ALOYSIUS HORN.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17585, 26 March 1929, Page 5

ALOYSIUS HORN.

ARRIVES IN AUCKLAND. TELLER OF FAMOUS STORIES. 'A VIVID INTERVIEW. <By Telegraph—Own Correspondent.) AUCKLAND, March 26. '•Aye, I'm Aloysius Horn—Trader Horn, some call me, though my real .name is Smith, but there are far too many Smiths and that's why I'm Horn." The picturesque old passenger who greeted a "Star" interviewer's inquiry With these words on the Maunganui this morning was none other than that Alfred Aloysius Horn, whose romantic tales of the Ivory Coast have made his name famous wherever Joooks are read, and those books have made him wealthy. Not so long ago the world knew nothing of Aloysius Horn, although he was well enough .known in Africa and Rhodesia as •"Zambesi Jack." Then Mrs Ethelrida Lewis, a South African novelist, "dis--covered" him and the publication of .his reminiscences, anecdotes drenched with red-blooded adventure, were the sensation of the literary world. Mrs. Lewis would never have discovered this great old man had he tiot come to her as a peddler, selling grid-irons, toast forks and wire kitchen goods.

Realising that his memory must be -.a storehouse of tales which would thrill a jaded world, Mrs Lewis encouraged Horn to set down the experiences of a vivid lifetime, and 'the publication of those . experiences lifted him from obscurity.

Seated in : his cabin this morning, the great old man—he is almost 80— told the story of his life in a few whimsical sentences. By his side •was his breakfast on a tray. He dis.dained to touch this till the newspaper men had withdrawn. "You won't ask me dates . and figures," he began, "for long ago my .arithmetic went over the edge and into the beyond, and that's a story. My friend shot me through a lion- Foolishly I had followed a lion in daylight '.lnto the jungle undergrowth, and the lion got me.. My gun jammed and the lion began to nibble my back. I've had a terrible back ever,since. I swooning when a young fellow •fired and got the lion—and me, too. He knocked a bit off the side of my 'faead, and that bit was my 1.0. U. box. After that I had no figures, but I could •.always remember you and I, even if t forgot the 'Owe'! "What made me leave home? I just 'ltch to be off. I was only a kid when 1 left, and now they say I'm the oldest living prospector on the Rand. Am I wealthy? Didn't I' say that figures -don't count? I've been wealthy several times over, but my money always ■had legs. It sprinted so fast I could never catch it up. It's true my books have brought me money. They sell in some parts at four dollars a piece, and 250,000 copies were grabtoed up in the first year and a halt How much is that? Never mind! I've got money to go about -the world—the world that* I've roamed all these years. Now, in my old -age, it is nice to have it easy to have -the cities of the world come nip to, me -swiftly from the horizon that I see v-from the cosy deck of a steamship. The world never looked so nice before. Take my word, the saloon deck -makes foot-slogging odious."