g looked
forward to and now probably never to be accomplished. On my way home I
visited beautiful Adelaide, and the younger city, Perth, which reminded
me much of the West American mining towns. Colombo needs no call for
notice. At Messina we saw the ruined city, the devastation seeming to
have been very terrible; but it presented no such awful spectacle of
absolutely overwhelming destruction as did San Francisco. Etna was
smoking; Stromboli also. Then Marseilles, Paris, and home.

During that summer at home I was fortunate enough to see the polo test
matches between Hurlingham and Meadowbrook teams, otherwise England
versus America. It was a disheartening spectacle. The English could
neither drive a ball with accuracy nor distance; they "dwelt" at the
most critical time, were slow in getting off, overran the ball, and in
fact were beaten with ease, as they deserved to be.

An even more interesting experience was a visit to the aviation meeting
at Rheims, the first ever held in the world, and a most successful one.
Yet the British Empire was hardly represented even by visitors. Such
great filers as Curtis, Lefevre, Latham, Paulhan, Bleriot and Farman
were all present.

In the autumn I had a week's salmon-fishing at Garynahine in the Lews.
The weather was not favourable and the sport poor considering the place.
Close by is the Grimersta river and lodge, perhaps the finest rod salmon
fishery in Scotland. A young East Indian whom I happened to know had a
rod there, and was then at the lodge. On asking him about fishing, etc.,
he told me, and showed me by the lodge books, that the record for this
river was fifty-four salmon in one day to one rod, all caught by the
fly! The fortunate fisherman's name? Mr Naylor! the very man I had
travelled with to New Zealand! I have vainly tried for three seasons now
to get a rod on this river, if only for a week, and at L30 a week that
would be long enough for me. I also this autumn had a rod on the Dee,
but only fished twice; no fish and no water. During this summer I golfed
very determinedly, buoyed up by the vain hope of becoming a first-class
player--a "scratch" man. Alas! alas! but it is all vanity anyway! What
does the angler care for catching a large basket of trout if there be no
one by to show them to? And what does the golfer care about his game if
he have not an opponent or a crowd to witness his prowess? At Muirfield
I enjoyed the amateur championship--R. Maxwell's year.