Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/292

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Letters from New Zealand

ship and ourselves, I undertook to compose it and obtain signatures. There are always some eccentrics on board, and on this occasion a passenger who had kept much to himself refused to sign. "Sir, the Captain has only done his duty." "Yes," I replied, "but he has done more than his mere duty; we wish to thank him for his constant personal kindness to everyone on board; this is not a testimonial in the shape of any gift, but just a few grateful words of recognition of what he has done for us."

"Don't want to sign; leave me out."

"But, I hear you are a well-known colonist and a member of your Legislature; I should be sorry that yours should be the only signature wanting in the address which we present to-night."

"Well, sir, I'll sign on one condition: that there are no quotations from Shakespeare in it!"

When I returned last May to England from the Continent, I had some time in South Wales with old friends, and there met Bishop Smythies of Zanzibar and Uganda, recruiting after an attack of malarial fever. He is doing a great work there; a man of powerful build, accustomed to walk in the African jungle for days on end, with his native bearers. He is a good shot, and with a Winchester double-barrel for shot and bullet, keeps his camp in game on the march. Coming to a native village, he found its inhabitants terrorized by a huge hippopotamus, ravaging their crops by night, and impervious to their spears and arrows. "I went down at nightfall to the riverside, and by good luck, catching sight of the beast's head emerging from the water within thirty yards' distance, I shot him in the eye; great was the rejoicing; they dragged the dead monster ashore,