LOOKING FOR A TANIWHA!

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3597, 10 February 1927, Page 2

LOOKING FOR A TANIWHA!

♦— AMERICAN TOURIST’S DISAPPOINTMENT.

“Say, friend,” remarked an Amevienn tourist to a reporter at Wanganui, “can you tell me anything about the taniwha, or where I can see uiic of them? I have been on the lookout all the way down the river, but not a sight of one could 1 see. I asked one of the Maoris on the river steamer to point out one to me, but lie only laughed and did not answer.”

“And where did you get the informa lion in the first place about the taniwha?” queried the reporter. “Well, stranger,” replied the Ameriean, “I was up in Alaska, and there I picked up a magazine with a story about the Wkinganui River and how the taniwha used to gobble up Maoris, and it made me very curious to see what sort of fish this was,, I .pictured it something lil>6 the whale that“swallowed up Jonah of old, and naturally I wanted to gel a snap of if to take hack with me.”

The reporter briefly explained to the visitor the tradition of the taniwhu. The American was pleased to have heard the explanation, but remarked that the journalist who wrote the story for the magazine was a darned good bay, and some of the American writers had nothing on him for fiction.