AMUSING STORIES OF EXPLORERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1917, 17 August 1888, Page 31

AMUSING STORIES OF EXPLORERS.

A story comes from Sierra Leone that Sir Francis de Winton won his decisive victory over the Youine tribe in the interior as much by the terror of the natives at the electric lights as by the guns of the expedition. For signalling purposes at night and to illumine his camp Sir Francis had provided a number of electric lights raised on lofty poles. The natives saw night turned into day, and the inexplicable sight took all the fight out of them. It is nearly always the case that when the white man, by some harmless expedient, impresses savages with his puissance and superiority, he has more than half conquered them before he strikes a blow. For many years the fierce Pahouin tribe on the middle Ogowe river turned back every explorer who tried to enter their country. Pierre de Brazza was the first traveller they permitted to ascend the great river, and he won 1 their favour without a single hostile act. He sent word to the chief that he had some presents for him, and in this way got permission to enter one of the frontier towns. The tatooed savages could hardly believe their eyes that night as a' great crowd grouped themselves round the explorer and witnessed . THE WONDERFUL SHOW he had provided. Rockets, Roman candles, whirligigs, and many other wonders of the pyrotechnic art bewildered, delighted, and astounded them. The feats he performed with the exploding bullet filled them with awe, and in his repeating rifle they saw a wonderful weapon, which they were sure he could fire off for ever without recharging. It was this night's work that opened the great region of the French Congo to De Brazza, and made him famous as an explorer. It has been his pride that in all his travels he never shot a native; but, for all that, gunpowder and fireworks were the foundation of his brilliant success. A good story is told of a white man who was taken prisoner by an inland tribe in the early days of the Fiji settlements. His captors were cannibals, and it made him very nervous when he saw Lhera start a fire under a big native oven. He made up his mind that it was all up with him unless he convinced the savages that he was a very superioi being. A happy thought struck him. ,He called for something to eat, and when food was placed before him he used his jack-knife to cut it up. Every mouthful or two he stuok the point of the jack knife into one of his legs with such force that it stood erect. It was a cork leg, and the natives looked on in astonishment and alarm as he buried the blade in it. After the meal, he began to take his leg' off. This was too much for the savages, and they scampered for the bush as they saw him turning his leg round and round. A* he mounted his horse the natives began to gather again, but he made a' motion as if ,to unscrew his head, and the spectators fled in dismay, leaving him to find his way back to the coast. When Joseph Thomson made his GREAT JOURNEY THROUGH MASAILAND a few years ago, he had a few tricks that gave him a reputation as a wizard and helped him wonderfully on his way. One trick he always reserved as a last resort, and many times it procured food for his party from natives who had refused to sell him a single fowl or a particle of manioc. He had two false teeth on a plate, and his great trick was to show the natives that the white man could remove his teeth. This wonderful feat usually accomplished the desired result, but the" Mount Kenia natives wanted a bigger show than he gave them. They insisted that if he could remove two teeth ho could extract the others also, and they demanded to see the entire lot. Expostulation was of no avail. They told him to take all his teeth out or starve, and he was glad to escape in the night from this inhospitable tribe. On the way back to the coast Thomson was almost wholly destitute of goods tobarter for food, but his fepntation as a wizard and a physician spread far and wide, and by means /of his tricks and medicines he managed to get along. Most savages at first regard sleight-of-hand feats as evidence of supernatural powers, but now and then they are sharp enough to think they are being duped One day, after Mr Martin had been performing some tricks for the amusement of a crowd of Wakwafi girls, he told them he could do much more wonderful thiDgs. Holding up a finger, he assured them that if he cut off a new finger would at once grow on again. The girls laughed at him, and told him he lied. Suddenly one of them sprang forward, and seizing one of Martin's fingers cut ifc to the bone with a native knife. She told him she meant t'otakehimat his word,and that now she knew .what he said was not trpe, for if

he could not heal the "wound fne n*ad mado she was very sure he could not cause a new finger to. grow. The magic lantern has of late years been AN ENDLESS SOURCE OF AMUSEMENT to many a savage audience. We can haidiy imagine the surprise and delight with which the simple-minded natives have seen spread before them on a screen the streets of London and Paris and many other wonders of civilisation. Pictures of Niagara Falls, the Alps, and other wonders of nature do not make the slightest impression upon their untutored minds ; but give them glimpses of thoroughfares crowded with people and vehicles, show them the lofty structures in which the white men live, and fine soldiers and women clad in all the colours of the rainbow, and they rend the air witn their exclamations of astonishment and pleasure. In his last journeys Livingston had a magic lantern ; and several later traveller » have found this toy very useful in helping them to win the friendship of their new acquaintances. Dr Junker found, during, his many years in Central Africa, that he could nofcintrodr.ee himself more favourably to tribes who had never before seen a white man than by playing on his accordion. He never entered a new village without first obtaining permission, and he never failed to make an impression, as lie marched in at the head of his little caravan, making the woods ring with the liveliest melodies of his native land. He found many of these people quick to catch an air, and probably scores of negroes in the depths of Central Africa whom he met are still humming some of the jolliest melodies of Europe. One of the most highly prized presents the great King Mtesa ever received was a handorgan: and a while ago a Mr Coillard found on the banks of the Zambesi a native queen who had a wheezy accordion, over which she ran her fingers with surprising agility, playing a curious medley of savage airs. A compass is one of the essential articles in an explorer's equipment, and is an endless source of wonder and pleasure to many savages. In Africa the compass is often regarded as a fetish which knows all things, and unerringly shows the white man the right road, even amid interminable forests. During the recent travels of Jacques de Brazza, a younger brother of the more celebrated explorer of that name, the fame of his compass spread far and wide, and the constant demands to see it became so annoying that for a time the explorer told the natives that the fetish was sick, and had been put away in the bottom of a box to get well. Mr M'Donald, a missionary south of Lake Nyassa, says he has made many friends by explaining THE MYSTERIES OF HIS WATCH. Its works excite no greater surprise than the watch crystal among those who have never seen glass, and the missionary describes the amusing perplexity of one^ chief who could not understand why he wa's unable to touch the watch hands which he saw before him. There is a wonderful potency in the mere crack of a rifle or revolver among savages who have never seen firearms. When Dr Ludwig Wolf discovered a new water route to Central Africa along the Sankuru river some time ago, his little party would in all probability have been massacred by the Eassonga Mino cannibals had not the white man given them a very exalted opinion of his power by a single discharge of hi 3 revolver. One day Wolf learned that the savages had decided to kill him and his comrades as the easiest way to gain possession of the white man's trading goods. Their chief refused to let the party go on their way, and told Wolf he had him in his power. The poor wretch had never heard of the magical powers of the shooting iron, and seeing no lances or bows and arrows, he imagined the visitors were defenceless. While he was insulting the stranger, Wolf suddenly held his revolver close to the chief's ear and discharged it. The insolent crowd was struck dumb with horror, and the chief shivered from head to foot with fear. After giving the chief a few specimens of his ability as a marksman, Wolf told the astounded potentate that he was going to leave, and the whole tribe were apparently glad to get rid of so dangerous' a person. The Aird river, in New Guinea, long remained unexplored on account of the hostility of the natives at its mouth ; but when Mr Bevan entered this river these same savages, who sallied out in their canoes to attack him, were so badly frightened by A SINGLE BLAST FROM HIS STEAM WHISTLE that they jumped overboard and swam for dear life to the shore. Captain Everill ran the gauntlet of hostile savages for scores of miles on the Fly river, New Guinea, keeping them out of arrow range by tootling his whistle, and Stanley by the same means sent hundreds of the Yambuga natives scampering into the woods, leaving his party in peace to prepare and fortify the permanent camp, where his reserve force has since remained awaiting the explorer's return from the Nile