ROUGEMONT'S FAIRY TALES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8325, 26 September 1898, Page 4

ROUGEMONT'S FAIRY TALES.

(Electric Telegraph— Copyright-United Press Association.] (Received Sept. 24, 0.12 a.m.)

London, Sept. 23.

A syndicate has been formed on the strength of Rougement's statements that goldfields of great wealth exist in unexplored portions of Australia. He declares it is intended to apply to the Government for a reward for the discovery of three distinct fields. These, as the syudicate assert, surpass anything previously discovered in Australia.

In a letter to the. Daily Chronicle, Mr David Carnegie subjects Rougemont to a sharp criticism, and appeals to Mr W. H" Fietkins, who acted aa second in command of the Giles expedition to deny that Giles fired upon Roiigemnnt.

Rougemont's fairy tales as told in the Wide World Magazine and related before the British Association for tho Advancement of Science, surpass all the fables of Robinson Crusoe or Rider Haggard. His story opens magnificently with the wreck of the pearl-laden vessel on n. low sandbank, and the saving of Roiigemont, the only- survivor, from drowning in the powerful under-tow by his faithful dog, whose tail he held in his mouth and was thereby towed ashore— "what a dog, and what an under-tow," as an Australian contemporary respectfully ejaculates. These stirring incidents serve as tlie prelude to a series of incidents of the most thrilling character. Othello never charmed the ears of Desdemona with the recital of more perilous adventures than M. de Rougemont experienced. On this sand-bank prison, a hundred yard,s long by ten yards wile, the modern -Crusoe lived for more than two years. His hut was built of pearl shells, piled one on the other, after the style, we suppose, of the grottoes London street children used to build of oyster shells— " an extraordinary undertaking," remarks a Melbourne paper. " seeing that the whole of the timbers of the ship were available for house-building. He even went to to the trouble of growing wheat laboriously in turtle-shells in a soil made from a mixture of turtles blood and sand, so that he could get thatch for his house, and having on board the ship a largo quantity of New Guinea wood, which, when ignited, smouldered for hours, lie was able, once getting a lire, to keep it alight for two and a-half years." To keep his reason he addressed long sermons in a loud voice to his dog, which, as it hail saved his life, was hardly the treatment the unfortunate animal deserved. He rode on turtle-back in the lagoon, guiding his strange steed by placing his toes in either eye, according to the direction in which ho wished to go. Ho cut out the bottoms of condensed-milk tins, and scratching messages on them lied them round the necks of pnlicans and sent them off as involuntary postmen— and this at a time when condensed milk was hardly known outside England and Switzerland. Subsequently he reached tho mainland, and spent 25 years among cannibal blacks. To say that his adventures during this period n ere marvellous is merely to demonstrate the inadequacy of the English language as a medium fov description. Altogether his story, as an English paper says, is the most amazing one a man ever lived to tell, " and having regard to the advance of civilisation, it is extremely unlikely that any other white man will again have an opportunity of going through similar adventures." "Unlikely" hardly seems the right word.