CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6282, 13 September 1898, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

M. Louis .de Rougemoot kobinson who, as we learn this __on_cbusok the ing, has delivered an address __co__. before the British Association. ; is altogether too remarkable a person to be left to the factless obscurity of I a cable message. As our London correspondent says, " whether viewed as a tale-of-the-century Robinson Crusoe or simply as an extra-special, gilt-edged, copper-bottomed double first liar of unique capabilities, M. de l-sugemo_t r it must be confessed, is a phenomenon." Mr Fitzgerald, the editor of , the " Wide World Magazine," to whom belongs the credit of having "discovered" de Rougemont, gives a curious account of his 1 first interview with the adventurer. He was i sitting, he says, in his office in Southampton Street, when there came a timid knock at the I door. A man with a strangely weatherj beaten face entered, and gave him a letter of introduction from Mr Henniker Heaton. He started to tell his story, and before he had proceeded far the editor realised that his visitor had a remarkable story to tell. Ever since his return to civilisation he had been trying to get people to listen to his story. But on every side he met with complete scepticism. And when on his journey to England from Australia the friendly captain laughed his story to scorn, he vowed he would never mention it to anyone again. M. dc Rougemont had already appeared before such eminent geographical esjperts as Dr J. Scott Keltie and Dr Hugh R. Mill, who checked his story by means of their unrivalled collection of latest reports, charts and works of travel. These gentlemen were quite satisfied that not only was M. de Rougemont 's narrative perfectly accurate, but that it was also of the highest scientific value. M. de Rougemont, it seems, worked his passage from Australia. Proving a gentle and an amiable fellow, with a record of unique adventure, he became quite a favourite with the rest of the crew, and when he was about to quit the ship the sailors got up a subscription for him, but he was too proud to accept it, and slipped away secretly and penniless into the vast city of London. For three weeks he was ; n dire straits, sleeping out at nights and wandering despairingly hy day through strange streets. E. who, on a barren track of sand, kept himself alive for two lonely year's, came very near starvation in the heart of a great civilisation. "He came to us," says Mr Fitzgerald, " worn out and almost hopeless. He knew nothing of the value of his story, and would have let us have it for a £5 note if wi had wished. But the chief of the firm gave directions that he should have all the money he required, and no time was lost in putting his story into form. He became a daily visitor at our offices, slowly describing the experiences of thirty years. A shorthand clerk took dow ti everything he said, and in three weeks we had a fairly complete narrative." This was the beginning of a period of lionising, which has culminated in the honour of delivering an address before the British Association.

It remains yet to be shown his that our London ..corresponwo.der.ul dent "was justified in his readvexttjßES. markable utterance. The ever-live " Tit-Bits " f furnishes the necessary proof. At an early age, we are told, young de Rougemout- _le_fc home for the Far East, and at Singapore met a Dutch pearler, who persuaded him to put what little money he had into a pearling venture. A contract was accordingly entered into at Batavia, and Jenson and young de Rougemont set out in a forty-ton schooner, with a number of naked Malay divers, to fish for pearls in the southern seas. Jenson made his fortune, but the discovery of three magnificent black pearls caused them to continue fishing although the monsoons "were changing. One day Jenson and his Malays went out as usual, and so fearful a storm arose that de Rougemont never saw his companions again. He was alon& on the ship for about fourteen days, but at length she struck several times on some coral reefs, and, fearing that she was going to pieces, he jumped into the sea. He was unable to land, however, without the assistance of the captain's dog, whose tail he took between his teeth, and was thus enabled to pass through the thundering surf. " The ' island,' " says M. de Rougemont, " on which I found myself, far from being a gorgeous tropical place, was a mere sandspit in the illimitable sea, measuring about 100 yards long, 10 yards wide, and Bft above high- water mark." On this fearful place M. de Rougemont spent two and a half years. He built himself a kind of hut out of the precious pearl shells, of which there were thirty tons on the ship. This latter, it should here be explained, did not go to pieces, but remained wedged on the rocks that inclosed the water on one side of the island. M. de Rougemont made a sun-dial of pearl shells, arranged round an upright pole, and this he checked periodically by means of the moon. At length, by the merest accident, four natives arrived at the island, having been blown thither in a storm from the Australian main. The castaway, during all the long years of his appalling exile, never once neglected an opportunity of escape. " Thus, during the interminable days on the desert island," says "Tit-Bits," "he set to work and constructed a boat, a crude but serviceable thing ; and you may judge of his horror when he found, on launching it, that he had committed it to the water on the wrong side of the island, in a tiny bay completely, locked in by jagged coral reefs. It would have been impossible for him to have got the boat out of that little bay were it not for the arrival of the four natives." In due time de Rougemont and his companions reached the mainland, steering by a star pointed out by the blacks. Then followed a number of marvellous adventures, culminating in a journey inland, during which de Rougemont nearly died of thirst.

It was then that M. de _i.fk Rougemont acquired that .mono knowledge winch enabled _r___K_. him to give an address on the customs of the Australian Blacks. According to his account he had pots and pans of virgin gold. One of his most astonishing experiences was the discovery of two unfnitunate Enelish girls, who were tho property of a cannibal chief, into W-ioS- hands tliey had fallen when their father's ship was wrecked. To these de Rougemont sent a message of hope, pricked on a lily leaf with a splinter of bone, bidding them he of good cheer, and telling them that deliverance was at hand. The story of how he made dresses fpr the girls out of cockatoo skins, and eventually got them away by fighting a desperate hand-10-hand duel with their giant captor, is as thrilling a chapter as was ever conceived by a novelist. One clay he and his native wife were on the march, when she suddenly motioned to him t- climb a tree without a moment's delay. Both lv- and she quicklv scrambled into trees. " Presently," says de Rougemont, " 1 saw a sight the .memory of which will live with me to the dov of mv death. In the distance the ground appeared to be covered with a vast black mantle, extending for miles. This mantle was made up of countless millions of rats, who were on their way from the lowlands to the mountains, knowing by instinct that the great floods were at hand. It took several hours for this ghastly sea of vermin to pass the foot of the trees in which we were concealed. Any

living thing' engulfed by that fearful wave had no chance of escape. When the rats had passed, the clean-picked bones of numerous huge kangaroos lay about the plain, and I verily believe that if an elephant had been caught in thaft sea he would have perished miserably." There is no need to contiim© the tale, with its battles and cannibalistic feasts, but we imagine that our readers will be inclined to share some of the doubts expressed by our London correspondent. At the same time, the British Association does not generally patronise romancers, even whan they are of the " gorgeous " order. For ourselves, we are- no. disposed to decide as lio the veracity of the narrator.