceeding into the bush, we saw two deer lying down some distance away. At our approach they jumped up. but only to receive a dum-dum each. Preparing them as we had done the others, we decided our bag was large enough for one morning’s sport, so we packed them on our backs and took a straight course for home, over five miles away. At dusk we quietly worked our way over the hills, and soon came upon a deer feeding some distance off. After a stiff walk we came within range of him. A quiet, steadv aim soon made him the fifth one of our bag that dav. and shouldering him we made tracks for home. Next morning four o’clock saw the inner man refreshed, and us ready to start for new grounds some six miles distant. Reaching there by daybreak, we came across five deer walking slowly down the bank to a swamp below. Waiting some twenty minutes until they had got quietly settled, Mr Mack decided they were all ours, so on we went to surround them, across creeks, through swamps, up hills and through fern and ti-tree. for some distance, until we came within 100 yards of where they were. Then we crawled on all fours until we were upon them. We could hear them playing below, but could not see them. They evidently saw or heard us, however. for with one grand rush they fairly flew before us, but once again the “303” proved too much for them, and we got two. Preparing them as usual, we carried them to the nearest road, and left them there until we were going home. Starting off again through the swamps for some miles, and only occasionally getting a glimpse of one racing over the hills, our luck seemed to have deserted us, for it was now three p.m., and only two in our bag. At last we came across one feeding on the hillside, and one of our party, takftig a steady aim, shot him in the shoulder. The bullet passed through his chest, breaking the other shoulder. On the way to the road we came across another, and without much formality he made our fourth that day, we agreeing our luck was still with us. Returning to the house at 7 p.m., we dined, hitched the horse in a small trap, and returned for those we’d left on the road. The next morning we left for Cambridge, with the biggest. bag of deer ever shot in the Waikato in two days. I can highly recommend to all deer-stalkers the “303” with a full fulminate mercury, manufactured by the Colonial Ammunition Co. The bullet is entirely new in this country, though it has been used for many years In India for big game, where it was patented by an Indian officer, who gave the secret to Mr Whitney, of the Colonial Ammunition Company. KING EDWARD’S CONVALESCENCE. (Continued from page 228.) light, make the apartment Unusually light and cheery, besides giving the effect of great size. The dining room is decorated in blue and white. There is an imposing mantel and fireplace at the forward end, and an upright piano aft, A serving-room directly adjoins

the dining room at the rear. By means of an electric lift the food is sent from the kitchen two decks below. The lift passes through the corridor on the “state” deck, where the royal apartments are located. Entry ports, on the main deck, divide the royal apartments from those occupied by members of the suite. These entry ports are really steel doors in the yacht’s hull, with inner doors of hard wood and glass. If the King wishes to disembark without ascending to the deck above, he can do so by stepping through an entry port direct upon the gangway or pier.

A wide, red-carpeted corridor or hallway runs through the centre of the “state” deck. At the forward end on the starboard side are located the Queen’s apartments, including a bedroom, dressing-room, and bathroom in green and white, and then the King’s suite in blue and white. The King’s writing-room is considered by many visitors one of the most comfortable rooms on the yacht. It is decorated in blue and white, harmonising with the rest of the suite, and contains a great couch, with two deep arm-chairs, all in black leather. There is also an antique writing desk, with movable electric lights. On the port side, opposite the Queen’s apartments, are two royal guest rooms and the royal drawingroom, the latter decorated in white and gold. Then comes the Princess Victoria's suite, comprising bedroom, bath-room, and sitting-room. Still further aft, on the port side, are the cabins for members of the royal suites. The first is that allotted to Sir Francis Knollys, his Majesty’s secretary. A desk of unusual size, constructed especially for the secretary, is a feature of this cabin. There is a private bath-room adjoining, and then comes three private guest cabins. The equerry’s room, with bath-room, is next; and then another guest cabin. The cabins are decorated in different colours, some being light blue, others dark red, and still others green and white, etc.

The cabins for the ladies of the suite are on the starboard side of the yacht, with the apartments of Hon. Charlotte Knollys at the forward end of the corridor, opposite those occupied by his Majesty’s secretary. A general room for the members of the suite is located at the end of the corridor in the very stern of the yacht, and the entire width of the vessel.

Conforming to the lines of the yacht, this room is very nearly semi-circular in shape. Its table of polished oak, likewise semi-circular in form, is capable of seating the entire suite at one time. There are handsome revolving chairs, and the cabin is panelled in oak. On the walls are portraits of former commanders of royal yachts. Forward of the royal apartments, on the same deck, are located, the officers’ cabins, with the ward room adjoining. The ship’s company messes forward and also on the deck below the royal apartments, wherß the kitchens are located, as well as quarters for the various servants. Down further still the stokers are secreted in some mysterious manner.

Electricity is put to many uses on the yacht. There ar( lights of all kinds —lights in brackets, lights in the ceiling, lights for reading in bed, small lights for the royal dining table, and large lights for deck illumination. For the sleeping cabins there are electric “warmers” — curious bags of flannel with a wire protruding and a whole bundle of wires inside. You connect the visible wire with a hook in the wall, whereupon the invisible wires begin to glow and give forth a comfortable heat. Presently, you have a miniature furnace in full action. There are no cold beds on the Victoria and Albert. There is an electric stove for keeping viands and chinaware warm in the serving room, the electric lift before spoken of. and still another form of electric heater which resembles, an one of the marine* expresses it, “a little gas stove without the gaa.” Electric bells are everywhere.

•ach marked “valet," or “steward,” or “page.” No matter In what part of the yacht his Majesty may be, he has but to stretch forth his hand to summon an attendant.

In truth, it is a yacht “fit for a king.”

SNAPSHOTS OF THE WAR. INTERVIEW WITH NURSING SISTER LITTLECOTT. With the many sons of the Empire who sprang, sword in hand, into the quarrel of their Motherland, went here and there a nursing sister, hoping by the gentler arts of peace to assuage the bleeding wountis of ghastly war. Ashburton numbered one in this band of devoted women in the person of Nurse Littlecott, who recently returned on a short furlough. A representative of this paper waited upon her to gather a few details of her experiences that might be of general interest. A small, slight figure, of gentle ways and velvetfooted movement, the sister looks the ideal comforter of weariness and pain. Her labours of over two years at the front, supplemented by a voyage back in charge of seventy sick, on a troopship filled with 500 West Australians, has left her a trifle thin and tired, but she kindly consented to supply any information at her command. Asked as to the most remarkable case she nursed, she said it was one of hepatic abscess, supervening on enteric and dysentery. This poor unfortunate “Tommy” underwent seven operations, and by skill and care was eventually shipped to his longed-for “home” as cured. Of the strange vagaries of bullets the nurse had many tales to tell. In one case the bullet caused compound fracture of both thighs. The victim was also shot in five other places in the shoulder, and through the head. Being so encased in plaster of Paris, he was known amongst the orderlies as “The Plaster Mummy.” Another poor fellow was shot in the side of the cheek, the bullet making a downward course through his neck, and coming out of his opposite shoulder: a most ghastly case, nearly all his shoulder shot away, yet he too was sent Home cured. Much of the work at the Mooi River base Hospital resulted from the dreadful disaster on Spion Hop. Bitter tales were told by the human flotsam flung up by that surging wave of battle’s line. “Me an’ Bill was fighting in the trenches,” said one pallid wreck, “an’ it was near night. Bill was my pal, you know, sister, when I got a bullet through one arm. I shifted me gun and blazed away with the other till I was shot in that one too. I lay back just as Bill came flopping right acrost my chest. Bill groaned awful. ‘Don’t groan, Bill,’ I says, ‘the stretchers will be around soon,’ but Bill never said a word, only groaned just awful. It got dark, an’ I said, •Cheer up, old man, we’ll be taken away soon.’ But Bill never answered. After a time I guess I went asleep (he became unconscious), and when daylight came things was just as before — only Bill he groaned no longer.” Such were the tales told by the brave line men who on that deadly day toiled up the steep ascent dragging their clogging guns with them.

Nurse Littlecott afterwards ascended the historic peak, taking 2i hours in the task, and not then at the steepest place where our heroic men of the line died, “because someone had blundered.” There lie the brave dead in long, drear trenches, 600 of England’s sons. “The half of creation we own; we have bought the same with the sword and the flame, and salted it down with our bones.” The most of Nurse Littlecott’s medical cases were enteric, from Ladysmith, aggravated by starvation. Yet no Tommy of them all will ever own Buller paid too high a price, or that he is aught but a great success. The men and officers love him with • great devotion, and would willingly die at his call to-morrow if it were but his wish.

After one of the great fights for the relief of Ladysmith, when the convoys of wounded began to come in, a huge dog made hia appearance in one of the sister’s tents, and prepared to accompany her on her rounds. He went to every one of the thousands of beds, out of one tent into another, looking in every face if perchance it might be his loved and lost master. The sister adopted him, and thenceforward “Bruce” became an institution. Every ambulance train was met by him, with the liveliest show of delight; every poor sick Tommy as he was lifted out was duly inspected, if by chance his loved one came again, till the last one was put into the dhoolies and carried away. Then he dropped his tail and slunk dejected oft to go his patient round once more, amid the suffering and the dying. The dog never by any chance met any but Red Cross trains, and the sisters wondered what instinct prompted his knowledge.

His life ran out before the sister left, and his faithful, loving heart ceased its vain seeking for the loved English officer he called master, lying dead on some lonely kopje side, so the sisters surmised.

Amongst the nurse’s patients were some Boers, of whom she has formed a very low estimate, the first she nursed being very sorry for himself. He was suffering from a compound fracture, and badly wanted to get well “to go and shoot some more English.” Another old dopper, 80 years of age, captured after Paardeburg, talked freely till they asked him if it wasn’t true that he was a relative of Cronje’s. Then he said he didn’t speak English, and complained to the doctor of the sister that “she always speak English; I no understand English.” This same old fox took his hat round the ward, saying it was his birthday, and he wanted a new pipe, which the generous Tommies supplied pence enough to buy. Of the generosity, bravery and power of what they call “sticket” things displayed by the troops at the front, the nurse cannot speak too highly. This power of gaily accepting all the discomforts and evil chances of life on the veldt is equally the heritage of both the old land and her sturdy sons beyond the seas. But even this genial good nature at times is strained to breaking point, as in the story current on the veldt of a Canadian Contingent, whose idolised major was treacherously shot in the back by some Boers hidden in a farmhouse flying a white flag. His men swore a mighty oath that they would capture the murderers, and hang them. They surrounded them eventually, and with their lariats strung them up in a row in front of the same farmhouse. Then the regiment pulled out its pipes, and sat around to smoke. They were still sitting there when an Imperial officer rode up, highly horrified, and proceeded to scarify the sons of “Our Lady of Snows.” They smoked on for a time. Then one pulled his pipe out of his mouth and drawled, “I guess there’s room for another up there! You’d better git!” The Imperial officer got, and there was nothing officially heard of the matter. Asked as to whether she had seen Lord Kitchener, Nurse Littlecott laughed, and told how on one of his train journeys the sisters took a photo of him, for which he goodnaturedly posed on the platform of his carriage. One of the sisters wished to shake hands with him. which fact one his aides communicated to him. It seemed to tickle him greatly, but just as he was about to comply the carriage was wheeled away, and they saw him no more. He stood at the salute as he was whirled out of sight. He is a tall, very straight man, not very like his published pictures, with keen grey eyes, an affliction of one giving him rather a sinister expression. Of the many duties falling to a nurse's lot not the least was writing the home letters of the sick, ill or well. Their one cry was, “Say I’m all right, sister. Say I'm having a good time. Don't say I'm sick. They’d only worry over it.” Often when the poor brave hearts were nearly sobbing out their last strong breath the cry was still the same, “Say I'll be well soon, sister;

don’t say I’m sick.” When the letters were to sweethearts things were even more embarrassing, patients saying, “Oh, you'll know what to say, sister; just say what you'd say yourself.” The stories told of De Wet are many, but one common property on the veldt goes, that when he was so quiet for some months he had passed himself off as a Yeomanry and gone to England, returning in another troopship in like manner. Of the uselessness of some of the later drafts of Yeomanry many stories are rife. The same column had been captured six times by De Wet's light riders, and stripped of everything till they became famous as “De Wet’s supply train.” On the last occasion he gave them a sealed order for their commander, which they duly delivered. It ran, “Kindly chain these dogs up, as I am tired of catching them.” In vivid contrast to these useless squadrons was the character borne by the “Fern Leaf Boys.” This story of one of the earlier battles was told by one of the sick “Dubs.,” that brave regiment the story of whose famous charge echoed round the world. The gallant Irishmen were new to Boer nomenclature, and when in a desperate bayonet charge a Boer officer pulled out a white flag, screaming, “Don’t kill me! I’m a field comet!" one retorting, “I’m hanged if I care whether you’re the whole blooming band!” drove the terrible steel right through his enemy’s heart.