Notes of Travel

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 7, 25 February 1925, Page 25

Notes of Travel

(By J.K.)

Monte Video marked the half-way house .on the Arawa’s long run, and on December 2 we. dropped the pilot outside the breakwater and sailed away for Teneriffe. Several new passengers joined us at the South American port, and, without exception, they fell in with the ways of our happy family, adding to the general good humor and enjoyment. All of them were good . sports, and not a few played bridge rather ‘ well. One of them who sat by me at table was an 1 excellent linguist, and I profited by the opportunity of improving my Spanish. Having Rounded the Lighthouse off Maldinato — oldest Spanish settlement in South America, we were once more in deep waters. A few days later we saw the coast near Rio. Later still the bleak island used as a Brazilian penal station rose up on our starboard hand. On the sixteenth we passed through the Cape Verde Islands, and on the 18th we came on deck early to see the hills of Teneriffe in the morning light.

All the way from Monte Video we had a stiff head wind against us. The Arawa was too steady to be uncomfortable, but she lost speed owing to getting her bows into the sea with the regularity of a pendulum every day for - sixteen days. But the breeze that delayed us was a blessing during the sultry tropical days. One managed to keep cool even at noon by sitting in the shadow. The nights were another story. But it was all in the day’s work and nobody complained. The sight of Teneriffe was welcomed, and he, prospect of a day ashore cheered everybody. As we sailed along in the early morning under its eastern shore we had a good view of the island, which was about three miles off. : . It reminded me of the hills that run from Kingston to the Remarkables, along the east

of Lake Wakatipu. But houses were scattered all over it, and the white walls of towns and villages stood out from the tawny sides of the hills. Bold cliffs alternated with bays where the blue waters creamed on golden sands, and as passing clouds moved across the sun the light and shade played delightfully over the landscape. When we had sailed about twelve miles along the shore the clouds lifted and we got a glorious view of the snowy peak of Teide, a mountain not unlike Egmont in size, but four thousand feet higher, and visible, on a clear day, 140 miles away. Under the North-east of the Island, With a background of peaks more jagged than the Remarkables lay the little capital, Santa Cruz, sitting back against the hills with its feet in the cool blue sea. There were white ships and blue ships and brown ships sleeping under those tall hills behind the little harbor. Noisy little tugs were towing coal lighters from the shore to the

steamers, and gaily painted launches flashed hither and thither. Once on shore we found Santa Cruz a characteristic little Latin city, with its tall houses, its narrow streets, and its cheerful, dusky population. There are several pleasant gardens where one may sit in the shade of evergreen trees and hear the silver splash of falling waters. Although it was midwinter the air was as warm as one might expect to find it in Dunedin in February, and the gardens flamed with great scarlet flowers. One noted the smartly dressed Spanish soldiers, of whom there seemed to be a large number in the city. Motor cars were numerous, and all of them of rather good make." Hudsons were most numerous, but there were also many Fiats and Minervas. /

lI—MONTE VIDEO TO - LONDON.

The Museum and Art Gallery '■* • ... :••/.'/ ,:, • ' was well woTtn tv visit. I was interested in a collection of beautiful old wear pons, some rich with hammered gold and silver. The pictures were rather good. Better I should say . than the collections in Melbourne and Sydney.

The churches are poor from the outside, but the interiors are magnificent. The old Cathedral has a splendid pulpit of colored marble, and many of the altars are magnificently carved, some in solid silver, others in wood, covered by real gold. The sacristan does not forget to tell you about the two flags which Spain captured from Nelson in a sea-fight off the island, July 25, 1797. There is a Dominican Monastery about seven miles from the city. In one of the gardens we met some French de la Salle Brothers who took us, to see their college. Walking through the streets with them one was impressed by the manifest respect in which they were held oy young and old. The College of St. Hildepncnso is quite up to date in every respect, and is affiliated to 1 the University at Laguno; On

the pier, while waiting for the tender, we met an old Spaiiish priest who told us that he was chaplain to the Convent of the Assumption. A One may pause here to say that many patient inquiries from various sources Protestant residents in South America as well as from native Catholics —convinced us that Catholicism is flourishing in the great Latin Continent, and that its schools and churches are excellent in every way. Non-Catholic witnesses indignantly denied such stories as have been even within recent times circulated in Dunedin by meandering Protestant missionaries who are capable of any calumny likely to loose the purse-strings of their dupes. Vi vat Kispania ! Notwithstanding a certain hide-bound old Tory’s reference some years ago to Spain being a “ dead nation,” Spain is by no means dead. Spain has still great vitality, and she has still the faith that in the great days of the past scattered all over the map of the world those rich, musical names, that are like professions of undying belief in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. ;■ Santa Cruz —Holy Cross! As I walked up and down the deck, looking at its towers, some sub-conscious wave of memory brought back to me the old Galway air, “On the Deck of Patrick Lynch’s Boat”’ Then I remembered that I have in Dunedin, the original Gaelic words of the song, and that the exile who sings that sad melody mentions Santa Cruz in the last stanza. No doubt in the days when trade was brisk between Galway and Spain, our handy Connacht seamen drove their prows further south, and carried many a rich cargo of wine and lace from Las Palmas and Santa Cruz. And so the past lives in the present once more, and the memory of the Gael is green even here. December 19 found Santa Cruz well astern-, and our bows snoring through the swells that still rolled down before the N.E. Trades. To-morrow, we shall be ploughing through the notorious Bay of Biscay. Next day we ought to he nearing Ushant. And the day after Christmas Eve—ought to see us all on shore at Southhampton, with our long, delightful voyage at an end. Westport and Newtown people will be glad to know that their respective pastors are flourishing like green bay trees beside running waters. There has been but little to write about these quiet days. Next time T shall write from Rome and there will be more news for all my Tablet' friends.