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Hokitika Guardian, 16 June 1925, Page 2

Kkcknu.y Mr Cherry Kenrton. the well-known photographer ol wild life, went in pursuit of new “sitters” m the Sahara, and his experiences are described in a recent publication “ r l he Shifting Sands of Algeria.” Before ■setting oil lor the desert he saw a good (leal of the more settled parts of the country, where he was greatly impressed with the success of the French as colonisers. They found Algeria in a derelict condition; they have made it- prosperous and contented. By sinking artesian Imres and conserving wider they have reclaimed land that was formerly a sterile waste. I hey have chastened the marauding tribes, and the peasantry no longer exists in perpetual dread of the raiders. Indeed the good order they have established is revolutionising the mode <>! life on the fringes of the desert. Previously many of the communities were ‘■rockdwellers.” They had their abode in eaves on inaccessible crags, whore they 'were safe from attack. 1 hence they ventured forth to nil their tiny plots. Hut now. having nothing to fear, they have abandoned .these eeries. and make t!i<• ir homes in more conventional and less inapproachable quarters. Ami to Timhuetoo. whose name used to connote the qtiinloseenee of isolation and remoteness, motor caterpillars now run aeross the Sahara. 11l Homan days the littoral of Northern Africa was one great garden and granary. Then catne the Vandal invasion, and afterwards the Moslem blight settled over the region. Mighty cities fell into decay, and were buried ill the sand. Wells and canals were choked up; icservoirs crumbled away. The work ol centuries was undone. Vet everywhere Air Keartun found traces of the Homan regime in the shape of monuments and ruins. There was, for example. Titngad. the wonder of the African world. Trajan simply said, “Let it he built.” and in an incredibly short spate it rose in all its imposing pride, with its temples and theatres, its capita], and its public offices; a city ready made. Tfie desert itself is a curious and rather uncanny place. It consists of an endless series of rolling dunes of pure white sand, with an occasional hillock standing above the general level. There is nothing whatever to supply a standard of measurement; not a tree nor a rock nor a house gives scale to the picture. As a result the European is apt enormously to exaggerate both size and distance. He secs, apparently, a day’s march before him, a formidable mountain range, and a lofty peak. In a few minutes he is passing under the latter, which turns out to be two or three hundred feet in height, and is crossing the “range", a gentle slope of Id feet. The caravan itself is the only object that (an furnish a criterion and the effect created is often very startling. The traveller surveys the tumbled expanse, and unconsciously receives the impression of its vastness. Then through tt gap. seemingly far away, would conic a terrifying spec-tacle—-monstrous animals, half a,s big as the hills, with huge men lolling upon their hacks. The camels cover the ground as though with seven league bouts. They eat up ridges and valleys in a few gigantic strikes. And then with quite a. struggle the observer manages to grasp the true-relationship between scenery and caravan.

The host weather in New Zealand is being experienced in thin territory at present. It is often the praeti.o to belittle West Coast weather, because in years “one by name cycles of had weather were experienced, lint while the evil days are remembered and often recalled, we are all too prone to forget when the gods are good, as in the present period of extended good weather. .Inst to acknowledge the kindly gilt these lines are penned, for it is a gift worth appreciating. Our weather for some time pant could not he excelled. It is atntost equal to ea'A spring in this time of mid-winter. So balmy and cheerful is the weather that nature is responding and the grass is growing. Pastornlists state there is plenty of good feed--it ie not giving out, for the grans is renewing all the time. So excellent a spell of weather will help the winter time through, and we may all rejoice accordingly. The Coast climate taken on the whole is as good as anywhere, for the reason that the weather in so equable. It is never too hot. as it is never too cold. The district is coming into its own an a place for pleasant residence all the year round, without rigorous climatic conditions to fend against. Tn the light of the weather conditions prevailing in other parts of the Dominion, to say nothing of the extremes in the Northern Hemisphere, the Coast seems to stand alone in all the world as enjoying the very best of weather mildly seasonable and thoroughly enjoyable.