A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8487, 15 July 1907, Page 3

A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

(By ALBERT DORRINGTON. (Author of "Along the Castlereagh," "Children of the Gully," etc.) (Published by special arrangement— Copyright reserved.) . No. 20. Returning to the steamer we saw a vessel crowded with emigrants bound for Canada. They were unmistakably a fine lot of men and women, intelligent, well-dressed and evidently the pick of the rural districts. 1 learned -that they were only a detachment of the thousands flocking to the much-advertised farming lands of the Dominion. A well-repeated cry runs throughout Italy, Austria, and Germany to the effect that the finest land in tha north-west of Canada is to be had for the mere asking. Therefore the heavily-burdened, over-taxed agricul- I turists of the best class turn their , eyes westward in quest of the free j forest land where log homesteads and : bearskin rugs are to be had for the ; seeking. j Speaking to a well-placed news- j paper man to-day, he said that the Canadian Government subsidised Continental journalists to write pic- j turesque articles dealing with the ; prosperous side of Canadian agricultural life. These articles were , printed in hundreds of European j papers and came under the notice of millions of farming people _ from the South of Russia to the Baltic. j After reading one or two of the ; above-mentioned articles dealing with the ideal conditions prevailing in the snow-bound north-west, one is impressed by the fluency and imagin-! ation of Canada's hired journalists. • We met several Englishmen on board the Ophir who had invested their lifesavings in Manitoba land. They spoke of the bitter hardships that await the small capitalist on arriving in the Dominion. j The Canadian railway companies are flooding Europe with picturesque :fiction dealing with their land of beef . and corn —nothing is said about the ' •long, unendurable winters and frequent blizzards. j On arriving at Quebec or Montreal j the energetic immigrant is guided to j ;the bleak north-west, where his overflowing vitality will find employment dodging the ice-hurricanes that tear , down from Klondyke and other: summer resorts. j The astute Yankee farmers whose ; Hands petered out long ago through their forced system of cultivation have attended to all the best land Canada has to offer. Australian or New Zealander who goes to the Dominion with his capital will be : offered something that has been rejected by 869,548 long-headed Uncle W Sams. - I "You Australians are very backward in advertising your country," ■said the newspaperman. "How are -■we to know of your agricultural pros--1 perity unless you put your facts before us continually? It is not enough - that we should read of you occasionrally," he went on. "If you want the pick of the people you must appeal to their imaginations as the Cana- . dians are doing. We want pictures of ; your farming districts, railway information, rainfall statistics, and the ' precise nature of the country avail- - able for settlement." ! ' We returned to the Ophir feeling ■ certain that Australia and even New Zealand has much to learn in the way ■of advertising to their best possible . advantage. i Once outside the Bay of Naples we ran into baresark weather, white .rain, white seas, and a wind that Ihowled at us in the voice of an unpaid • .boarding-housa keeper. We do not know whether Jonah or the Prophet Daniel ever passed through the Gulf of Lyons; it is the mother of all bad storms, and the cradle of doomed ships. _ ! We passed many islands of interest, ; among them being Corsica, the birthplace of the little brigand in the | buckskin breeches. Corsica is a ; ruffianly-looking island, a place that l might give birth at any moment to a nine-armed thief or a double-jointed , :mule. There are enormous ravines visible from the ship's, deck, sabre- j edged mountain peaks that seem to | slice the clouds in halves. j Very few English and Americans j desire to see the house where Napol- J con was born, and very few Frenchmen either. Astonishing how sure-fouted the deep-sea sailor becomes after years spent in tearing up and down riggings and narrow bridge steps. Watched an A.B. this afternoon running for'rd to execute an order. The deck was littered with chairs, babies and tiffin parties, enjoying their afternoon cake. Without pausing the A.B. dashed through the crowd, but it was amazing to note tow his feet avoided the teapots and trays, how dexterously his toes dovetailed themselves between a plate of sandwiches and the French rolls. A lot of us were impressed by the feat, and one or two offered to bet a sovereign that the A.B. could run at full speed along the deck without breaking or touching the most delicate number of obstacles scattered in his way, providing that three inches of foot space were left between each obstacle. —• The bet was taken up. During the dinner-hour five babies "were collected while the mothers were below and laid side by side along the deck; three inches of space between each baby—enough to allow a man's toe to rest if he were passing over them in a violent hurry. As an afterthought the babies were drawn farther apart and five basins of warm soup placed between them. The men who betted against the A.B.'s sure-footedness now reckoned that he would have to hurry over without oversetting a soup basin — or lose. I was not present when the curious obstacle race came off. About o'clock in the evening I met the A.B. on the bridge looking very depressed. "Did you win?" I asked earnestly. "I would 'ave," he replied huskily; "if I'adn't trod on the last baby."

We stole into Marseilles on Sunday morning and the vessel was immediately surrounded by crowds of gesticulating Frenchmen in boats sitting on piles of silk shawls and bric-a-brac. We stayed three hours while the quarantine authorities burnt sulphur over some of the passengers' linen. Also 600 tired Australians were driven for'rd while a small, fat doctor ran his eye over them inquisitively. Some of these European sewercities are tremendously particular about their health rate. Port Said with its infected nigger and its plague-smittan Arabs gets wild when a Australian person with a cough comes near in a ship, and it keeps him waiting outside its sandbitten harbour, while its boss medicine man fumigates the wilderness with feathers and nitro-glycerine. Marsielles is just the same and quite as dirty. (To be continued.)