MRS BROWN ON HER TRAVELS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6508, 5 January 1882, Page 6

MRS BROWN ON HER TRAVELS.

TO TUB BDITOH. Mb Editob,—Whioh I did not think you'd have done no s|bh thing to a lady, knowing m how Brown would take it, and orow over mo as ho always doei,a wanting to know why 1 will write to thorn dratted papers, leastways ho doesn't aay dratted, but met bad words about them beginning with the same letter, and when I asked you, in a prirate note, just to alter any little thing you might find wrong in the spelling and the grammar, and you went and printed it jest as I wrote it, which was not at all nice of you, nor what 1 expeoted from a gentleman like you. When I saw Brown a grinning like a Cheshire oat, and heisays, says he, so you're been at it again, you old fool, have you, a making yourself a larfing stock to the whole plaoe. Why can't you leave tho doctors alone to settle their squabbles theirselres, whioh they are quite able to do without your interference, and lawk-a-massy, you might have knocked me down with a feather, 1 was that took aback, for never did 1 think as you'd have printed my name in full, and 1 vowed I'd never write no more for the Lyttelton Times or that dratted Star, whioh is just as bad. But the other day as I was a walking down High street with Brown, I says to him, who is that handsome young man with the blaok curly air, he looks like a young Lord, maybe it's the Governor's aiddecoinp, hut says Brown I don't see no handsome young man, and, sez I, why you must be blind says I, him as as got the eyeglass in his lest eye, and he's looking at us now. Oh I him, i-ays Brown, a sniggering in his haggravating way, why you ougat to know him, that's the Editor of the Lyitelton Times, the paper as you illuminates with your brilliant productions. And says 1, now Brown, if you go on like that old man you don't get no more treacle puddings from me for a month of Sundays, and Brown, he's that fond of treacle puddings that he makes hisself ill with them if 1 lets him eat as much as he wants. Don't you be sarcastic, says I, because it don't become you at your age, when you ought to be living in oharity with everybody, not knowing when you might be cuS off like a hold tree as is rotten at the roots, and you on your last legs, as one may Bay, and a grandfather these ten years, fWe have out out about a column and a half containing a vivid description of the quarrel between Mr and Mrs Brown, whioh would hardly interest our readers.—Ed. L. T.} But to come back to my story, for if there's one thing 1 can't abide it is people a wandering about from one subjeok to another, which 1 always says stiok to the point, says I, and when I see you looking so young and 'andsomo, Mr ivditor, I thinks to myself it could not be you as refused to take the trouble of just writing out my letter about the medikkle men, and correcting the spelling, but no doubt you was away and you left the paper in charge of somebody else, and when the cat's away the mioe will play, not as I mean to compare you to a cat, butyoa know what I mean, so I determined to give you an account of my awiul journey from the West Coast over the mouuiains, whioh its a wonder and a mercy I'm alive to tell it, and the dangers I run, which would make your air stand on end. You see, my eldest daughter, Jemima Ann, which has been married these 11 years, and is a living on the West Coast, her youngest but one was a aufferin dreadful from hooping cough j which to see that dear innocent a turning blaok in the face, as if she would choke, was hawful j and Jemima Ann, that wore out with missing her and setting up at nights, and the other five all around her, and so she tellygraphs to me, whioh was a visiting my son ia Wellington, to come round and help her a hit. And I went in one of them nasty little boats as they have on that coast, which is no bigger than a fishing smack, and rooks like a cradle, and makes one that seasick in them horrid little dens as they calls ladies' cabins, whioh there aint room to swing a mouse in, let alone a oat; and when I got to Hokitika, and I finds the ohild so bad, I says, Jemima Ann, says I, it aint no manner of use a poisoning this pore dear with any more doctors' stuff, what she wanti, says I, is ohange of hair. Lawks, mama, says Jemima Ann, whioh she ought to have known better, the child's air has nothing to do with it. Jemima Ann, says I, don't tell me; I ought to know better—the mother of thirteen, all alive and well. I tell you its a change of hair she wants; as long as she stops here, where it rains five days out of six, she 11 never get well of that cough. What did I say to you when Ernest Albert Augustus was ill with measles. [Here we are again compelled most reluctantly to exoise a description of all the illnesses of Mrs Brown's grandohildren, from their earliest infancy.—J}». L.T.I Well, not to make my letter too long, Jemima Ann decided at last to bring the baby and Beatrice Ethel Elorenoe, whioh is tho one as has the hooping cough, over with me to Christohurob. You will find it dry enough there, says I. Why, when they get an inch of rainfall there, they tellygraphs it all over the Colony, and, if it weren't for them artesian wells as they calls them, they'd all be dried up into Egyptian mummies, eich as you sees in the British Museum—though what's the use of keeping sioh things I can't see; they're only good for making patent manure of like them More bones, as they calls them, in the Ohristohurch Museum, though why More bones I don't know.

So we started in the ooaoh, whioh was full and biling over, as I may cay, let alone the two children, whioh didn't count; there wai two on the roof and three on the box aeat, besides the driver, and the inside quite full and no end of luggidge. My daughter was obliged to go inside with the two children, but I went on the box seat, for everybody said if X didn't Ishould'nt hare no chance of seeing the acenary. And I must say that there was two gentlemen on the box seat as was very polite, and they never grumbled, though we toai serouged up a bit, for I am rather stout, whioh I don't deny, and at my years I can't get up and down to the box seat of a ooaoh as I might have done onoe upon a time, and I feel very much obligated to those gents for being so civil to a old woman j and as for the driver, ho did'nt say much, but ho thought a lot. Well, you see, wo had to oross a river on the other side of the ranges called the Taipo, whioh is the Maori word for dovil, and a devil of a rivor it oertingly is. But we d.d'nt go through the Taipo, but we got off the ooaoh on the other aide, and wj walked some distanoo and then we •orossed by a wire bridge. Did you ever I 50 over a river by a long wire bridge ? j f you didn't you can't toll what it is till you get into the middle and begin to swing about, and when a party is a little heavy and cat ohes hold of the wiro on one side, and the bridge soema as if it was going to capsize, and the river is a boiling beneath you, it takes away your breath and makes you awful giddy. Howsomever, I got across at last, and Jemima Ann too, and two of the gentlemen carried the children, whioh was very kind of them, for Jemima Ann it a pore critter, though I say it as shouldn't, but she ain't got her mothor's pluok, ai I always tolls her, though the best of education, and »h» don't make no mistakes in spelling and grammar, Mr Bditur! Now I ain't a going to desoribe all the scenery, partly beoause I never aee any one as could to be interesting, and partly beoauso your New Zealand bush all looks like them little toy trees of children's, turned out of a mould, all the tame chape and colour. One bits exaotly like another, and not a flowor for miles. I remember we came across some yellow flowers like dandelions only they wasn't, and they quite delighted me among all that mm of dull

green and them everlasting ferns and palms [ and supple jacks. Talk about scenery I why I ther is better scenery in one county of Wales or Scotland or the North of England or in Devonshire than in all New Zealand biled i down I Well we was nearly c»p»ized in orossing the Otira oreek or river, and the ooaoh it leaned over to my side, and cortingly I thought we was in for a duoking, but Mr George, that was the, driver, ho pulled us through, and 1 never screamed out, I ain't One of them hystorical women that's always a sohroeohing and a squealing, just to got themselves notiood by the men. But lawks how I do run on, why I havn't got to the Otira gorge yet, so I think I must defer the rest of my description for another lotter.—l am, yours sinoeroly, if you behave yourself, MRS MABTHA BBOWN. Ohristchuroh, Jan. 2,1882. Which I wishes you a happy Now Yoar) —M.B.