Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/98

 o'clock the weather was quite warm There were several very small men on board; race-riders. They seemed to have been making the tour of the geyser district, and I judged they were on their way to Wellington, where there will be racing next week. People living in the United States cannot realize how popular horse-racing is out here. Nor can they realize how popular the tea-drinking habit is. Every railroad train stops at frequent intervals, to afford the passengers opportunity to drink tea. At the hotels, when the maids bring us tea early in the morning, and we do not take it, you cannot imagine how astonished they look Another impressive thing in this country is the fact that all the people are very polite. I haven't seen a rude person since arriving in New Zealand, and, in addition, they are all well-dressed and prosperous-looking. I have met one drunken man, but he was polite in spite of the load he carried On a boat a few days ago we met a bride and groom, and have been traveling with them since. They had with them every day a little newspaper, printed in a town of which I had never heard, and, as I saw them consulting it frequently, I knew it contained their wedding notice. I managed to get hold of the paper this morning, while they were at breakfast, and read the notice. It was the usual thing. A Miss Ruth Simpson played the wedding march; there were flower girls, a wedding breakfast, etc.; the bride was one of our most amiable young ladies, and the groom one of our most promising young business men; the bride threw her bouquet, and it was caught by one of her bridesmaids: I greatly enjoyed reading the wedding