The Guardian AND EVENING STAR, With which is incorporated “ The West Coast Times. SATURDAY May 7th. 1921. THE WEEK.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 May 1921, Page 2

The Guardian AND EVENING STAR, With which is incorporated “ The West Coast Times. SATURDAY May 7th. 1921. THE WEEK.

Duiung the week Dr Holloway opened the minds of some of us to furl her knowledge of this world of ours. It is a wonderful world, and the more wo see of it past and present, the more wonderful it seems to grow. While the pa,st is full of great and arresting interest, the present is no less delightful and educating in regard to added knowledge to be gained of the world about us. Many would lam see the distant places of the earth, l ut to few is it given to do so. The ordinary mortal has to be content wth vicarious travel. He must sate Jus wander-lust with a book and an armchair, and he could have no better cicerone says a reviewer than Mr ,J. H. Curie, who in “This World 1 1 Ours” continues the story of the fascinating Odyssey begun in “The Shadow Show.” Mr Curie was born with a passion for travel in his Wood. He traces descent from Pinzon, the discoverer of Brazil. As a small boy, for reasons of health, he was sent out to Australia in a sailing ship. The voyage set him up physically, hut he con’tra.cted an incurable disease—that restlessness of spirit which bids a man take the long trail and which Mr Kipling has so well interpreted in his “Hestina of the Tramp Royal.” On his way home Mr Curie decided that his proper vocation was that of nomad. He determinled that he must go everywhere, and, we may add, he has since fulfilled this ambitious programme; it is difficult to find a country which lie has not visited. But meanwhile there was the question of ways and means. The conventional training of “a scholar and a gentleman” he had at Cambridge was of little use for his schemes. Wliat calling would best enable him to roam about the globe? A mining engineer beyond all other men, has opportunities of getting away, from the lveaten track, and so with a few pounds in his pocket and a light heart, Mr Curie took himself off to South Africa, where he learned his profession bv practical wolrk in the mines.

I Those were the boom days on the . Rand. Everyone was busy; everybody was making money; everyone was wildly optimistic. Mr Curie attributes the psychology of the Rand to its altitude. At six thousand feet above the sea level the air exhilarates like wine; the heart works at high pressure; in- the buoyant atmosphere difficulties are forgotten, and no enterprise, however fantastic, seems impossible. Hence, incidentally, the .Tnme- ; son raid. Tn a few years Mr Curie j had sucked the South African egc I dry, find prepares tp £0 further afield, j His departure inspire? one of the 'finest passages In tji* book, Ur,dcr

the shadow of the Table Mountain he sees, as it were in a vision, the subcontinent unrolled in all its infinite variety. He muses on its past and its problematical future, on Kruger and Rhodes, its two greatest figures; on the mutual bitterness of Briton and Boer, which was soon to blaze out in war, and on the black cloud, the natives who so outnumbered the whites and were becoming conscious of their power. Then he turns Ins face to Australia. The Nineties, he observes were a sort of Elizabethan age of gold-mining. Into a few years were crowded the wonderful discoveries of the Transvaal, AVestern Aus--1 tralia, the Yukon, Colorado, and Nei vada. He pursues the fancy further. The Rand, unapproachable in wealth, was Shakespeare; Coolgardie, so richly I veined, doomed to early death, was .Marlowe; dredging for gold—the ‘m- | trusion into imaginative mining of j realism” —was Ben Jonson; and so on in a series of comparisons, some of ! which are not inapt. In the sweeping ! off-hand way so characteristic of this I super-traveller he forthwith makes up his mind to see all of them, and again he carried out his intention. Mr Curie has examined practically every goldmine of importance from Cripple Creek to Mysore, front Siberia to Zimbabye. He was on the Western Australian fields before the water sup- ' ply had been brought from Mundnring and when liquor was cheaper than water. In Melbourne and Sydney he ' was struck by the general air of prosperity, and hans some pertinent remark to offer on the White Australia policy. He had an unpleasant ex- ' perience in a deep shaft in Charters Towers; he found -the richness of ! Klondyke rather over-rated. He formed a poor opinion of Indian labour; one kaffir will do the work of 'three Hindus. In the American mines the miners—immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe—impressed him as skilful but unreliable. They are fed by the proprietary on a most lavish 1 scale; unaccustomed to such a royal diet they become morose and truculent, and are addicted to shooting the managers. These and other journeys were un- • dertaken in a professional capacity. They provided Mr Curie with the ; wherewithal to travel for pleasure* and he has not let the grass grow under his feet. It is impossible to follow in detail his - wanderings, which iniige from Abyssinia to Archangel, from Iceland to Cochin China; from the Falkland Islands to the hinterland of the Gold Coast. He is always meeting with surprises. In the heart of Borneo he finds a huge factory, where 400 wild men from Borneo plucked from the forest and now bald and l>espcctncled, are cutting diamonds with all the mannerisms of Amsterdam. He is convinced that the natives nf the South Seas are doomed to extinction, and that in a. 100 years the islands will he Oriental—‘‘lndian or Chinese, or probably, Japanese.” The elaborate duplication of the machinery of government in the New Hebrides provokes wonder that a mere handful of whites should have one court of ’ law and “two of everything else, like a trousseau—two flags, two residents, two staffs, two sets of stamp, two religions, and two methods of earning > the liking or hate of the aborigines ‘Of the Dutch administration in the East Indies he speaks highly; the Dutch system, he believes, is well suited to the needs of tile natives. It is true that outside Java development lags behind. Not a fraction of the wealth of Borneo, Sumatra, or Celebes is exploited; the Dutch concentrate their energies upon Java; But Mr Curie thinks that their policy may be a worse one. The world can be everdeveloped—is being so. Too much [ can be crowded into our day; too ■ many of Nature’s resources skimmed , for their cream. These countries will » keep, and the Dutchmen of two or , three generations hence will have their innings.”

I’kuuai’S the most interesting of the many interesting chapters are those relating to travels in Latin America. Mr Curie complains that few Englishmen have any real knowledge of four subjects which lie declares to he as absorbing as any in history—the Spanish colonial days, the revolution against Spain, the dictators who have ruled these Republics, and the Roman Church in America. He himself can, "f course, do not more than touch upon these subjects, hut lie gives us tantalising glimpses of great Libertndors, of strange adventures, of ruined cities built by conquistadores in sweltering jungle and wind-swept mountain-top. He was in Mexico under the regime of Porfirio Diaz, who “on the day Rhodes died, became the biggest figure in the world.” He has dwelt in San Domingo tile gateway to the former capital of the Spanish Main, and the burial-place of Columbus, its discoverer. He takes us through Central America Tepublics perpetually seething with insurrection; we navigate tin; vast Amazon, and traverse politician-ridden Brazil. We . visit tiny open roadsteads on the rainless coasts of Chili, where battered tramps wait for their cargoes of nitrate or copper. We climb the summits of the Andes to inspect the mines from which Pifzarro drew tribute. We share the excitement of a. strenuous journey through Ecuador and Colombia across the Cordillera into tropical Venezuela. Wherever he guides us he beguiles the way with shrewd comments on men and manners. He makes these far-off places live before our eyes, and his technical knowledge often throws a curious sidelight on history. Thus, as every school child is aware, Sir Walter Raleigh told Elizabeth that the. Eldorado for which men sought all over South America lay in Venezuela. When James Ist was King, Raleigh sailed 400 miles up the Orinoco to find it. Fever, mutiny, and hostile Indians defeated him; his expedition returned without any gold, and Raleigh was imprisoned, and ultimately beheaded. Rut few know that Raleigh was on the right track, after all. Not far beyond the point reached by his party there is a goldfield. the richest in the whole history of South America, and it is a reasonable surmise Hint lie heard of it from the Indians who have worked it from early times. Bast century white prospectors discovered El On lion, ns this “chimney” of quarts? is oallfid, and for years* firing % ’fifties thf njiHfi

produced annually gold to the value of almost a million pounds. Mr Curie mentions an El Dorado of rather a different sort, a sacred lake in the Columbian mountains. In the 16th century two Europeans visited the lake and found that it was holy, the <Spot where the native kings were solemnly consecrated. When a new king was to be crowned the people gathered on its shores and tho king appeared in a boat, covered with gold dust, and attended by tho high priest. His subjects acclaimed him with the shout “The Golden One,” which is, in Spanish ‘‘El Dorado.” The High Priest to propitiate tho spirit of the Lake threw in treasures, golden ornaments, precious stones, and the populace in an ecstasy of emotion cast in its own paltry valuables. The report of the explorers was quite circumstantial; they said, moreover, that the ceremony was a very ancient one. It followed; therefore, that the floor of Guatavita should be paved with treasures. Some years ago syndicate was formed on the London Stock Exchange, the lake was drained and a few jewels and orna- ! meats and idols were found. But the fabled wealth that ought to have lined . Guatavita was not there. After all, remarks Mr Curie, why should it have been? “Chief priests were cunning men before these days, string was cheap 1 a turn of the wrist .a few hours’ immersion, and tho royal treasures were restored to their guardians by sun- ! down.” Truly this world of ours is full of interest in every phase