A SWIM AT GISBORNE.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 402, 29 April 1902, Page 3

A SWIM AT GISBORNE.

A TRUE TALE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

(By One of “ The Great Unwashed.”) ! Concluded. |

“ Yes,” chimed in George, as he dug his elbow into the small of my back, in a vain endeavor to secure a more comfortable position, “ with a climate such as obtains here, which makes a daily tub an absolute necessity if a fellow is to enjoy health and cleanliness, it appears incomprehensible that tho town does not possess a public swimming bath, where the inhabitants can enjoy a good swim without running tho danger of being gobbled by a shark, or being the principal actors in a silly drama such as we are playing with effect just now.” Then the talk turned on sharks, and those fellows made my blood run cold as they vividly described harrowing accounts of the victims to these voracious monsters which had occurred all along the New Zealand coast. I used to be intensely fond of sea-bathing in my youth, but not for all the golden goblets that ever kings tossed into the deep shall I venture on the briny again. 11 1 wonder where our clothes can have vanished to,” said Sandy, as his teeth chattered with cold, and he peeped cautiously over the edge of our breastwork. ‘■They’ve gone,” he continued; “the pedestrians, I mean. Let’s get out of this. I feel very much as Rip Van Winkle must have felt when he awakened from his historical sleep.” Jack and I followed Sandy, and crawled out of our hiding-place ; but poor George had the cramp upon him, and we had difficulty in getting him to his feet. While Jack and I were bustling round him in an endeavor to restore circulation, a yell from Sandy made us all jump. “ Groat Seddon,” he ejaculated, “ look at that,” and he pointed inland with long uncovered arm and outstretched forefinger. He reminded ,mo forcibly as he stood there of the statue of Burke, the explorer, in one of the Melbourne gardens, which I remembered to have seen years ago, pointing towards the interior of the continent, where he had lost his life. We followed tho direction he indicated, and saw a sight which would have roused the ire of Tom Pinch. On a sandy hillock, about three chains away, a colony. of dogs, of all sorts and sizes, were frisking and gambolling in very lightness of heart. They seemed to be having an uproarious time, and the subject of their mirth was our missing clothes. A couple of them—l am not well up in dogs—but Jack said afterwards it was a Gordon setter and a lurcher —were playing tug-of-war with my waistcoat; while a big dog, which Jack called a saddle-back retriever, was schooling a number of his pupils in how to carry. Each dog had a garment, and was doing its best to follow the example of the big retriever as he proudly marched around with Sandy’s pants in his mouth. The sight was too humiliating to he borne. With a yell of mingled pain and rage, we each seized up a missile, and charged the eanine spoilers. I got in a beauty on the lurcher with a piece of papa the size of a cricket ball, but Jack just missed the Gordon setter with a manuka log which would have sent him to the happy hunting grounds had he roceived its vindictive force.

George and Sandy stopped half-way. Sandy, in his mad rush, kicked his big toe against a bit of totara, and swore he had stepped on a gigantic stingaree, and George stopped to cut tho piece out. It took us fully a quarter of an hour to gather together our stray garments, which had been scattered to the four winds of heaven by those beastly curs. I only wish Mr Townley could have heard the anathemas those fellows hurled upon the town of Gisborne for not having a public swimming-bath, as they hunted about for studs and collars in the sand and scrub. Eventually, we recovered the stray garments, but George lost a pair of gold sleeve-links which he says were a rowing trophy, and which he prized highly. His grief was most pathetic to witness. Jack and I dressed ourselves, and carried the togs of the other two back to them. We came up with them just as George was about to cut the piece out of Sandy’s toe, which the stingaree had bit. We dissuaded him, and explained that stingarees were never found so far inland ; but it was long before we could coax Sandy to put his boots on. Well, we turned and left the spot, and all tho way up to town those three fellows walked abreast, like “ The Three Musketeers,” and never so much as even glanced at me once. Then 1 faces were set like flint, and I felt like a criminal. I made friendly overtures once or twice, but they didn’t seem to hear me. I heard them, though ; and I considorit was most unkind, and discourteous of visitors to any town to say the things those fellows did.

Some day, I shall give you a sequel to this story ; and, in the meantime, ponder over the adventures of Jack, George, and Sandy; for this is no exaggeration, but the plain, unvarnished tale of an attempt made by four men to get cool and clean in Gisborne in the year of Our Lord 1902.