GULLIVER'S TRAVELS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3182, 5 September 1917, Page 5

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS

a . 1 LETTERS FROM SALONIKA. Wailing from Salonika under date June 7, to a relative, at Rangiora, Sergeant Denis A. Gulliver, of an Imperial regiment, who was at one timo 0 n the literary staff of the "Lytteltoh Times," l>ut aftei-wards went to Fiji, says: "I wonder 'if you people in New Zealand and Australia realise how lucky you are, and I wonder if you can sense the terrorisms ami sufferings that othor countries nro enduring? Your casualty lists, of course, help you to realise what a terrible affair the war is, and you nave newspapers and kinemas and first-hand experience of fighting men. But yon who live in the conntry, are safe—as safe as if there were no war on. You can walk in. the'streets without the slightest chance of ' being bombed from the sky; you can fro to the seaside without the slightest chanco of having shells hurled at yon from men-of-' war, and you can oven sail the'sens and return unscathed. This sounds something like a sermon, but when I get copies _nf New Zealand weekly papers and see pictures of raco meetings, galas, shows, otc. -all attended evidently by fit men in flannel suits and straw hats—it makes mc think of the friends T have lost—men I came out from Fiji with—broken and crushed and slain. Tt makes mo think of !i sound-hearted liltlo Scotsman T met in Fiji. Tie came from Scotland to seek his fortune. The war came, and he threw un his job in the Islands—and bo bad a pood iob. being a Scotsman—and joined up. He bad a few days' lea™ when wo got to England, and naturally went to Scotland to see his mother. T was in Belgium. France, a"d Ibis b»nighf-ed country" with him. Ho and T both came tin-wish, without a scratch. Our leave was duo in France, but we were shifted here, and tbcm was no Inlfc of leave for .-i lone lime. Then it: wins rumoured that English leave was coming round ngnin to those to whom it wns due. >fy friend (ho had n heart of gold) and I planned to take it together.- and I was to go to his home in Scotland and meet his mother. He wns killed, however, just as his leave fell due, and I had n nninfnl letter In write to a lady in Scotland whom 1 have never seen, and T don't suppose. I ever shall. It would take more courage than T havo got tn visit her now. But fain becoming morbid, you see. and • you know I am not naturally like that."