LAST LOOK AT TARANAKI.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 65, 16 November 1915, Page 2

LAST LOOK AT TARANAKI.

I Letters received from soldiers of the 'Seventh Reinforcements indicate that J the early part of the voyage was rather rough, and seasickness was j common among first voyagers for a few days. The Hawera boys were highly delighted with the 500 letters, and parcels sent from their old school, and already (states the Star) many answers have heen received by the scholars. Quartermaster-Sergeant K. Strack gives the following description [of the last look the departing soldiers 'had of Taranaki: "On Sunday evenling we had such a surprise—worth a 'paragraph in the Star. About six 'o'clock, just as the sun was going down in the west, with the set a perfect gold, we looked over towards the east where New Zealand should be, and—delight for us—there, against a sombre background, stood out hoary old Egmont, just a white snow-tipped island peak. Nothing more was visible, but there was no mistaking our time-honored mountain—the silent sentinel of the setting sun. You may he sure all the Taranaki boys crowded to the rail having a last look. We put the glasses on it, but it was easily visible to the naked eye, though fifty miles distant—just a hoary head (you know the tradition), a white top standing out against the dark clouds, and as the clouds floated over it and it grew dimmer and dimmer we watched more eagerly, until finally it slipped away into the growing haze and then was gone. We turned away, feeling glad and sorry we had seen it—glad because it brought us nearer & thought to our loving homes, and sorry because it wae the last sight of the land where we lived, and becauso it would he many a day before we would see it again. My word, how we will be looking for it when we are coming back."