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New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 193, 8 December 1876, Page 9

New GtriNEA. Riveb Scenery.— " We were glad to be at work again before daylight broke," says Captain Moresby, " and slowly forcing our way up-stream, through a country which then revealed itself to sight, for the banks were now open, and broken into undulation, so that we could see all kinds of huge palm, and great breadfruit trees, the lovely tree-feru, and trees which ye were nob botanists enough to name, stretching away on every side into seemin»ly interminable forest. Hera and there we observed a creeper of a rich dark, green color, climbing the top of the loftiest tree, and erusbW the life out of its support. This beautiful destroyer had quite killed some mighty trees, and clung now to the dead branches assuming all their stark shapes. In other places it ran down, and formed impenetrable hedges, seventy or eighty feet high, between which ran the river like a deep ditch. The silence, but for our oars, was unbroken —land and water seemed asleep— not a breezo stirred— not a creature man or beast, appeared to peep at us, or question our passage • but after a time the birds began to awake with discordant streams. Carrots and cockatoos abounded, bo also did the crowned pigeon a specimen of which we shot, but it fell into the jungle and was lost. .Large white storks were numerous, and other birds of kinds unknown to us, all unusually wary, keeping to the highest branches of the lotty trees oufc of gunshot ; but no animal was to be heard, and the birds soon quieted down again." v 7^ following is taken from a letter, appearing in a late number of the < Bombay Examiner :'— " Unlike the waters of the Indian Ocean which are of a deep blue color, those of the Red Sea are of a bright emerald green. No one, I suppose, even imagined that they were red ; but some may naturally ask how it has come to be called the Red Sea. To this question lam not sure that I can o-ive a satisfactory answer. We know that the Yellow Sea of China is so-called on account of the quantity of the soil conveyed into it by theGan ate King, and the waters of the Black Sea I believe I have somewhere read, are of an unusually dark hue, though the frequent storms to which it is subject would amply justify its present epithet As for the White Sea of Russia it probably owes its name to its being during a great part of the year covered over with snow and ice, For the name of the Red Sea I have heard two explanations: one, that when this sea continues calm for several days together its surface is overspread with myriads of animalcules of a reddish color; the other, that the Arabian coast abounds in red coral. The correctness of these explanations I was not able to verity, as on the one hand this sea is always rough, and on the other we never approached very near the Arabian coast. In the ' U f!r- we are told that lt takes its color f rom the bottom ; but what this precisely means appears to me to be not very clear/ 1 A child crossing the Rue des Martyrs, in Paris, fell down in front of a carnage which was coming swiftly along. A Sister of Charity saved the little thing's life by promptly rushing forward and snatching it out of the danger, though the escape was so narrow that the nun was struck by the shaft of the vehicle. Fortunately, she was not injured.