BOY ON A DOLPHIN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 941, 23 August 1957, Page 11

BOY ON A DOLPHIN

Sir,-The review ofthe film Boy on a Dolphin which appears in your issue of August 2 reminds me of a letter which seems to prove that while the ways of boys and dolphins appear to have remained unchanged during the last 1900 years those of seaside housekeepers have altered materially. I quote from Dr C. B. Allen’s translation of Pliny’s Letters-second edition, page 60. "Pliny to Caninius. I have come upon a story which, though true, bears all the marks of fiction. . . The person who told it to me has a high reputation for truthfulness. . . There is in Africa a colony called Hippo near the sea, Hard by is a navigable lagoon from which an estuary issues in the form ofa river; this ebbs and flows alternately according to the rise and fall of the tide, either advancing to the sea or returning to the lagoon. People of all ages eongregate here and amuse themselves with fishing, sailing or even swimming, especially boys, to whom leisure and play are a temptation. They think it a great and glorious thing to swim out into deep water; he is the victor who leaves both the shore and the other swimmers farthest behind. In this sport one boy bolder than the rest was making for the opposite shore. A dolphin came up to him and went first in front of the boy, then behind him, then swam round him, and at last took him on his back, set him down, took him up again and carried the frightened lad first towards the deep water, then turned to shore and brought him back to the shore and his companions. "The story spread through the town and everyone crowded round and gazed on the boy as though he were a prodigy, asked him questions, listened to what he said -and repeated the tale." The letter then goes on to say that the dolphin returned every day and encouraged the boy to play with it. The people lost their fear: "They came close to the dolphin, played with him, stroked him as he let them. . . All the magistrates of the neighbouring towns flocked to the sight, but their arrival and stay was a fresh drain on the slender finances of the little community. At length the place began to lose its air of peace and seclusion. It was decided that the centre of attraction, the unfortunate dolphin, should be secretly killed. What a flood of pathos you will pour on this tragedy, how you will embellish and dignify it! And yet there is no need to add any imaginary cetail; it is enough to tell the naked truth without suppressing anything. Farewell." This letter was written towards the end of the first century. Pliny was 18 when he was an eye-witness of the destruction of Pompeii in A.D. 79,

J. G.

APPLETON

(Te Karaka).