KEEPING OUR END UP.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1641, 22 March 1884, Page 4

KEEPING OUR END UP.

As last Tuesday's westbound train passed Cape Horn, a -large; jparty of Englishmen, on the" direct-from-Lun-non" variety, crowded out on to the platform and loudly expressed then) dissatisfaction at the scenery, was "not at all up to thV guide-bMsj you know, by Jove." As they returned to their seats to enjoy a jolly good British' all-round grumble, entirely oblivious of the indignant glances of tho native passengers, a meek-looking, gentle-voiced journalist from 'Frisco approached from tho other end of the car and volunteered to give the tourists some most valuable facts concerning the country. In an ingenious and plausable way, he answered the questions in a manner that reduced our critics from over-the-pond to a condition of profound amazement nor to say awe.

The next morning-tho journalist was informed by the porter that a committee of gentlemen wished to see him in the baggage car. As he entered the latter he found a dozen travellers, all native, and to the manner born, who were waiting to receive him, : The spokesman advanced and said: '• You are the party who was giving those globe trotters in the rear sleeper some pointers about the coast, I believo!"

"I am, sir," said the quill-driver modestly,

" You told them, I understand," continued the chairman, " that Mount Shasta was 76,000 feet high f

" The same."

"You divulged the well-known fact that trains on this road were often detained four days by herds of buffalo, and that they frequently have to use a Gatling gun on the cow catcher to prevent the locomotive being pushed off the track by grizzly bears!" "Yes, sir." " You further acquainted thorn with the circumstance that the Digger Indians live to the average age of 204, and that the rarilication of the air on the plains is such that an ordinary pin looks like a telegraph pole at a distance of forty-two miles 1" "I think I wedged that in," responded the newspaper man, "Are we correctly informed that they all made a memorandum of your statement that at the Palaco Hotel an average of two waiters per day were shot by the guests for bringing cold soup—eh 1"

" They did." "And, finally, we believe that you are the originator of that beautiful—the b-e-a-utiful—or—fact regarding that fallen read-wood tree up at Mariposa— I mean the hollow one into which the six-horse stage drives, and comes out of a knot-holo 165 feet further along!" " I told them all about it."

"Just sol just so!" said the committeeman, grasping the patriot's hand and producing a-well-filled buckskin bag, "and I am instructed by this committee of your fellow-countrymen to present you with this slight token of appreciation of the noble manner in which you have vindicated the honor ot our native land; God bless you, sir J" —Traveller's Magazine,