Literary Chat

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume VI, Issue 5, 1 August 1902, Page 68

Literary Chat

THE*author who lets his imagination take a flight into the future, and prospects its immense possibilities, has always a distinct advantage over the one who delves amid the dry bones of the past for the subject of his romance. In " A New Trafalgar " the author, A. 0. Curtis, has recognized this fact, and launching out but a short distance has produced a very readable book. It is published by Longman's, and was forwarded for review by Messrs. Upton and Co. In the first chapter the lover, "a sturdy, freckled brown-faced sailor," Lieutenant Harry Nevil, and his lass, a sweet English girl, Admiral Wycherley's grand daughter, are introduced to the reader. A telegram from the Admirality — " Experimental mobilization. You are directed to join your ship immediately " — expedites Harry's love affairs, and makes the artless Peggy admit, "Oh, Harry, you have had your answer quite a week before I meant you to." The bluff old admiral exclaims, " What ! want to marry Peggy ? H'm ! Yes, I should think so. Jones's boy wants to h'm ! Peg had better settle for herself. If she says ' yes,' why I say Eh, what ? She has said 'yes?' Here, Timothy! Timothy ahoy, ! Fetch me a glass of the particular — the — very — particular," etc. Making for Portsmouth, " Nevil found the harbour a blaze of electric light . . . . confusion was the mildest term that could be applied to the state of affairs ; launches and pinnaces from men-of-war .... driven

at top speed dashing about in every direction .... destroyers grim and black, making night hideous with the hootings of their syrens." On board the " Falcon T.8.D." his commander, Lieutenant Barlow tells him " that I shouldn't be surprised if we are using our steel babies with their war-heads on before the week is out. . . . fighting Germany for our colonies and sea trade ; Russia for India and a free hamd in the Bast, with France helping the other two, with a promise of Egypt, and, perhaps, Alsace and Lorraine as a makeshift in the bargain." There is no more lovemaking for Nevil. The most blood-thirsty succession of sea battles follows, in which victory is only achieved by the annihilation of practically the whole navies of the allies, and the best part of their victor's ; the balance was only saved by the timely invention of some extraordinary marine monsters termed "devil ships " and " battle forts," under the command of the young sailor prince. One of the actors in the scene sums up the situation in these words: "After to-day the navy will be turned into a sort of police force. All the serious sea-fighting is done. Taken just about eight weeks; a smarter job than the Boer War ; eh, admiral ? Well, the khaki coves will have to show what they can do now!" It will be observed that this is essentially a sea story, the author has scorned to resort to the over-used artifice of air-ships for annihilation purposes.

Me. T. Lindsay Buick's " Old Marlborough, or the Story of a Province," published some little time since, is a valuable addition to our historical literature. In compiling his work the author acknowledges his indebtedness to many well-known residents in the Marlborough Province as well as to many standard books on New Zealand, his object being, as he states in his preface, "to furnish in popular form a concise historical account of that portion of New Zealand known as the Provincial District of Marlborough." Feeling evidently that there is nothing like beginning at the beginning, the first chapter is devoted to Divine Architecture, in which the geological formation of the province is carefully considered. Then follows a most intei*esting chapter on the Ancient Pit Dwellers ; the material for this, the author states, he procured from Mr. Rutland. " Tradition," he writes, " however vaguely, speaks of two races, both anterior to the Maori, the red-headed Turehu, whom the story relegates to fairyland, and the Moriori, of whose blood a strain is sometimes seen in a dark complexioned, square- featured native, whose physique and countenance seem to indicate a union, by intermarriage of the two races." Most interesting accounts of the finding of stone implements under, or imbedded in, the roots of very large decayed tree stumps on land off which the forest must have disappeared ages ago, prove the occupancy of the Moriori to be far back in the misty past, and the peculiar formation of groups of pits and their contents lead to the conclusion that these ancient inhabitants were really pit dwellers. Captain Cook's discovery of the Marlborough Province in 1770 and his visits to Queen Charlotte Sound receive that due attention which the advent of the white man deserves, for he it was who first sighted the shore around which, the* author claims, " there has ever since clung so many pleasant and historical associations." Tasman, in his earlier voyage, never got a glimpse of the snowcapped Kaikouras. The chapter appropriately entitled " Sinners and Saints" (the sinners

having pride of place presumably on account of their preponderance and priority of possession), deals with the advent of whalers and missionaries, and their respective modes of life are graphically described. The deplorable Wairau Massacre, with a clear explanation of its origin, fills another chapter, followed by an account of the Pioneers of the Province, and their respective shares of the work of building it up. The book will be read with very great interest not only by Marlborough residents, but also by all New Zealanders who are interested in the history of their country, and the author deserves much credit for the comprehensive and able manner in which this attempt of his to rescue from oblivion much most interesting matter has been carried out. The book was printed by Messrs. Hart and Keeling, of Palmerston North, and is illustrated by over seventy photogravures of old identities and views of places of interest in the Province. After perusing this work one can only hope to see more of a similar nature from Mr. Buick's facile pen. There is unlimited material at hand.