WITH WILD CANNIBALS

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 3190, 3 February 1928, Page 6

WITH WILD CANNIBALS

STORY OF WILLIAM BUCKLEY.

ESCAPED CONVICT'S LIFE

"One hour of glorious liberty is worth a whole eternity of bondage." Is this the thought that lures so many convicts to essay escape? says a writer in John o' London's Weekly. Certainly, the year 1927 has been remarkable for the numerous daring bids for freedom made by prisoners undergoing sentence—attempts that have ended, as ever in Britain, in recapture.

Overseas, however, escaped prisoners have frequently succeeded in remaining at large for years. Most amazing of all was the ease of the celebrated "Wild White Man" of Australia, who, after starving in the bush, lived for 32 years with cannibals, and even took a cannibal as wife, before surrendering to the authorities and dictating his romantic experiences for publication in the form of his biography. Hardly a literary production, but a thrilling narrative. William Buckley, private soldier, had already at 22 seen active service and been wounded when he was convicted at Gibraltar in 1802 for conspiring to shoot the Duke of Kent, and transported to the convict settlement in New South Wales. In 1803, two days aftei Christmas, Buckley and three fellowconvicts managed to dodge past the sentry; one was shot, but the others pushed on into the bush. AMONG FRIENDLY SAVAGES. For seven days, saved from absolutP starvation by occasional shell fish, the three men wandered on until Buckley's companions, exhausted by hunger, thirst, and fatigue, decided to return to prison. Buckley himself preferred to cling to the liberty that surrounded him in the trackless Australian wilds. Alone and unarmed, he struggled on, living on uncooked shellfish, berries and melons. Days passed. Then suddenly he came face to face with three armed ravages. Escape was impossible. Luckily Buckley's great height—he was six feet five —overawed these pygmy aboriginals, and they made friendly overtures. "One made up a large fire," relates the convict in his autobiography, '' another threw off his rug and went into the sea for crayfish, which, on his return, he threw alive into the flame, at the same time looking at me with an expression as much as to indicate that they intended to grill me next by way of a change of diet." Having shared the fish with the white man, they escorted Buckley to their grass huts, where he passed a sleepless night of fear. Next morning the savages took a violent fancy to Buckley's stockings, but finding his re- : fusal to part with them proof against both threats and gifts, they left him to his own devices. Some days later his strength began to fail him. Spotting a spear stuck upright in a mound, he dragged it out and used it as a walking stick until, worn out, he flung himself down, spear in hand, beneath a tree. That spear was to save his life.

BUCKLEY'S LUCKY STAK. Two cannibals found the sleeping man. Buckley must certainly have been born under a lucky star, for these two savages belonged to a tribe having a curious superstition concerning white men. "They believe," said Buckley "that when they die they go to some place or other where they are made into white men; and that they return to this world again for another existence. They think all the white people, previ- \ ous to death, belonged to their own tribe, thus returned to life in a different colour." Moreover, the spear clasped in Buck ley's hand was the very spear that had been left to mark the grave of their recently deceased chief; unhesitatingly the savages hailed the convict joyfully as their reincarnated chief, and conducted him, with great ceremony, to the tribal village. For a time existence as. a " living dead chief" was peaceful. Then Buckley's fears were aroused by the approach of a hostile tribe. As he watched his followers smearing their bodies with clay, daubing their faces with red dye, and otherwise preparing for the coming fray, his heart sank, for he knew well the fate awaiting him if

captured—the enemy were also cani.*bals.

MAERYING A NATIVE WIFE. Victory, however, fell to his own tribe; but the result was almost as unpleasant, for the wretched convict | found himself expected to join in feasting upon the choicer morsels of the I dead. With great difficulty he succeeded in evading this horrible repast. But, [as years passed, wars became more frequent, and Buckley gradually degener- [ ated into the habits of a savage, going about naked, sleeping in the grass, and joining in their wild rites and customs. Eventually Buckley became so "acj elimatised"' as to choose a wife from I among the dusky beauties of the tribe. Besides his position as chief, Buckley possessed other attractions for the gentler sex, for he had become expert with both boomerang and spear. The lady, he relates, was "a young widow, about twenty years of age, tolerably goodlooking after a fashion, and apparently very mild-tempered.'' I True, the bride was a cannibal, but | the convict had grown hardened to the sight of these gruesome feasts. As years went by, however, the wife tired of her wild husband, and one evening Buckley returned to his reed hut to I find that his wife had disappeared with | a lover. The insult thus offered to their chief so infuriated some of the tribe that civil war broke out between them and the members of the woman's family. Disgusted, Buckley Tan away. BACK TO CIVILISATION.

After thirty-two years of savage life the wretched wanderer espied a settler's camp on the faT side of a lake. Deciding that even prison life would bo preferable to his present existence, he threw himself upon the mercy of the settlers. But he could no longer make himself understood in English, and his appearance was such that the white men took him for a savage. At last, however, his power of speech returned, and he was handed over to the authorities, who granted him a free pardon in consideration of his usefulness as a go-between with the natives. For twenty years Buckley lived the life of a useful citizen. Then, with Fate's subtle irony, the man who had survived the dangers of bush and cannibals, succumbed to injuries received in falling from a cart!