EXTRACTS FROM MR. WARD'S JOURNAL. Mr Ward Visits the Lakes.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1513, 16 March 1882, Page 2

EXTRACTS FROM MR. WARD'S JOURNAL. Mr Ward Visits the Lakes.

A Cobrkspondent with spiritualistic proclivities, who, under the influence of the demon "D.T." imagines he is possessed of the soul of A. Ward, sends us the following :—": — " You wants to know what I seen ? Well, as lam a man of travel, I have seen a good deal in my time, but them trees I seen on the road to the lakes beat all I ever did see, even in 'Frisco. Why there was the native fucha, or kohnana stems, three yards in circumference, and fifty feet high, with blossoms hanging all over like— what shall I say — why bulldog beer- bottles (quarts). And then theie is them vimus, 500 feet without a limb, but as some people may think I'm lying, say 250. But them's nothing to the ratas as stand beside them, and fold them in their long arms just like a monstrous boar constmeture, or, as I thought at the time, just like Mrs Ward used to hold the twins. Where did I see them ? Why in the bush at about half -past 12, looking through the empty barrel of one | of Barney Montague's pocket-pistols. What did I see when I got to the lakes ? Well, when I was in Chicago I used to sit for hours and watch them slit up pigs, but the natives of Uotorua can lick the Yankees. I'll just tell yon how it is done. One native holds the pig by the leg, another sticks him ; he is let go, when he plunges right through a boiling spring, and through a small hole in a brush fence, when he finds himself stuck, scalded and scraped in less than a minute; he gets a shower-bath, is cut up and put in a steam hole to cook, before you could say "Ward, will you have a drink?" And then the way chickens is hatched is a caution. Why they hatch them by the acre. Them natives have got great flat stones placed all over the springs, and at one end of the paddock old women are putting clown the eggs, and at the other end other old women are picking up the chickens. But the most wonderful of all is they "all grow up without any feathers, the place is so warm. Did I go .across the Jakes ? Of course I did. I went in the new steam launch they have. No fire or coals required. The launch is fitted up with asteam-reservoy, that goes all round the boat, made into seats. Well, the launch goes alongside one of them ere steam holes, and fills Lhe reservoys, and when you wish to replenish, you run for a steam hole, and you can take in a supply for any time up to three months. Any fish ? Yes, lots of them. All you have to do is drop -the trawl net over for a minute, and you bring them' up by the bushel, cooked, actually cooked, and without scales. The new railway that is to traverse the lake, will receive its motive power from the steam holes. Does anyone ever die up there ? A few, and they are taken to the devil's blowhole anil cast in. , If they are thrown out, as good people like me are, they receive Christian burial. , Two or three editors have been cast in, and that was the ■ last ever seen of them. ' Kind of water ? "Why you can get it hot or cold, sulphurous, thick as maple sugar, or thin as colonial beer, iron water sp thick that if youtake it'out of the springs and let it settle in moulds fora short tike, it tiirfla out first-class 'castings. • I fetched a bottle ont of that "spring as a sample 1 , and just dropped .into it 'six* tin-tacks, and, as sure as inj? name's Wa'rrV when I opened the bottle 1 "to show f ' ! BobKir'kwood, at Cambridge, tike* bottle; was -full of sixinch , spikes., ,0ne t ma,n r 'while I was up there 1 , sai *in * one *of them springs too* /long"; and.had/,to,be • rock, and f hw *skin f ' was /covered?!- with, abpuVanmchmd^half '. Going '& 'sencl J ninV,d6wn f.to'/C^riatcliurch Exhibition! fJ Wonderful place, assure/as my name is Ward."