THE READER'S COLUMN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 178, 14 December 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE READER'S COLUMN

(By .Tunics Wortley). THE LIFE ADYEXTUBOUS. Two works with very much in common have reached me this week. Each is tile personal narrative of men who, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, with all its culture and civilisation, have yet found the lure of the wild too strong to be gainsaid, and have answered the call with all the tumultuousness of a primitive, predatory nature. The lirst of these intensely interesting volumes is "With the Lost Legion in Xew Zealand." by Col. (J. Hamilton Browne (T. Werner Laurie, 7s lid). The author gives us his personal adventures with the irregular forces in Xew Zealand, extending throughout, what we Taranaki folk know as the Titokowaru war. with details of two smaller expeditions—one to the East Coast and another after Te Kooti in the Urewera and Waikato country. The Whole narrative is written in quite colloquial phraseology, is very racy and never wearisome. It is altogether too much a record of action to be that, and the writer, a typical hot-headed irishman, is too earnest and emphatic in his judgments to waste much time in giving us long-wind-ed opinions. What opinions he does venture are particularly frank, and consequently entertaining from the reader's standpoint. But a better idea of his style can be had if I give a few quotations. Here is one from the preface—a part usually passed as dry and uninteresting by many readers: "My reason (for writing) is that during the last three or four years, since broken health and bad luck drove me back to civilisation, such as it is in England, 1 have been frequently knocked end-ways by the woeful ignorance of all classes of Englishmen, not only of the history of the various colonies that form the Empire, but also of the struggles of the men in acquiring and holding the same Not long ago I dined with a big city pot, who after dinner gassed inordinately about ■our' Empire, laying great stress on "our' as if he had been the prime mover in the settlement of every country contained in it. . . . He discoursed on the wonderful progress 'we' had made in New Zealand. During a pause 1 asked humbly, 'How did England acquire this fruitful country?' With a disdainful smile he condescended to inform me that Captain Cook found it, and gave it to England!" Colonel Browne gives us in the opening chapter a very readable account of his own gay youth whicn resulted in his turning up at Wellington in the early part of 1800. The day after landing he joined the ranks of the colonial defence forces under McDonnell, leaving immediately for Wanganui to take part; in the bush lighting round the base of Alt. Egmont. In reading the book we soon come to know the men with whom he associated, varied in type as they are. Tough, hard-drinking, hardswearing, but true as steel to one another, unselfish and brave to the last degree, one wishes for them a better fate than so many received—death by bullet or tomahawk; and. at best, a hurriediydug grave under the pine, or, say it softly, at worst,''the oven of the Hauhaus. Colonel Browne is particularly happy in the pen portraits he draws of his companions in arms during these years. Of his servants who left England with him and also enlisted, he writes: "Tim Egan was indeed a man any young fellow might be proud to have at his call. Standing live feet eleven in height, he was the beau-ideal of an Irish soldier, square in the chest, broad in the shoulders, narrow in the flanks, and well set up .... his handsome face carried a pleasant smile, and his dark blue, merry eye made him one that must attract the notice of any girl, be she white, Olack or brown." Although the writer, we can see, had no love for Colonel Whitmore, he speaks in great praise of his ability as a Held officer, and skill in strategy. Severe comment is made upon some men who have been highly thought of by many of the settlers, but we must remember that Colonel Browne spoke from the somwhat narrow and prejudiced position of active service in the front rank, and due allowance must be made. His narrative adds a personal note which helps to give the student of to-day a wider and clearer view of what happened fifty years ago. In reading it we keep company with a hard lot of fellows, may be, but a. goodly lot all the same. They are the kind that have helped to make the nation strong. They have developed and held the outskirts of empire.

A FILIBUSTER. Tin; oilier book hours the very vague title of "A Captain Unafraid" (London: Harper and Brothers, 3s (id), and is an account of the adventures of Captain O'Brien when gun-running for the Cuban insurgents some thirteen or fourteen years ago. It, too. is a most readable narrative of the nineteenth century ailventure on the coast where Columbus and Oortcz, Drake and Hawkins, had similarly adventured in earlier times. In addition to the strirring (ales of smuggling munitions of war. chased in earnest by Spanish ships, and laggardly by the sympathetic Americans, we glean many interesting facts relative to the incidents that made history in Ihe Spanisli-Jimei'i-ean war. Of the "Maine" incident he writes: "Notwithstanding ihe verdict of the court of enquiry and its endorsement by the commission which examined the wreck after it had been exposed by tne construction of a coll'er-dam, that the Maine was blown up by a Spanish mine, presumably with the knowledge and approval, if not by the order, of the high ollicials on the island. I. have always been linn in the conviction that she was destroyed bv the accidental explosion of her forward magazine. This is also the opinion of practically all the members of the inner council of the Cuban revolutionary committee. Captaiii-Oen-eral Blanc and his stall, though angered by her presence, uninvited and unannounced, we are the last people on earth who would have injured the Maine or allowed her to be injured. They recognised that they were responsible for her safety. American intervention was the one thing they were most anxious to avert, and they were never quite so solieito'.w in that regard as just at that time, when they really believed that the suppression of the revolt was at hand— and they knew the surest, way to bring about such intervention was to show some discourtesy lo a white ship." The book is full of most interesting matter. There is not a dull line in it. (We arc indebted to the V,.K. for review copies of both the above works).

SOME RECENT E IC'TOX. *"The Lost World." by A. f'onan Doyle, author of "Sir Nigel," etc. (London: dodder and Stoughton). If f mistake not, the creator of Sherlock Holmes has given us, in Professor Challenger, the hero of "The Lost World," a character that will stand for a type—at least, where English is spoken —for generations to come. With an' adroit' facility that has really become, with the exhaustion of exploration, a necessity. Conan Doyle has given us a strange land and a strange people and stranger placed i,t vaguely somewhere of the

Awav ill the dim ages a fearful ujihi-aval of nature has resulted in this remarkable land being raised above the surrounding country, leaving no means of communication up the stupendous Hill's, save only by sueh mechanical means as are possiuie to civilised man. The fancy of the writer lias thus suspended on this plateau the ordinary process of evolution. During a visit immediately following the death of Maple White, our supreme egoist. Challenger, visits the district and finds a world still in the. Jurassic age. Returning to London, the professor's tales are received with much ridicule and no courtesy at all. More to provide sport for scientific students than anything else. Challenger is "bait-; ed" at a big scientific lecture. The upshot of it all is the appointment of a coiumiftfi! of investigation. This consists of Lord John Ro'xton. a good spefrt with a lot of dry humor and commonsense; Professor Kummerlec. a spindleshanked livery scientist in a perpetual questioning, doubting mood—the antithesis of the robust Challenger—and Malone, a pressman. These, four men are all admirably drawn characters, and their adventures are weird in the extreme. Everything, even their encounter with the man-ape, ends all right, however, and once more the quartette are back iir London, well and strong, much to the reader's relief. The book will be read with avidity by young and old alike, and ranks high among the books of the year.

*"~John Scarlet." by Donald Maclean, author of "The, man from Burdie's P.ivcr" (London: Hodder and Stoughton). This is a well-told tale of the "Sky Pilot" type. The scene is an Australian mining camp of the usual kind. John Scarlett is a bank clerk who re* ceives a call meant for another man of the same name to take up mission work in the camp. This he is led to accept, and the story tells of how he "made good" and won for himself the esteem of the workers, at the same time turning the town into a sober, well-ordered community. There is a heroine, as well as a hero, but we leave our readers to find out what they can of her for themselves. (*Books for review arc kindly supplied from the B.TC.)