Travellers’ Tales And The Amazing Record of Adventure

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18255, 25 November 1933, Page 13

Travellers’ Tales And The Amazing Record of Adventure

W7UEN we speak of “travellers’ tales” we usually have in mind tales of a type, which bear witness to a highly imaginative mind in tlie narrator'; lait. occasionally we meet with people who, in the course of their travels, have had such remarkable adventures that it requires no little stretch of the imagination to believe them.

On,, such was “Freeman of Stamboul.” That is the title of Ihc autobiography of Air. Bernard Trecnmn, ami among its concluding words arc these: “And now, after “eighty-one years of peril, hardship, sudden ruin and success, here I am unscathed, m\ zest for life undiminislied, about to start on a quite new adventure, ol which, perhaps, 1 may say more anon ! ’ ’

Before his hook had reached Australia he arrived’ at Melbourne on the Ormonde on September 2;>, a sick man, and there in a private hospital lie died a week later. His book is an amazing record of adventure. Probably the “long bow” is pulled occasionally, but, even allowing for that, few men have had a life so full of color and h;, mance. Thrilling Pictures of Life.

Mr. Freeman was born in Constantinople and he paints some thrilling pictures of'life in the glamorous East just after the Crimean War. Ho ran away from homo. He “lived. In rough tents with Bedouin fanatics and in caravans with gipsies.” He slept with monks in the Garden of Getlisemane. He sailed before the mast in the palmy days of the clippers; fought with man-eating sharks in the tropics for Die dead body of a comrade; went pioneering in Oregon under conditions' “which would make the Wild West film of to-day look like a Sunday School outing”; was in Palestine with Gordon; met Burton, Stanley, Mark Twain, Sarah Bernhardt, Robert Louis Stevenson, Melba, Caruso ana other celebrities in the course of his travels. Stevenson, we read, lived in a bungalow belonging to Mr. 1- rcoman for some months during the Samoan revolution. No doubt this is the “little cottage up the lane” of which mention is made iriTl. J. Moors’ book, “With Stevenson in Samoa’’—the cottage which was occupied by the family before Vailima was built. But of all the people encountered by Mr. Freeman during his long, adventurous life the one who appears to have interested him most was a strange, romantic individual whom he met. in Brisbane in 1895. This was none other than Louis De Rougeniont, who claimed to have spent twenty years with the aborigines of North Australia, and whose stories created such a sensation when they appeared in the Wide World Magazine three years afterwards. Mr. Freeman had opened an office in Brisbane and had advertised for a gold-mining expert and assayer, and Do Rougeniont offered his services. “I can take you to the richest country in the world, where the mountains arc solid gold,” lie sa,id. “You can sec the gold shine for miles!”

Remarkable Adventurers. The result was that these two remarkable adventurers went prospecting.in. North Australia; and, although they did not find the mountain of solid gold, Air. Freeman was convinced that many of the things his companion told him were true, for he seemed to be known by all the aborigines, lie spoke to them in their own language, and he was an unerring thrower of the boomerang. It is interesting also to learn from Air. Freeman that ho supplied Do Rougcmont with some of the stories which earned for the latter, on their publication, a reputation that had never been equalled since the days of Baron Alimchausen.

One can imagine how these two

men must have revelled in each other’s company —what “good companions” they must have been, each one trying to better the other’s stories. Yet many of their tales were true ! That is the amazing thing. As for North Australia and its wonders, wo have only to read lon Ulricas’ “Men of the Jungle” to realise how little we know of our own land; and recently another remarkable book has come from the pen of this graphic Australian author —“Drums of Mor,” which deals win the Torres Strait islands, “where, often,” to quote from the foreword by Rev. W. H. MncFarlane, Administrator of the Diocese of Carpentaria, “truth has proved so strange, that as fiction it would provoke the smile of incredulity. ’ ’ There always have been, and Iherc always will be, the wandering adventurers of the world; and “travelling in an armchair,” with their books in our hands, we can in such vicarious fashion share in their thrills. Take Sir Richard Burton, for instance—the same Burton that Freeman met—the Burton of the Arabian Nights. The story of his travels and adventures is an astonishing revelation of what can be packed into one man’s life. Say what we will, however, the fact remains that this old earth of ours is still, as ever, a place of wonder and romance, and it will never cease to provide adventures to the adventurous. —Sydney Morning - Herald. Mystery Stones ANE of tile best mystery stories of the year is “The Dead Walk,” by Gilbert, Collins. It achieves distinction because right from the stait there is a mystery, and the reader, too, is mystified. Air. Collins gives a series of early happenings which obviously lead to a coming thrill, but its exact nature comes out slowly but surely, and the apparently trivial incidents all have a bearing when the matter is straightened out. “The Dead Walk” is clover and ingenious, and the author’s dedication to a friend who can “enjoy a thriller” is justified. To reveal the plot, and the nature of the crime would spoil the story and the mystery. lu “My Best Thriller, over a score of modern authors have chosen what each of them consider their best tale. They include, Mason, Farjeon, Bending, Agatha Christie, “Sapper,” Bridges, Elinor M'ordauut, Opponlieim, Rohmer, but every author is well known. There is not only variety in their thrills, but they cover a wide range. Concerning Air. David llume, the author of “Crime Unlimited,” it is said: —“David Hume knows what ho is writing about. For years he has been a crime reporter in Fleet Street ; he knows the police; he knows the underworld. The book describes a succession of brilliant coups carried out by an organisation in which each member receives his precise instructions —in which each pawn is moved by the master-hand, in complete ignorance of the movements of ■'others and of his relation to the whole. If the police picked up any of these men they would learn nothing more than the particular man’s own instructions.” This intriguing certificate of merit will satisfy most people.