De Rougemont Yarns.

Manawatu Herald, 13 December 1898, Page 2

De Rougemont Yarns.

♦ DEPARTURE FROM THE ISLAND. After six months on the island in the society of blacks the narrator, prompted by his companions, resolved to attempt to reach the mainland in the boat which he had built. With their help he carried it bodily out of the lagoon and launched it in the open sea. He provisioned the boat with tinned meats and tinned vegetable from the wreck, bat buried the box containing the treasure of pearls deep in the sand at the end of the island. He had kept count of time while on the island by means of a calendar of pearl-shells, and one morning in the last week of May the whole party sailed away. After a voyage of five days they reached a small island, where they landed for a few hours, procured some turtle meat, and then resumed the voyage. On the morning of the tenth day they reached the mainland, where the blacks lit signal fires, and a party from the tribe went ont to meet them. A grand corroboree was given in honour of the arrival of the , voyagers, and the blacks proved very friendly, overwhelming the narrator with hospitality. The men were much astonished at his footprints. It seemed that when thty themselves walked they turned their feet sidewayi, so that they only made a half impression instead of a full print. A BLACK WIFE. THE INCOMPARABLE YAMBA. : There is one chapter which Mrs Grien -if the identification should be sustained — will read with lively interest. It describes the union between de Bougemenfc and the heroine of the story. A girl was brought to de fiougement who thought; that she ( was to be the viotim of cannibal feast. • " Then in hesitating signs, sfcaps, ', clicks, and guttural utterance I gave them to understand that it was . against my faith to have anything | whatever to do with the horrid orgy they contemplated. The Great | Spirit they dreaded so much, yet bo vaguely, I went on, had revealed to me that it was wrong to kill anyone | in cold blood, and still more loath- , some and horrible to eat the flesh of t a murdered fellow-creature. I was ( very much in earnest, and I waited with nervous trepidation to Bee the , efiect of my peroration. Under the . circumstances you may judge of my astonishment when not only the I chiefs, but the whole nation assembled, suddenly burst into roars of eerie laughter. Then came Yamba to the rescue. Ah I noble and devoted creature 1 The bare mention of her name stirs every ' fibre of my being with love and > wonder. Greater love than hers no ' creature ever knew, and not once but a thousand times did she save my wretched life at the risk of her own. "Well, Yamba, I say, cams up and whispered to me. She had been studying my face quietly and 1 eagerly, and had gradually come to see what was passing in my mind. She whispered that the chiefs, far from desiring me to kill the girl for a cannibal feast, were offering her to me as a wife, and that I was merely expected to tap her on the head with the stick in token of her subjection to her new spouse. In 1 short this blow on the head was the marriage ceremony tout simply. I maintained my dignity as far as possible, and proceeded to carry out my part of the curious ceremony. " Tbe very next day after my marriage, having been still further enlightened as to tbe manners and customs of the natives, I waited upon Mr Yamba and calmly made to him the proposition that we should exchange wives. This suggestion be received with a kind of subdued satisfaction or holy joy, and very few further negotiations were needed to make the transaction, oomplete ; and be it said, it was an everyday transaction, perfectle legal, and recognised by all the dans. Yamba was then about thirty years old, and was already beginning to show signs of age. She was, however, full of vigour and resource, while the only adjective that fitly describes her knowledge of bash lore is absolutely miraculous. This will he evinced in j a hundred extraordinary instances in , thin narrative." The narrator goes on to describe his daily life among tbe blacks, his occupations and diet. With regard to his geographical position he observes : — " At the time of my shipwreck I had little or *no knowledge of Australian geography, so that I was utterly at a loss to know my position I afterwards learnt, however, that Yamba'f borne wm on Qambrldg*

Golf, on NN.W. coast of the Australian con tin nt." A description is next given of the virrobordt-s and ot th - fiahing and nun'inp occupations of th» blacks.