Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 8 June 1893, Page 3

Notes and Events.

The French have got a big thing underway. A3 our readers are aware England at present commands the Mediterranean, by holding Gibraltar on the west and the Suez Canal on the east. As France has a very large sea-board to the Mediterranean as well as to the Bay of Biscay, she naturally desires some means; of communication between the ; two without having to pass Gibraltar. They have now on hand the Nar bonne -Bordeaux Canal which will allow of the heaviest armour-clad ships.' fcp pass from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. A glance at the map will show that Bordeaux is situated afc the head of the estuary formed by the mouth of the river Gironde, into which the river Garonne empties, as this river winds about to Toulouse and frcm near there the, river Ande passes, which flows infa the Mediterranean at Narbonne, it is probably this is \ the route the canal will follow ; or the old canal called the Canal of Languedoc which connects Garonne with the Mediterranean may be enlarged. The African hunter, Mr Selous, being asked what he thought of the opportunities South Africa afforded for European colonisation, said— He had no doubt Europeans could live and flourish on the .< plateau lands both south and north of the Zambesi. Families of European missionaries to the third generation had shown that the English lost nothing in vitality or physical energy by living in Matabele, and. he had no doubt that in < the next century all that high land would be peopled up with the English and Dutch. The experience of Europeans in Mashonaland had been conclusive on this point. , .