A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8477, 3 July 1907, Page 7

A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

By ALBERT DORRINGTON. (Author of "Along the Castlereagh,'' "Children of the Gully," etc.)

(Published by special arrangement —Copyright reserved.) NO. 18. When compared with certain Australian beauty spots the ancient Straits'of Messina are simply thirdrate. The country around has been .denuded of its forest land, and for "the most part it is a lava-blighted haunt of volcanoes. Within our unadvertised Barrier Reef we have endless stretches of palm-shadowed bays and coastal lagoons, a veritable seariver that runs from Rockhampton to Thursday Island. The Barrier Reef is our Orinoco, and there is nothing lovelier in Europe or Asia. "You New Zealanders and Australians are hard to please," said an English tourist as we passed a tiny rock-bound Italian city that seemed to be hanging by its door-posts over mountain ledges ana ravines. "Surely vou will admit that tne Straits of Messina are unequalled anywhere?" "Hard to please because we have the best things on earth at our front dcors," was the reply. One can understand the street-bred •London poet journeying to Messina, and his complete collapfee at sight of a burning mountain silhouetted against a stretch of blue water. It is not surprising that the poets from the murky purlieus of Bradford and Sheffield have been overcome at sight of blue Italian water, reared as they are under wet livid skies and in grey sparrow-haunted streets. Many British poets, including Byron, have advertised the Italian and Greek side of the world and sent millions of tourists, wallowing in their tracks. The New Zealander accustomed to the infinitude of sky, of lake and of mountain scenery is only moderately impressed at sight of the Sicilian Alps. Although the Maorilander possesses the finest scenery in the world, his advertising poets are far too young to handle their own mountain thunder, too diffident as yet to steep themselves thoroughly in their own lakes of fire.

NAPLES—THE BAY OF THE SEVEN SMELLS. The night before we arrived in the Bay many enthusiastic sightseers sat ud to catch a glimpse of Vesuvius facing the dawn. Far off at sea the cone was visible as a.wind blown ember showing through a beard of lava-smoke and clouds. We entered the Bay of Naples at 4 a.m., but the city lay shrouded in mist and smoke. We made fast alongside of the Erin, a green and white yacht owned by Sir Thomas Lipton, and belonging to the Royal "Ulster Yacht Club.

King Edward arrived early in the rnorning from the Continent, and the thunder of the warships' salute guns was kept up for the greater part of the day.

It is hinted in Naples that the King becomes the guest of Sir Thomas Lipton. A glance at the Erin's snow-white decks and glittering brass work sets one thinking of the ability of these Tea-King millionaires to keep pace with Royalty in thejnatter of luxurious sea boats and liveried attachments.

Naples, like many European j beauty spots, depends on the weather for its chief effects. To-day it is bright and the sun illuminates Vesuvius from cone to base. The cinderscarred tracks of the lava where it was swept over the villages in April last are'visible from the bay. The black summit is bare and cloudwrapped. From time to time a coil of treacle-coloured smoke fumes skyward. There is no sound from the crater. The giant sleeps. Yet only a few months ago it was bombarding the villages below with streams of molten lava and flying boulders. Naples itself is a mere bunch of causeways resembling the Rocks habitations around the Argyle Cut. Sydney. There are many fine villas ,#nd hotels overlooking the bay. flatroofed Doric and Florentine structures with vault-like bed-chambers large enough to accommodate a troop of cavalry, horses and all. The approaches to Naples are second to none in the way of filth and squalor. The roads are the public ash-bins. Slops and garbage are flying from upstair windows on to the pavement below. And the overdressed gendarme stands motionless in courtyard and piazza, while men and women strew their germ-laden refuse about his heels.

,Naples is a city of beggars and loafers. Everybody loafs. On our two-mile journey to San Martino th<3 tram was side-tracked eight times for periods of 15 minutes at a stretch. The passengers "seemed to enjoy the pauses, and chatted pleasantly about the weather and themselves. In Sydney or Melbourne there would have been eight fights between the conductor and the passengers if he failed to explain the waste of public time and money.

The begging is done with a certain savage persistence that speaks of the wolf behind the door. Also money is evidently dear in this dirt-strewn abyss. For a penny a crowd of ablebodied men and women will sing and dance through a long, hot afternoon. The cab-drivers follow you around the city on the chance that you may grow tired and take a ride. Up the narrow step-flanked streets and down the unutterable bye-ways filth rises like a yellow corpse and flaunts its seven smells across your path. Long processions of donkeys file from the country roads into the city carrying vegetables and fruit as in the days of Herod. The streets echo with the braying of innumerable mokes until one's nerves fairly shrink from the guffawing squeals. The squares and piazzas are dominated by a certain swash-buckling military class. The dude majors and perfumed lieutenants clank and lean their squat bodies against pillar and causeway. Naples cannot afford to keep itself clean while it has to provide waggon-loads of gold lace and embroidery for this vast army of tinkling generals and staff officers. We journey to Pompeii by the electric car. A guide took us across the lava swamped villages around San Guiseppe where the cratei'-fumes have a habit of blowing across the main street.

The Italian guide—the one you hire at the Maritime Stazzione, is a crafty rascal who pockets your money and often leaves you stranded among the excavations. There were five Cousin Jacks in our party, and they caught one guide in the act of decamping while we wtre arranging for refreshments at Vesuvius. We had paid him £i for the day, to cover expenses, leaving him a clear £2 for his afternoon's work. Three Cousin Jacks carried him neck and heel to the crater edge, and after a short consultation decided not to hurl him down the blast-hole if he promised to complete his contract. He promised. (To be continued.)