THE WIGWAM

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 24, 20 April 1927, Page 12

THE WIGWAM

An Open Air Page For Big Girls and Boys

BLUE DAYS THE sun has been playing pranks with the seasons and, with a benevolent idea of justice, has given us a series of midssjmmer days to herald the approach of winter. Blue days they have been and washed with the balm of mellow sunshine. At such times we feel like singing with the poet: “Time you old gipsy man, Will you not stay? Put up your caravan Just for one day.” But the old vagrant merely whips up his horse and goes jogg-ing inexorably over the hill into the Land of To-morrow. Vothing can stay him. There is only one way to deal with time and that is to live ewery moment of it. Some people die when they have reached the allotted span of three score years and ten and may almost be said to have died in their infancy, so little have they derived from life and so much has escaped them. Yet we have eyes to see, ears to hear and minds to appreciate the thousand and one wonders of the world. A day may be long or short according to the use we make of it. We may let it glide uneventfully by or fill it with incident. A well-filled day covers a longer period than any ordinary span of hours between day-dawn and sundown. Let us then fill our days with incident and great discoveries. The earth that surrounds us is after all only a field made for exploring. Every nook and corner holds something of interest, ready to claim our attention and increase our knowledge. Somewhere I have read that “the world is narrowed to the circle of one’s own mind, but the very limitation feeds the flame of the spirit and makes it leap higher.” And the blue days that call us abroad fall like jewels into our keeping, and we may chisel and polish them as we will, even though the gipsv man in his caravan is deaf to all our pleas. —REDFEATHER.

RAIN IN CAMP

Extract from a letter from an OutDoor Brave:

“In my previous letter I told you about the way we spend fine days in camp. This time I shall tell you about the wet days.

Evening comes and we miss the usual beautiful sunset. Instead of the multi-coloured sky there are grey, rainladen clouds hanging low on the ranges. Everywhere is dull and black and even the birds seem fretful. Several trips are made to the creek for water—one of the many necessities in camp. Wood is packed in boxes of every description and even under the tent-fly to keep it dry as to light a fire with wet wood is an unenviable job. The drains round the tents are swept out and made a little deeper to carry the rain away and the ropes are loosened as the canvas tightens when wet. Everything is made cosy and we all tumble into our bunks. During the night we are wakened by the gentle pattering of the rain on the tents. It has a soothing though weird sound and we snuggle down in the blankets quite content and knowing full well that everything is safe. Morning without a clear sky is not a pleasing prospect to some, but we do not mind. We come to breakfast with old coats and hats on, looking like scarecrows off some strawberry patch. Breakfast over, we wash up and go back into the bedroom tent to sleep, read or play at competitions. There is something fascinating to be able to pull your toe along the ground and see little rivulets form in an instant. And so the day passes and lo! we peep out to see the sun trying hard to chase the dark clouds away.

Evening once more and with it another beautiful sunset. Birds once more sing and chirp happily and nature looks all the prettier for a washOf course, fine days are much nicer in every way, but wet or fine, camp life is just ideal.” WING PLUME (Thelma Harnden).

UNDER THE STARS

Extract from a letter to Redfeather: I did not have space in my essay to tell you how, one night round our camp fire, we watched the full moon rise. It was a perfect night, the sky was as black as ink, but studded with golden stars. We were grouped round the fire and a member of the party was playing his violin. Slowly out of the east came an orange moon which presently turned a deep, autumn goldenred, making a shining path over the sea. We «at spellbound by the beauty of the picture—purple hills, dim black pines, a golden-red moon, a star-spangled sky and the sea sighing and murmuring along the shore. Softly the notes of the violin stole out into the night and higher and higher rose the moon. Little by little the tide crept in, filled the caves and rippled over the rocks. Steadily our camp fire burnt up, sending red and gold flames into the dim distance, and the logs smelt all “piney” and beautiful. We were so happy and yet so sad, for that was our last night in camp. —Flying Cloud (Lesley du Faur).

ON THE TRAMP

'Tis on a bright and cloudless day— We Guides are on the tramp; The skies are blue, our spirits gay For we are off to camp. What times we’ll have when we arrive; What fun there is in store; What songs we’ll sing about the fire, What scampers on the shore! It is just great to go to sleep On beds of clean sweet straw, Pondering yet the day just gone And morrow’s still before. Thus all these thoughts will cross our minds As mile on mile we tramp, Leaving our trials and cares behind For ten rare days in camp. —Sickle Moon (Billie Better).

THE SPHINX

I know all about the sphinx, I know even what she thinks, Staring with her stony eyes Up for ever at the skies. For last night I dreamed that she Told me all the mystery; Why for aeons mute she sat— She was Just cut out for that! —J. W. RILEY.

GIRL GUIDES’ CORNER

THE EASTER VACATION The conference recently held in Christchurch, at which 35 commissioners were present, says much for the progress of the Girl Guide movement in New Zealand. The spirit of keenness has never been more active than it is to-day, 'and the Auckland delegates have no smallest fear of interest waning in these alert and soundlyestablished branches. Year by year the number of guides grows apace, while the Brownies continue to serve their apprenticeship, loyal and expectant little soldiers. The sunny Easter weather has called many of you into the open spaces, and proved that it is not too late for camping. You will now have tramped back into the world of every-day, but with added joys packed securely into your haversacks. One guide brave writes me thus: “I am starting to keep a book in which I paste any hints on camping, or any paragraphs that have anything to do with open-air life or Guiding, and was reading through the Wigwam Page, when it struck me that those lovely open-air, campy verses that have been printed would be just the thing. I have cut them all out, but do print some more; and (if you don’t mind) I have taken each of those jolly articles you have written. I think I could fill a series of books with interesting clippings from the Wigwam.” (“Good!” says Redfeather, selecting a fresh quill.) And this extract has all the essence of adventuring: ‘‘At Easter, nine of us (Girl Guides) are walking from Waitakere station to Bethel’s, where we will stay till the Monday. I suppose it will be the very last camp of the season, and, as none of us have actually been on the West Coast before, we are just longing for Easter. I think it is lovely walking over the Waitakeres and through the bush. This summer three of us clubbed together, bought the material, and made a little tent for ourselves. It stands about four feet high, and holds as many people! With our captain, we often go for week-end camps into the Waitakeres.” Amateur campers could learn much from these letters, that bring the joys of rural life so frequently into the Wigwam. —REDFEATHER.

OF INTEREST TO SCOUTS

The Boy Scouts had a large share of the last Wigwam page for one, Beaver Hunter, carried off the essay prizer while Big Brown Bear came first in the Highly Commended list. I have heard it said that boys are harder to interest than girls, and that they are more dubious about putting pen to paper, but, since the first Wigwam page, Redfeather has found* no lack of good Chiefs “Under the TotemPole.” The District Scout Master has handed me the following notes regarding the postponed Flag Raiding on Saturday, April 9: “Owing to the uncertain weather and the desirability of taking a number of small boys to spend an hour or two crawling through long, damp grass and scrub, the gathering of Scouts on One Tree Hill was postponed on Saturday. “Notwithstanding, many Boy Scouts and their Scout Masters braved the elements and found a day on One Tree Hill very enjoyable, even though the grass and bush happened to be damp and an occasional shower fell to cool their ardour. “About seventy-odd boys took part in a dispatch running game which gave the opposing forces some exciting moments. After this had been carried through another Scout game was started on one of the knolls, in which the attackers had to capture their opponents’ distinguishing badges, the band having the largest number of scalps at the call of time winning the game. •‘The Scout authorities hope that it will be possible to hold the postponed Game Rally on Saturday, April 30. Scoutmaster Iversen, of St. Mary’s Troop, and Scoutmaster Matheson, of St. James’s Troop, were in charge of the improvised games.” Given fair weather. One Tree Hill should provide an interesting spectacle on the day of the great muster. —REDFEATHER.

TWO OBJECTS

Nothing is demanded of you, save this, that in all your wanderings and worships you keep two objects steadily in view—truth and beauty.

THE DUMB FRIEND OF THE RED MAN

The sure-footed pony of the Red Man is as dear to him as the fleet horse of the desert places is to the Arab, and so faithful is he that he needs no fences to keep him in the vicinity of

his master’s camp. At night, his bridle removed, he wanders at will with ever an alert eye for his master’s call. The Red Men are born wanderers and the ponies willingly become the means of transport for the teepees and all that they contain when, as so frequently occurs, their masters decide to “fold their tents like the Arabs and as silently steal away.”

NEIGHBOURHOOD

Life is sweet in the mouth of experience. Often, bitter though its draught has been, somehow, as we near the bottom of the cup, its bouquet grows richer; we drink with a deeper relish. My neighbour has added to mine a sparkle and tang and sweetness that it could ill spare. Twenty years ago I built my house on-a slope that looked down into his garden. Daily, all those years, my eyes have rested on his quaint brown house poking a rambling gable-end or a dormer window out through a leafy screen, much as the scraggly nest of a pair of joyous and uncounting robins might, here and there, poke a twig out through the blossoming branches of an j old and lichened apple tree. He came to me the day after we moved into the house and I went into the bare bit of meadow that was to be my garden. He lifted one leg after the other over the low fence that separated us, and I saw as he came to me that his hands were full of knobby little packages. My heart gave a leap, for I knew they were seeds — seeds for my new garden. We sat on a fallen tree trunk and talked about seeds and gardens and plants and people, and then he went back over the fence, leaving me with that strange, sweet taste in the mouth that only a sampling of the wine of human kindness ever leaves there.

When my sweet peas throve and towered until their many coloured blossoms reached higher than my head and melted into the blue of the sky, he strode across the ground between us—the fence had been put to better uses long ago—and said: “Those are splendid sweet peas—just about the finest I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been growing them now for 20 years.”

You see, he did not say, “Those sweet peas I gave you,” or “my seed,” or anything like that. Some people could not have helped saying so, but my neighbour! He was proud and glad of my sweet peas. There’s flavour to such moments as these that makes of the years that ripened them but a breath of life’s morning. I watched through one clouded night of terror beside one whose life was bound up in mine. I felt as alone as a shipwrecked soul on a desolate ocean. Sudden \y a stealthy light , flashed on the farther window. Once, twice. Once, twice. Again and again. I went to the -window, and out in the garden stood my neighbour flashing his wee lantern in signal that he was watching and hoping with me. Every hour of that long night the light flashed his message to me, and when in the morning I raced out to tell him that the danger had passed, he nearly shook my hand off and went into his house singing—a sure signal of great joy. Once I had to go away for a long time. Spring must pass, and summer, and the leaves on the creeper turn red before I might return; and when at last one evening, very late, I stood again in the little lane that led to our homes on the slope, there was the light from the gable-end window streaming out, and there was my neighbour, grey-headed, bowed, in his loose-fitting old grey suit, hastening down the stream of light to tell me my supper was ready. Then I knew that all the time I was journeying I had been coming back to my neighbour—to my home. Ah, life tastes good in the mouth of experience when it is kept sparkling and nippy and sweet by -this “goodwill to men,” the love of a neighbour who is near you.

OLD SHELLOVER

“Come!” said Old Shellover. “What?” said Creep, “The horny old Gardener’s fast asleep; The fat cock Thrush To his nest has gone, And the dew shines bright In the rising Moon; Old Sallie Worm from her hole doth

peep; Come!” said Old Shellover. “Ay!” said Creep. —Walter de la Mere.

BACK TO NATURE

It is so real, so near to Nature:Mhe shams of city life are far away and forgotten in the joyousness and the magic of the open air. For there is magic in the air—one feels it first in the early morning when the world seems full of birds’ cries and wind song, and the ground is covered with sparkling dewdrops that bathe the earth; and only when we have the sky for our roof and the great outdoors for our home do we see these things, and realise that they are worth while. Of course even in camp there are meals to prepare, but these are the greatest fun —what matter if potatoes are burnt, if the pudding (when there is one) is spoilt? The camp spirit is to laugh and to eat just, the same, for it takes more than burnt potatoes to spoil the real camper’s enjoyment. And then at dusk when the camp fire is lit—perhaps that is the happiest time of all. Is it the flames leaping high into the air that makes the campers join in merry chorus till the air resounds with the music of happy carefree voices? Have you heard the call of the open spaces, or answered the call of the camp-fire?—for only those who have will understand. Silver Wing (Doreen Shaw), aged JLS.

HOW WE READ

"When the eye runs along a line of of print in a book it does not travel smoothly from left to right of the page, but jumps from time to time, taking in a whole word or perhaps a few words at a time, and then jumping on to a fresh group. From a series of interesting photographs it has been discovered that the eye finds it much more comfortable to read from the bottom of the page to the top than from left to right, and so we find that the ancient Chinese, some of the earliest people to invent writing, had the wonderful sense to adopt the most suitable style of writing, for they started at the bottom of the page and wrote upwards.

The eye never bothers to begin reading a line of print from the very beginning, nor does it ever travel right to the end. It focuses itself on the second or third word of a new line, takes in a little picture of the meaning, and then skips on to the next stopping-place.

WOMEN IN BATTLE

Nature is a stern master who will do nothing to preserve the life of a diseased bird or a crippled animal. They soon die, and they are better dead. Nature wills that only the strong, wholesome and beautiful shall survive. 9 There is a wandering tribe in Morocco which is equally stern. Its people say that if a man is a coward he is better dead. He might have sons who would be cowards too, and all the tribe might be tainted. These wild folk honour faithfulness and courage above everything; but their most passionate desire is for freedom. In order to keep their freedom they are obliged to live at war with their neighbours. They go into battle in curious fashion. Behind each soldier marches a woman, her right hand smeared with henna. If the man turns his back on the enemy she strikes him with her scarlet hand. Should he creep into the camp that night with some lying tale none will believe him, for the red hand-mark is evidence of his disloyalty. His own kinsmen will shoot him for a traitor. So he must flee for his life, and live an outcast once he has been branded by the sign of shame. It is a strange, fierce people that will send its women into battle, but behind the savage law is something splendid: the belief that shame is worse than death —the simple message that it is better to lose life than selfrespect.

CONTENT

To dream as I may, And awake when I will, With the song of the bird. And the sun on the hill.

SOLACE

Some men see magic things in fire— The smoke-crowned flames Fashion strange thoughts and presently inspire Lost ideals, half-remembered names. I, too . . . but there’s a tiny stream I know, A grey stone bridge—and in the running wate'r There are more visions than your fires can show ...

HOW INSECTS TALK

Insects are, perhaps, the most wonderful talkers in the animal world. They make us realise that communication does not depend on tongue and lips and voice alone. They talk with their feelers, or antennae, as they are called. There is no doubt about it; it has been seen ten thousand times. If the bees in a hive lose their queen, they do not all discover it immediately. The saddening fact becomes known at first only to a few. But these meet others, whose antennae they touch with their own, and so tell the direful story. These communicate the news to others, and so the news is spread. Soon the hive is in an uproar. Much the same sort of language must be employed by the ants. All their words are spoken by means of their feelers. No one who has watched them at work can doubt that the wonderful cities of the bees and ants are regulated by strict discipline which is enforced by one section of workers to another. To see whether the habit of ants of communicating news was to be observed when they were in a state of captivity, a great naturalist placed a large number of them in a closed and darkened chamber. At first the ants scattered in much disorder. Soon one ant discovered a way out of the darkened chamber. He returned to his companions, and touched several of them with his antennae. All ‘the ants then assembled in lines, and marched out with one impulse, the desire for liberty.

Cowards have done good and kind actions, —cowards have even fought and sometimes conquered; but a coward never forgave. It is not in his nature; the power of doing it flows only from strength and greatness of soul.

BUSH BY NIGHT

The camp Are had dwindled to a handful of embers. Venus hung large and limpid in the western sky. flickering and reappearing beyond the darkening foliage of a broad-leaf. Twilight descended on the bush, hushed and windless.

A weka darted into view, attracted by the glimmering embers, paused, his head on one side, and pecked hastily at a glowing coal. Dismayed, he uttered a cry of protest and departed.

Silence, broken only by the gurgle of the bush stream cascading over a nearby shelf of rock, the falling of a leaf, the snap of a withered twig, the plaintive call of a distant morepork, the rustle of a field mouse and the drowsy twittering of a bird setting its house in order for the night: for in the bush after sundown, silence is but an intensifying of hitherto unimportant sounds.

Bright eyes appeared at the edge of the clearing, followed by an ungainly shape as a belated wallaby, startled from his course, scuttled back into the undergrowth in search of denser cover.

Out of a lengthening strata of cloud the moon rode into view, a ghostly galleon afloat on a tideless sea. The tree trunks became etchings of black and silver, the wild clematis twinkled with a thousand stars, the lawyers stood confessed with their bared and gleaming spines, the frail convolvulus lifted its waxen cups still tremulous with dew.

Virgin bush teems with unrecorded history and stirs with the purpose and tranquility of all the ages. It is a world in itself of sunshine and shadow, effort and accomplishment, life and death, building and re-building, where the century-old tree, still faithful to some mysterious pact of nature, offers year by year foundation for the delicate loveliness of the wayward and short-lived vine. W.S.T.

ECHOES

SOUNDS THAT COME BACK TO US Echoes are always taking place, except when sound is quite free to travel through the air without limit, but sometimes they are so faint that we cannot hear them. You can hear an echo whenever you stand facing a wall or mountain-side which sends back the sound of your voice and is sufficiently distant to allow you to finish what you are saying, for an echo is merely sound checked and sent back to its source by a rock or wall or some other obstacle. Some echoes will send back only a shout and others several syllables or words. An echo has been known to repeat as many as twenty syllables. One of the most charming of Tennyson’s poems has as its subject the echo, and so realistic it seems that we can almost hear the bugle setting “the wild echoes flying.” “O hark, O hear! how thin and clear. And thinner, clearer, farther going! O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying Blow, bugle; answer echoes, dying, dying, dying . . .” It is perhaps the best description of the echo ever penned. Sometimes echoes are heard indoors. You know how footsteps echo along empty corridors and in vacant rooms and how a speaker’s voice or strains of music echo in an empty hall. That is because the sound is thrown backwards and forwards between the empty walls and floor and ceiling with nothing to deaden it. Furniture and hangings in a room help to absorb the sound instead of throwing it back.

In a whispering gallery people may speak in hushed voices and yet be heard a long way off... The most famous whispering gallery is under th'e dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where a person may whisper against the wall in any place and be heard by anyone who places his ear to the wall anywhere else. This is because the sound, which would quickly die in the middle of the dome, travels round the wall in the direction in which a person has whispered, without being scattered and lost.

CAMP LIFE WITH THE GUIDES

The journey to Tui Valley was pleasant, though long and tiring. The camp fixed, and tea over, we assembled for prayers, and then retired early to bed.

At last morning came. We stretched ourselves, drowsily at first, half wondering where we could be, but the wonder did not last long, for we were soon properly roused, by a series of shrill blasts, which meant “Wake up!” This was our first morning in camp. Through the opening of our little tent I shared with two Guide friends, we watched the sun rise into the sky and plough his way through the fleecy clouds. Surely this was the sign for a delightful day. In response to Captain’s second call the camping party, of some 36 Guides, lined up ready for inspection, and to receive duty for the day. * Dry logs, twigs and leaves * which served as fuel, were placed near the fire, and soon the sausages sizzled in the pan, and that delightful smell of hot cocoa, filled the air, so that one’s appetite seemed to grow and grow. We laughed, and talked freely at breakfast, and when finished some tidied the camp, some carried fresh water, and others gathered supplies of fuel, but all set about their work, smiling, and feeling extremely happy. After our work had been completed the rest of the morning was devoted to tracking. For 20 minutes we followed arrows and other woodcraft signs, until we had traced our “track layers” back to camp. The paths had been long and dusty and the noonday sun was so hot, that when a dip was proposed, Captain and Lieutenant gladly consented and joined in the fun. In the water we took lessons in swimming and life-saving, but in the midst of our joy the clanging of a bell could be heard from the direction of the camp. We all knew what this was for, so scrambling to the bank, we hurriedly dressed in the thatched hut and hastened off for lunch. This over, we practised ball rolling and studied for various badges. In this way the afternoon slipped quickly by until the sun, displaying her last golden rays all around, sank behind a distant range of hills. Soon all was dark. Now the camp fire burned up brightly, as more-logs were placed on. How cheery everything seemed, as we sat there singing our favourite camp songs. Soon our mugs were filled with hot cocoa and after prayers we retired for the night. Don’t you think camping out is great fun? —Star-in-the-River (Hinemoa Hedland, aged 15.

HIDDEN BIRDS

Concealed in these sentences are the names of six birds:

1. He worked with endless patience. 2. Gaspar rowed swiftly to the shore. 3. The fast clipper sljip had overtaken the sloop. 4. The port and starboard lights, those well-known signals of the sea, gleamed brightly in the night. 5. The Admiral boarded one ship as the other one stood by. 6. We were half way over the Pacific on Doris’s birthday.

THE GIANTS’ CAUSEWAY

A PLACE OF LEGEND The Giants' Causeway is one of the most interesting natural wonders of the world. It is a collection of huge basaltic rocks, which stretch for four miles along the coast of County Antrim, in Ireland, and for some distance into the sea. Basalt is a curious dark species of rock made by the hardening of molten lava from a volcano. The majority of the stones are quite regular in shape, and many of them reach a height of 30 feet. In some places they are fitted so closely and so perfectly together that it would seem that they must have been arranged by man, but in reality the stones owe their position to volcanic eruptions, which occurred in prehistoric times. According to an ancient Irish legend, the stones were put in this position by the giant Fin Map Coul. who built this causeway in order to induce his enemy, the Scottish giant, to come over to Ireland, that he might have an opportunity to fight and overcome him. Another belief is that the giants were in the habit of hurling these huge stones at each other during their quarrels. The idea that the Causeway really did extend the whole distance between Ireland and Scotland is strengthened by the fact that in Fingal’s Cave, in the island of Staffa, off the Scottish coast, stones exactly similar in apppearance and arrangement are to be found.

MEG MERRILIES

Old Meg she was a gipsy, And lived upon the moors; Her bed it was the brown heath turf. And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries, Her currants pods o’ broom; Her wine was dew of the wild white rose, Her book a churchyard tomb.

Her brothers were the craggy hills, Her sisters larchen trees; Alone with hef great family She lived as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn, No dinner many a noon, And ’stead of supper she would stare Full hard against the moon.

But every morn of woodbine fresh She made her garlanding, And every night the dark glen yew She wore; and she would sing.

And with her fingers old and brown She plaited mats of rushes, And gave them to the cottagers She met among the bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen, And tall as Amazon; An old red blanket cloak she wore, A chip-hat had she on; God rest her aged bones somewhere! She died full long agone! John Keats.

THREE SYMBOLS

In a corner of the garden grew thre* rose-bushes and on each bush noddg an early bud. The bees droned par. in their quest for honey, the birds came there to preen and gossip, the wind paused in its wandering and the sun shone down from a benevolem sky. One by one the buds unfolded and became three flawless blooms, ont white like the summer clouds, cne & warm yellow and the other a deep rica red. At first the roses were content with their first glimpse of the surroundini world, but at length they,fell into converse with each other. • “We are of different shades,” sail the red rose, “although we belong ta the same species. What can account for it.” “Our petals are of the same shape," said the yellow rose. “And we all have a kindred beauty," murmured the white blossom. Then they fell to thinking. “I am like faith,” said the white rose, “stainless as the driven snow.” “And I,” murmured the yellow one. “am rich with the colour of the sunshine without which man cannot live I shall call myself ‘Hope.’ ” “And I,” sighed the red rose, ‘’aa deep as the blood that flows from the heart. I shall be known as 'Charity. The hours drifted into days and the wind toyed with the fading blossoms. “Our loveliness has vanished,’’ sa;i the red rose, “though we were white as the driven snow, yellow as the sunshine and red as the blood that flows from the heart.” Morning came and the once beautih blooms were no more. The sun shone down from a benevolent sky, the winpaused in its wandering and from the foliage of each bush there peeped a fresh bud. “I am white like faith,” said one “And I am like hope,” said another “for my petals hold all the warmth of the sunshine.” “And I,” said the third, mvself ‘Charity,’ for I am as red « the blood that flows from the heart “And these,” said the sun and m wind and the birds that had come > gossip, “are the symbols of the tn—that sleeps at the root of everyth-' worth while in the world.”

THE BASILISK

One of the old ideas about the te* isk was that he would die if ever caught sight of his face in a , ... A queer old world it was and q things lived in it. but the basili .. never so fearsome a creature as in the Middle Ages thought him be. If a traveller then declared he had seer a basilisk the .act tm he was still alive would have c°n™ his hearers that he dealt in magic, had protected himself from ■ wizardry. The very glance of a isk was supposed to be fatal. The old ideas about this cun creature have been exploded an been proved to be nothing mo a harmless species of liza ™’ relation to the iguanas ana the leons. No traveller need fear basilisk, for it feeds exclusively ; vegetable matter and never lacra

foe. It rises early and work* to obtain its living. /.limber,**? It is a wonderfully agile lc no part of a tree is The eyes are not used to ten * , r traveller, but to watch I proach. At the first sound £ raised, the crest is 11 A. e A, tr ave' inflation, and the momen - thrc* : comes in sight the hasiliSK ... itself into the water for n evariably rests on a branch hangs a pool. , „ > neck Then, with its head and n . it propels itself rapidl> _ a us*-' forelegs, while the tail -> w er ever rudder for guiding it mPf wants to go. So clev f£ tit is pelling itself in water that the ferryman. rentr***2 The basilisk is found in Gen South America. w s e . r ® : L ds that ■&' i down the stories and le .f u url ne& made it a creature to be iga