An Interesting Letter

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21188, 10 August 1940, Page 14 (Supplement)

An Interesting Letter

Dear Peter Pan, —Thank you for the lovely new Membership Card. I am ever so pleased with it. I had a lovely birthday on Monday, the first birthday I have ever had in New Zealand. We came here from England last August and we have been here nearly a year. I love this country very much. We left England on the 15th of July last year on the R.M.S. Otranto from London. My mother and sister and I were seasick in the Bay of Biscay, but Dad was all right. After a few days at sea we reached Gibraltar. It looked a lovely place from the boat. The next port is Toulon. There we saw all kinds of seaplanes, aircraft-carriers and battleships. I had my birthday the day before we arrived at Naples, which is a pretty place looking at it from the harbour, but the streets are extremely narrow and dirty. It is very hot there, too. We saw the volcano Vesuvius, which is still smoking, and at night after leaving Naples we passed the volcanic island Stromboli. Fire and Molten lava came out of the top every ten minutes. About 3000 people live there. Then came Port Said, where all the Arabs are quite friendly. We went along the Suez Canal and out into the Red Sea. until we came to Colombo. On visiting the Government Gardens we were shown round by a very nice man who was quite interesting. Alter this, was Fremantle, then Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. The S.S. Wanganella brought us over the Tasman to Wellington. On the Otranto were 1100 passengers and 145 crew. About three times a week we had pictures on deck and other nights there was dancing. On Sunday nights there was a Salvation Army service. Dad has a farm in Matangi and we like it very much.—From Yvonne Hillary, Matangi.