SUEZ MAIL NEWS.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4918, 14 October 1884, Page 2

SUEZ MAIL NEWS.

Colonel Valentine Baker has considerably improved in health. The only trace he bears of the terrible wound he received in the advance^of Osman Digna's force is a blue-black scar about au inch long jusfc under his right eye. Half an inch higher and the shot must have entered his brain.

It is reported that the Horse Guards authorities have under their consideration a scheme of aerial warfare, which, after having been referred to a committee, has been reported on favorably. Practical experiments upon an extended scale will be shortly proceeded with, probably at Aldershot. The inventor of thi3 new man-filling machine is a German-Ameri-can, who has given ths subject much study, and claims to have discovered a system which will revolutionise modern warfare.

Captain McLean, of the iron barque Firth of Lorn, Glasgow, which sailed from Lyttelton, New Zealand, on April 25 last, passed Cape "Horn on May 25, and armed at London on August 21, reports the following singular occurrence: —On July 22j a floating spar was seen and towed alongside. On examination il was found to be valueless, being wormeaten throughout, but a large shoal of fish which had accompanied the spar abandoned it and commenced eating th« barnacles from the ship's bottom. This continued until July 27, when the fish. left the ship, after hating cleared her bottom, by which the speed of the vessel was iuereased about two knots per hour, enabling her to hold her own from that date until her arrival with any vessel she fell in with.

The following is the farewell address of Jiang Tawhiao to his friends in England : -—" To my dear friends who hare cherished me and my companions, and who have invited us with great hospitality on our reaching this distant land. May you and your wives and children live! "i .am re« turning to my race and to my land, with the blessing of God, who.led me and my friends across the great ocean to see you and to know the thoughtß of the gmt nation. Stf lam sending you my farewell greeting. Dwell her© in your own land, and among your own people, and may God, who has shown me kindness, keep you. The kincU ness and love you have shown us and our friends will not be lost. We have seen the goodness and the peacefulness of all the nation, with their wives and children, U, my dear friends, the outcome of eeod« ness never varies from this. S.6e Matthew, sth chapter, 6th to 10th rewes. la conclusion, lam glad in my departure, because I have known and leant those things which have been so evident to me W this country,"