FLED BACK TO WILDS

Evening Star, Issue 21903, 14 December 1934, Page 1

FLED BACK TO WILDS

: AFRAID DF. CROWDS It has just been reported that a man who had gone to New York to _ settle down after spending : sj lifetime ’in tha Arctic stayed only two days and then , fled back to the cold wastes of tha north. The utter ' strangeness of tha civilised life had been too much for , him (writes Jack M'Laren, in the ‘ Daily Mail ’). I know .how that* man felt. I, too, f came. back to civilisation after a long stretch in the wilds—sixteen years m the more remote parts ofthe South Seas. For eight of those years I had lived in a solitude almost as complete as Crusoe’s, . . Never in any of the jungles I had left behind' - had-1 been as lonely as I was in civilisation. . ■ There wgs the matter of money. I was not accustomed to carrying money, with me. Back in the, wilds I had obtained my food and other require-.' ments by means of barter from natives. Any goods I had bad sent to me'' from a store at one of the small settlements were merely charged to my account, to be settled later .with copra or other produce thht I might send

along. For months and months at a time I would never have a coin in my pocket or have t any use for one. So it was that, here in civilisation* I freely walked but of shops without things I bought. More than once 1 had a rather painful interview! with managers. It was only with difficulty that I was at last able t» convince • them that 1- had not really, meant to steal the things. A man unaccustomed to money was something toe strange to be easily believed. There was the loneliness. I fitted in nowhere. In the wilds I was well used to being alone, but here I was really, lonely—which is not .the same thing by any. means. In 'places like Hyde Park 1 was often near to tears a«saw that most people went in couples —while I was a. solitary. . . , ... . / I had lost the ordinary man’s point of view. If I went to the theatre the play meant little to me. 1-was / acutely aware that the room on the stage .had only, three walls, and that the drdlna had been performed the previous night, and would be repeated again the following night, . I seemed to have lost the sense of imagination—• maybe Because I had" lived so long with the reality of wild Nature. There was,the sound of shod feet, on the pavements. I was so accustomed to the almost silent steps of natives' hare feet, or to no footsteps at all* that I would lie awake hour' nfte» hour listening. . . . For me there , was something oddly uncanny about ' the sound of feet on pavements. Then, too, there were the police. ’. It seemed to me that .the civilised life must be terribly dangerous if men had to be employed merely to keep tha peace It was a long’time before I became accustomed to the sight of them, and still longer before 1 ceased to wish that I were back'.in the safety of th* wilds.