A TEXAN CITY CAMP.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 December 1917, Page 4

A TEXAN CITY CAMP.

(By G. Ivy Sanders). S.\n Aston to, Texas. San Antonio, though over 2,000 miles from New York, ranks among the foremost of the towns engaged in organising for the coining great cam- • paign. The golden splendour of her | skies and climate has named her the I “ Sunset City ” —now she might well be called the “ Wonder Cit3 r ,” for in the last lit'ty days a camp to house 46,000 troops of the National Army has been erected. Fascinating and quaint, pulsating with colour, life, and laughter, her chief characteristic is the subtle blending of the ancient and modern, i Continuous warfare of earlier days is 1 responsible for the picturesquely odd-shaped, serpentine streets, oval and oblong plazas, corners, and intricately tangled relics of older days, and modernities. There is scarcely a j straight or continuous street, and it ! is this zigzagging of the walls j through the very heart of the oity r , ! combined with the quaint doorway canal, tropically arcaded, vine and flower fringed, that plays hide-and- ■ seek over and between the low-built. houses with their tiny venetianed front yards, that lends to the city her unique charm and romance. Last night 1 walked down the main j thoroughfare, a miniature Broadway, : or Piccadilly-circus on Boat-race night, with its multi-coloured fairy lights and flashing signs. Up and down the very cosmopolitan popula- \ tion khaki soldiers, Mexicans, Ger- i mans and Chinese, moved leisurely, ; languid and brilliant in their summer • clothes. The tall American soldiers were everywhere, “ cowboys ” in their well-known costume bad swarmed into the town after a hardday’s work “ breaking-in ” mules for : the far-olf war. Dance gardens, “fun-cities,” soda-fountains, and fruit stalls were bright on every side, laughter of merrymaking and mnsic filled the air, and a- one end of the street—lying strangely peaceful and pale in the moonlight - the tragic Alamo, the building that is the cradle of Texan independence, which, moss-grown, blood-stained, and riddled with bullets, guards the j city.

There only seventy years ago one hundred and eighty Texan hero martyrs defended San Antonio against five thousand butchering Mexicans, In the dark doorway one* gallant Texan alone stabbed with his long bowie-knife forty-three of the invaders who endeavoured to pass through. And now sheltered by its very shadows there nightly gleam the fitful oil-lamps and bucket fire of a Mexican street cafe To-day the Alamo is again looking upon war preparations. ■* ■*** *

With the magic spell .>of the old city in my mind I walked to the roof garden of my hotel and found it a symphony of mystery and colour. White-clad negroes from Jamaica moved noiselessly among the tiny tables. Young American officers ate and danced alternately, as is the fashion here, their feet, moving in rhythmic rag-time, sounding as the soft swish-swish of the surf upon the sea. A warm and gentle breeze stirred the coloured lanterns swung in garlands from pillar to post, and overhead the deep blue sky was jewelled with stars.

“A Mecca, indeed," I thought, “of forgetulness and peace.” Bat even as the words crossed my mind the Stars and Stripes, wafting into a circle of light, and the jingling of spurs, broke the spell of fairyland. “Farewell, San Antonio; Hello, France ! ” the well-known war song, from the strings of Hawaiian players, , floated on the wind. At the next table a flue young figure in khaki echoed the brave words softly, his • large brown hand resting oarressingly

on the little white hand of his guest. Her eyes, I saw, were brighter than the stars. New York is 2,000 miles away from San Antonio, and New York is 3,000 miles from the war, but. the long arm has reached even to the ends of the earth and placed a heavy finger upon such a dream town as this.