Manawaru Infelix.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2066, 8 January 1898, Page 2

Manawaru Infelix.

Some of your out district readers will doubtless recollect that as the new year of 1897 came in, the land was lightly covered with a chrystalization of .frost, fortunately, however, the damage done to garden stuffs was but trivial on that occasion, but our last unseasonable visitation which came up on the wings of the south wind on Boxing night was simply disastrous in its blasting effects. During the proceeding days the growth of vegetation was sufficient to gratify ;the husbandman, for present good and promises of future reward were abundant. One of my fellow settlers mournfully enumerating the ills that farming flesh is h9ir to, after speaking of drought, fire, and frost, said ‘ Surely there must be a curse on the place.’ Thinking the matter over it occurred to me that perhaps there was something in the remark. So, Mr Editor, as this is. an. age of theorising, I beg to propound my theory, which, if not strictly scientific, you will allow is imaginative* and is perhaps for any ultimate good, quite as useful as many another theory set forth by wiser heads. King Frost desired a favor of Sol King of the upper vast, and he bowed before him and said ‘Oh king, live forever, they kingdom is from the eternal abyss, and knowetb no end. Thy servant, who was banished to the axis points of earth at thy ascension, begs of thy sublime clemency thy help* for throughout all ages thy servants” courts have been held at all extremities, at farthest north and south, showeth, that of late there have been many invasions of my realm, my noble plains have been forced and rent asunder, my caverns and glittering peaks have been defiled by creatures of. the under world, who know not our speech* and last of all, there came through the ether deeps a thing, not bird nor spirit, and round about my sceptre spear they hind their serpent thongs and float around; thy servants throne. Oh! king.’ And the great Sol made answer unto him and said ‘Go to now, I have heard thy prayer. Is there not a place where in the olden days my offspring danced before me in mountain fires, who clothed themselves with the incense my nostrils loveth. These have ceased their dancing, and no longer leap forth at my command. There land is now desolate, go to now, and thou shalt have their place for thine inheritance.’

And Frost went forth to seek his new country, to sit on the heights, the lost thrones of the children of fire. And when he came to his kingdom, his presence filled all the swamp country, and on the mountains the forests made obesiance unto him, but, as he went forth to view his good places he found that the sons of men had proceeded him, and in place of the desolation of waste, he found gardens and orchards filled with the fruits of the earth, and then as he slowly vanished on his way, goipi&jjp to the court of the sun he from his mantle, ap'd the place'he cursed was Manaway u.—A correspond-