Here and There

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 24, 10 June 1908, Page 50

Here and There

Township on the Zambesi. The British South Africa Company, on the advice of the committee of directors wh(» recently visited Rhodesia, have decided to proceed immediately with the survey of a township on the south hank of the Zambesi, in the vicinity of the Victoria Falls. A suitable site has been indicated by Sir Charles Metcalfe, ■where such a township can be established without in any way detracting from the natural beauties of the locality. It •is expected that in the course of a few months better accommodation and more facilities will be provided for visitors to this beautiful spot. The reaches of the Zambesi above the Victoria Falls and the many back waters and islands will be made accessible to visitors by means of a tramway from Livingstone Station on the North bank to the boathouse above the confluence of the Maramha River. <s><«> <2> A Novel Fishing Craft. THE BOAT WITH THE GLASS / BOTTOM. If one wishes to fish in what is termed nn altogether up-to-date fashion on the Pacific slope of the United States, or, to be precise, in the Bay of Avalon, Southern California, he hires or rents a boat with a glass bottom, sits comfortably in a chair, with rod over the rail, looks down through the glass bottom, and watches the giant iish of the region bite. Fishing in this way, says a writer in the “Badminton Magazine” for April, the angler sees some curious things, and it is for this purpose that the boat with a glass bottom is built —that the voyager may view at ease the wonders of ihe deep. When one goes ashore at the little town of Avalon one finds lined up, not cab-drivers, but glass-bottom boat growers and skippers, and here is a fleet of this strange craft ranging from a rowboat with a small window to a sidewheel steamer with a great window, and costing up to £6OOO. These men—“captains,” •'commodores”—sailors all—proffer their crafts. “Take the Cleopatra!” “Here you are*, glass-bottom automobile New York!” “Take the Vermont!” “All aboard lor (he Lady Lou!” The air is filled with their cries, as here are nearly all the things one will find at Madeira, Cuba, Key West, Naples, or the Capri. Indeed, one might well believe oneself ofl the Italian coast, as over the channel is a Naples, with the real gondola of Venice, and not far away an American Venice, with more gondolas and fair imitations of Venetian homes; an astounding pier, built far out over the water, with a ballroom, restaurant, art gallery, and all kinds of appurtenances one would not expect to find on a pier. Not only this: Here are the same creatures of the ocean one sees in Naples, Italy, and many more not found there. You notice nothing peculiar about this craft until you go aboard, and then you see a long well-like arrangement on the lower deck, its edges rising aliout two feet, and covered with cloth, or padded, so that you can sit with your arms on the pad, and with comfort gaze down into the depths of the sea, listening to the lecture given by the skipper. The steamer has powerful engines, and draws about two feet, so can float over the kelp beds; ami as the inhabitants do not appear to mind it, and usually remain more or loss placid, the result is admirable; the passenger seems to be a part of the deep sea, and in its very heart.

'Among the fishes which the glass-bot-tom boat spectators may perceive as the craft crosses the bay and approaches the

sea-lion rookery is the tuna, the hammerhead shark, and the sand shark—often a thousand pounds in weight; or one may happen upon the colossal sunfish, which has been taken here weighing two thousand pounds. Darting beneath the glass window is a huge sea-lion in pur-

suit of its prey. Indeed, the strange things one may see through this sea window would require a big volume fully to record.

Must be a Head. A definite understanding as to, who is in authority is an important thing for any business. Few thipgs cause more trouble and confusion than leaving men in doubt as to whose orders take first rank. Not to know this fundamental point is to have a feeling of uncertainty, insecurity, and suspended conclusions—a feeling which affects tendencies, attitudes, and the character of the work in hand. Two men were associated in the management of a manufacturing enterprise, each having charge of a part of it, and both having occasion to come in touch ■with the other part. Neither one had been given full authority, neither recognised the other as his superior, and harmony did not reign between them. Employees found themselves governed by conflicting instructions, much to the disadvantage ami disorganisation of the whole enterprise. The trouble did not abate until the owners intervened and established a definite understanding as to the extent of each man’s authority. There is usually one principal reason why such conditions are allowed to exist in the first place. It is the unwillingness to face the problem for fear of an unpleasantness. But this is seen to be a very poor reason when it is considered that the same problem in aggravated form will almost certainly have to be faced later—after much harm has been done, and perhaps an irreparable breach has been made. «><?><*> Flowers as Food. The ancients had some curious health fads as well as the folks of to-day. No less an authority than Pliny has asserted that "it is possible to maintain health by a morning diet of rose leaves; that it strengthens the heart, gives sleep to the fevered, and allays inflammation. The lotus of the ancients was the fruit of the jubjube tree, a prickly shrub, and it is still eaten by the natives of Egypt. A species of wine is also made from it, which has a soporific effect. The lily is partaken of in China, and they eat it with pork. The gorgeous blossoms of the rhododendron are used as food in the Himalayas. Another Asiastic race use flowers, leaves, and stems of a small yellow immortelle. These are all boiled together till tender. Dr. Johnson was not amiss when he called the cauliflower a blossom. "The finest flower in the garden,’’ was bis epithet, and it is simply the unopened flower of a species of cabbage. We Begin to Die at Forty. Of the meaning of old age a new and rather startling view comes to us from Professor Metchnikoff. Only a very few persons die of it. In an overwhelming majority of instances people are cut off earlier by disease or by accident. But

when in the rare or exceptional event that a man or woman dies of old age the death is properly to be regarded as the wind up of a process that began in middle life.

We begin to die, every one of us, when we are about forty years of age. The process is so slow as to be imperceptible, but after that period the machine which we call the body is steadily running down. There is a progressive physical deterioration, in other words, which,

when it goes far enough, must necessarily bring life to an end. What we call death ordinarily is a more or less sudden collapse due to accidental circumstances — most commonly an onset of disease of one kind or another. But the physiological death,” as Professor Metchnikoff terms it, is a very long affair, and may (go on for forty or fifty years before a person succumbs. It takes about twenty years for a human being of cither sex to reach maturity. During the next twenty years the physical organism enjoys full and complete vigour and activity. Then, at forty years of age, the “physiological death’* begins, though so very gradually that

the process does not excite attention. Thus the period from forty to sixty is one during which the health and bodily powers may lie expected to be satisfactorily maintained. But after the third term of twenty years has gone by the inevitable deterioration of structure has progressed so far as to be plainly manifest, and then we say that so-and-so is “getting old.” <s>■s><?> ‘Woman’s Chief ‘Weapon. Woman, having no other means at her disposal for vanquishing and attaching men to her chariot-wheels, has for many long centuries had to rely entirely on coquetry. It is not astonishing, therefore, that this weaponis deeply ingrained in the feminine soul —has become, in fact, an instinct at once conscious and involuntary—and that it now constitutes one of woman’s most fundamental characteristics.—“ The Grand Magazine.” <S> <S> <4> Exploring Inner Labrador. A journey into the interior of the great Labrador Peninsula is fraught with so many difficulties and so many dangers that lie who makes it must indeed have a compelling motive (writes a traveller). The Peninsula forms that portion of the Dominion of Canada lying between Hudson Bay on the West, and the Atlantic Ocean on the East, with the Gulf of St. Lawrence for its southern boundary, and Hudson Straits marking its extreme northern limit. Only its coast fisheries, its fur trade, and, in Southern parts, its timber lands, have as yet attracted the gain-seekers to its inhospitable shores, icebound as they are in winter, and in summer swept by the Arctic current as it bears southward its burden of bergs. As a whole the Peninsula consists of a vast rocky plateau, cut at intervals by valleys, into which gather the waters of its myriads of lakes and stream for their wild mad race to the sea. The rivers thus formed are the only highways into the interior, and none but the expert canoeman can successfully navigate them. He must be brought near two thousand miles to -the task, for the native of Eastern Labrador is not a canoeman, and fears the interior of his country. The game supply, too, is uncertain. Starvation broods over this wilderness, and now and then claims even the Indian, to whom its ways are familiar. Thus inner Labrador lay wrapped in the shadow of mystery, unbroken until the latter half of the last century, and then lifted chiefly by the explorations of Mr. A. P. Low, now Director of the Geological Survey of Canada. His work, the results of which are set forth in the Government reports, extended over a period of ten years —1885 to 1895; but it left the portion of the Peninsula lying between Lake Melville and Ungava Bay still virgin field for the explorer, where remained two large rivers to be traversed and mapped. These were the Nascaupee River, draining Lake Michikamau to Lake Melville and the Atlantic, and the George River, draining the northern slope of the plateau to Ongava Bay. <£><s><£> , . . ! Romance of Yellow Jack. The evidence given by several important witness before the Royal Commission on Vivisection in the last three months of last year was published as a Blue-book. The most interesting to the lay mind was that of Mr. W. Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, who took yellow fever as an illustration of the way in which experiments carefully devised and carried out may influence not only disease, but also the commercial relations of nations and save thousands of lives and millions of pounds every year. “The discovery of the malarial parasite and the relations of yellow fever with the mosquito will make the tropics habitable, and enable the Panama (’anal to be built,” he said. “Without those two investigations the probability is that it could not be built, or, if built, would cost a tremendous sacrifice of human life. “Tlie men who made these investigations spent their lives in laboratories, and their whole work has been based in experimentation on animals. They could not otherwise have ventured to devise a series of experiments of this sort.’’ . u