RIDING A CROCODILE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 10, 13 January 1926, Page 7

RIDING A CROCODILE.

A 170-MILE JOURNEY. DE ROUGEMONT SURPASSED. SAURIAN BITTED AND BRIDLED (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright) (Received 1.30 p.m.) LONDON, January 12. The Barcelona correspondent of the "Daily Mail" reports that Louis de Rougemont is completely eclipsed by Captain Wall, the crocodile tamer, whowagered that he would cross from the Island of Majorca to Valencia, a distance of 170 miles, on a crocodile's back, without oars or a rudder. He constructed a wooden float, placed it on a crocodile's back; after which he claims that he sat on the float above the water, guided the crocodile by means of reins and a long steel goad, and accomplished the journey in 782 minutes. It is stated that the Spanish steamer Balear escorted Wall, illuminating the course with electric projectors.—"Sun." Louis de Rougemont has been anathematised for having printed as true, stories of his adventures, proved to be false. He should be canonised as an inventor and an unsurpassed imaginative writer. Fictionists, themselves inconceivably dull, have for many years poured contumely on their superior. Of course, de Rougemont died In poverty. If it should be discovered that Captain Wall i did not ride the crocodile, thousands of solemn mathematicians will rise up and smite up, while as a matter of fact the unmathematical world should hail him as a new fictionist who may help to relieve the monotony of stories made by people who never ride crocodiles and never even imagine wliat crocodile riding is like.