A STORY STRANGE AS DE ROUGEMONT'S.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11525, 15 May 1899, Page 1

A STORY STRANGE AS DE ROUGEMONT'S.

FOUR VISITS TO THE SOUTH POLE. The Paris correspondent of the" Pall Mall Gazette writes :—: — "An extraordinary story of travel and adventure is beginning to attract attention here. Its hero, who must not be surprised if the public, rendered sceptical by the Do Rougemont affair, should regard his narrative with suspicion styles himself the Marquis d'Angely. He declares that his father, who had fitted out an expedition to the South' Pole at his own expense, was wrecked in 1863 among the St. Mary Islands, which are situated off the Antarctic continent not far from the spot reached by Ross in 181-1. The ship that carried him was called the Oregon, and it is a fact that the French Admiralty lecords mention a vessel of this name which was supposed to have been lost with all hands about the date in question. Such of the crevr as managed to land on the St. Mary Islands found to their astonishment that they and the adjacent portions of the Antarctic continent were inhabited by a mixed, but French -speakiug, population of Polynesians, Malays, and Papuans; According to M. d'Angely, a numborof French prisoners were disembarked in these regions by the British daring the Napoleonic wars, and it was they who taugot the natives the language they speak to day. What is more, they induced or forced the population to adopt French institutions, though, while preserving the French administrative system, they havo since replaced i^ republic by a monarchy, the present jHug rejoicing in the title of Georges 11. of Adelia. The climato is fairly temperate, but the one feature of the country likely to tempt Europeans to make its acquaintance is the auriferous nature of its soil. The Marquis d'Angely declares that gold is as common in theso regions as iron is in France. He has been asked, of course why he has none of the precious metal

to show in support of his assertion. His answer is that it is not his fault if he dii not land in France the possessor of a fortune of several millions of francs. When he started on his journey to Europe in 1895 his luggage consisted of 20 big chests filled for the most part w.ith gold nugget 9. He was wrecked twice, however, en route, and by the time a vessel called the Neptunia landed him in England practically nothing remained of his riches. Siuce he has been in Franca he has received a letter from King Georges ll. of Adelia, which he is willing to show to all comers. It is written on paper which resembles French paper timbre, but with the words '.Sainto-Maiie' as watermark. The envelope beats an - Australian postmark, but V. d'Angely explains that there are no postal arrangements ia Adelia, and that a letter would necessarily have to be taken in the first place to Australia as the nearest point from which it could be despatched. Finally the Marquis d'Angely declares that he and his father, starting from Adelia, visited the South Pole no fewer than four times, or at any rate got near enough to it to see that it is a vast volcano in a state of perpetual eruption. Such is an outline of M. d'Angely's narrative. It remains t» be seen how far it will bear investigation."