OBITUARY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 8, 9 July 1931, Page 4

OBITUARY

TRADEE HOEN, OF

AFEICA

A LITERARY ROMANCE

LONDON, 26th June,

The death has occurred in a nursing home at Tankerton, Kent, of Aloysius Horn, aged 82 years.

But for that momentous decision of Mrs. Elhclreda Lewis there would be no story to tell of Trader Horn. But that day when the old man came to sco her with his pedlar's array sliiniiig in the sun she changed her mind. She decided that she really could "do with a new gridiron."

That began it. The way was paved for "The Ivory Coast in the Earlios," that book "full of sheer stingo," as Galsworthy declared, in which he told of his adventurous lifo, so many years ago, while at the end of each chaptor Mrs. Lewis, a reverential Boswell, set down the old man's shrewd and stimulating chatter. Another book followed, and another and "Trader" Horn was made. They took away his pension and charged him income tax "which would make your hair stand on end," he declared when he passed through Sydney in 1929. He went to England, ho visited Hollywood, he wasia best-seller, and a personality—an "original" they would have caUed him in Dickensian days. ; From a pedlar of gridirons and toasting forks he became a figure 'in the world's' literature. It was towards the end of 1926 that the old man paid his visit to Mrs. Lewis, of Johannesburg. At the time he was dossing at the Salvation Army shelter, and his resources were low. He had been trader, clerk, detective, explorer, and big game hunter. He had lost touch with his family; ho had lost sight of his old trading mafes; he was too old to go trekking again, and at 73 he was poor and alone. He set to work making .gridirons, and he had no thought in his head but the selling of one more gridiron when ho pushed open the white gate of Mrs. Lewis's house and walked to her back door. . WORK BEGINS. Mrs. Lewis was a journalist. Sho offered the old man a cup of tea, and over tea they talked. She found him interesting, and encouraged him' to come often and talk to her. He told her of the stories running in his head that ho would like to get on paper; she persuaded him to write them down and bring them to her, chapter by chapter.

Mrs. Lewis worked hard editing these Btories and reminiscences, for Trader Horn wrote on scraps of paper with a soft black pencil, scribbling laboriously by candle light. Ho -wrote first of his experience on the Ivory and Gold Coast, and followed this up with a fantastic, imaginative story of the Vikings. To this he gave tho title, "Harold the Webbed." He understood that Mrs. Lewis would correct the spelling —for he had no notion of spelling—put in the commas and the • capitals, and add some touches concerning, love and Sunsets. He was insistent that these be added, for otherwise he felt his books were doomed to failure. She said, "I never argued the point, but let him believe that I was adding the lovo lights and tho sunsets, whereas of course what I did was to preserve his manuscript as it was, and encourage him to go. on talking while I took notes."

The publication of the conversations they had together was a complcto surprise to Trader Horn,'for Mrs. Lewis [reduced her note-taking to such "a system that he never suspected what she iwas doing. She had two notebooks; the first for rough'notes, the second for fair copy. After she had read'each fresh chapter of the old man's story they would sit together on the verandah, he with his pipe, she with pencil and paper, and, whilo they talked over

his story, sho made notes. At tho end of a quarter of an hour Mrs. Lewis would have enough notes, and she would remark, "Ah, tho telephone," or "Tho cake's burning!" and would scizo the opportunity to go inside and transcribe her rough notes into the second notebook. This went on for three mornings a week for fifteen months, and at the end of that time Mrs. Lewis had enough material for three Trader Horn volumes.

The first of the volumes had now to be published. It was refused by scv-' oral publishers, and might have remained for ever unpublished had not tho interest of John Galsworthy been nroused. When he wrote a foreword for it, success was assured. Within a short time thousands of copies had boo- sold in England and America. People were intrigued at Trader Horn's quaint phraseology; at his philosophy; at his shewd analysis of people, and his droll humour. ICONOCLAST. He knocked down old idols with pleasure. Of the explorer Stanley he wrote, "Never cared for Stanley, us traders; 'twas no love of humanity made him go after Livingstone. 'Twas nothing but newspaper ambition; he wanted the spotlight turned on him. Livingstone, he said, "killed more men than ever I did with all ine rubber and ivories. Human life was nothing where the Bible had to go. Ladies in Hyde Park praying for 'im and handing out the wherewithal while we traders had to struggle "to open up a country in decency; when I go out to trade I go out with a gun and some Manchester cottons, not with a Bible." Ho told a story of Cecil Rhodes who came to a remote river in Rhodesia with a fishing party. Trader Horn was in , his hut making prickly pear brandy. The party insisted on trying it, though Horn 1 warned them it would "treat 'em queer." He was called later by his boy to rescue Rhodes and his party, for they were all sound asleep on a flat rock in tho river with a crocodile nosing placidly round them. "But Rhodes," said Trader Horn, "could never keep his hands off a novelty, whether prickly pear brandy or a lion with a wooden leg, same as he, bought from Honest John. Like a lad in a toy shop, Rhodes." The Trader loved elephants more than he loved some men. "Ay, I see them swinging along or having a quiet siesta whore nothing could startle them but a mouse on the trunk. As I frightened of a mouse as any lady, he is. I've seen a little fright like that amongst sleeping elephants startle the whole herd into trumpeting and frenzy. An elephant is wonderful choice how he disposes his trunk in sleep. Likes to have it curled up on something, for safety from small things. His trunk's j his living, and he's got to be as careful as a/fiddler of his fiddle. Ay, he has the brains of a fair man in his intellectual make up." Trader Horn's second volume started on a triumphant journey when _ the Literary Guild of America chose it as its book of the month, and published it in a splendid binding. Wealth came as a puzzlo to the old man. It was agreed that be and Mrs. Lewis would divide the profits equally, and when ho received his first cheque ho went to Durban and, still dossing at "one of the Salvatiou Army homes, he treated old friends and new friends to a grand and gay time. He washed his clothes, as did all the other inmates, on Sunday morning. He never dreamed of buying new and better garments; instead he gave away the blanket and thick coat Mrs. Lewis had insisted on him taking. When his success became known his photograph was published in England, and a daughter claimed a long-lost father. Sho wrote to him to come home for Christmas and sco his grandchildren. ; His American publishers invited' him to visit America after ho had been in England. Then Mrs. Lewis stepped in and insisted he buy s'uitablo clothes. Sho dressed him in an old-fashioned Inverness cape of rough tweed and a big wide awake hat. Presumably he did not givo these away, for ho woro them when he stepped on shore in Melbourne a few years ago, and set about seeing the city from a hansom cab. Ho was then on. his way to Hollywood, and touched at Auckland on his journey.