Traveller.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 359, 26 March 1903, Page 7

Traveller.

i —*—- THE GLMTT OF TtilE APPENNIES, JpgKieHLl-JT psak in the Apennines P SkJK Tliat <l uestioa would generally AA £° round the class unanswered, Most of us know no more about th*» Apennines than we know about the Ural and Altai Ranges, or the Hindu Khush, or the Mountains of the Moon. Let the question be answered, then. The highest peak in the Apennines is the Gran Sasso d'ltalia, the Great Rick of Italy. Its height is over 9,000 ft., and it has hardly ever been climbed by Englishmen, because it is situated in Abtuzzi. The existence of brigands in the Abruszi is officially denied, but this consideration does not hinder them £r<m 'holding up' a traveller when tl e police are not too near.

The First Ascent. The first traveller to turn his attention to the mountain wan an Italian. Signor Delflco, who ascended it in 1794, and wrote a book about it in 1813. He also drew pictures of it, which are charming principally because they are so primitive. Edward Lear, famous for his nonsense verse?, also hung about tho base of the mountain in the early fifties, and sketched it from Isola, making a very charming drawing. But the first Englishman to get to the top of it was MrDjuglas Freshfield, the distinguished explorer of the Caucasus, who inadi the aseant in 187 S. A Cheap Trip */"'• You will live cheaply on the way. Says Mr Freshfield : 'At the inn at Bieti, where horses are chang d. soup for two, meat and vegetables for one, and half a bottle of wins cost eight-pence!' Things are not quite so cheap as that in Italy nowadays, but still they are quite cheap enough. His description of the cure's lifj shows to what an out of the way part of the world he had come. ' The parsonage was a small two-ioomed cottage. A little table let down from the wall disclosed a cupboard containing some cnpß and saucers. On Bhelyes stood a few pieces of rough Abruazi earthenware. Two or three.stool a completed tno furniture. . . Good soup, fair country wine, and excellent coffoe were provided by his own hands. In return we offered tea, a beverage he had never seen before. . . He had no regular servant, but depended for help iH his housekeeping on the friendly aid given by one or another of his flock.'

Look-out fob Bbigands. The next morning Mr Freshfield and his guide, Fr»ncais Devoasßaud, climbed the mountain. It presents nether diffi. culty nor danger if you take the right way up. At first there are goat-tracks, but afterwards yon go as you please. There is some scrambling on a steep bit of limestone; then there is some snow in which it may, or may not, be necessary to cut steps, and there you are, something over 9 000 ft. above the sea, oh the head of the giant of the Apennines. Anyone oan get there. It is not a very costly excursion, and there is very little fear of falling down a steep place. It is also a very out of the way excursion and one to be talked about afterwards. But any one who goes had better keep a sharp look-out for brigands, for he is pretty sure to find that the brigands are keeping a sharp look-out for him.

NOTIONS OF ENGLISH WATS. It is a trite saying that ' Onlooker a see most of the game/ and one that might equally well apply to people and nations, for it is certain that we English, for instance, learn more about cur peculiarities from the foreign Press than ever we cbculd from e«w own observation. For 3£&>*p&, a gta| many years ag« funerals we»a emboli m»» .ornate than they are now, and no deceased member of a respectable family would consider himself decently treated unless his hearse and its horses were profusely ornamented with ostrich plumes and accompanied by numerous attendants wearing tall hats, round which were tied crepe bands with long tails, ca'led weepsrs. Happily, our interments are conducted in a simpler manner nowadays. But at that time a correspondent of one of the beßt-known, and certainly one of the most-quoted of Parisian journals, after describing an English funeral and its peculiarities from a foreign point of view, concluded his article bj saying that in England it was the custom for relations of the departed, after depositing his body in his last resting-place, to return to the home cf mourning sitting on the top of the hearse smoking short clay pipes. It is hardly necessary to say that the worthy scribe mistook the mutes tor the relatives of the decased. The same newspaper recently informed its readers that governesses wt re well cared for in England, and that a society had been started to build ' flat houses '. for them to live in. Possibly trie writer thought that we usually shut our preceptresses up in the ' Round House'—as the ' Lock-up' was once called—whin they hid finished their day's work. How Do Such Tales OriginatkP But perhaps the most curious of English habits or customs i 8 one of which a leading Neapolitan paper makes mention Tt says: 'At tin Post-cffise yesterday' amid the large crowd gathered round the window was a y*ung English lady—handsome, well-dressed, and accompanied by her maid. The young lady had just puro>asad some stomps and was about to affix th< iu to a number of letters which she held in her laud. Delicately tearing off the stamp, she said to her maid, ' Put out your tongu ?,' and the maid, in her passive English manner, stuck out her tongue, while the mistress passed over it a postage-stamp, which she subsequently stuck on a letter. She went through the entire pickaxe of letters, and for each one the obedient maid put out her tongue for the mistress to moisten the stamp.' ' Curif.U3 manners these Eaglish have!' says the correspondent In conclusion.