FROM JUNGLE TO ZOO

Waipa Post, Volume 42, Issue 3305, 4 June 1931, Page 3

FROM JUNGLE TO ZOO

A sailor’s life is supposed to be a life of adventure. That is all right for the story-books, but I have found on the whole that at sea adventures are the result of either bad luck or bad seamanship! I have had very good luck, and to the lucky men nothing much happens. For 21 years I have been coming to Australia from the Dutch East Indies, every two months, and in all that time we have had few bad storms. The sea is really very much safer than Flinders Street at five o’clock, and I never feel my life is free from peril until I get on my ship again after a day on shore, and put her nose to the open ocean.

And next to the sea, give me the jungle. My chief hobby on shore is shooting big game, you see. There is a fascination about the jungle possessed by nothing else but the ocean. Perhaps this is because of the attraction animals have always had for me. When I was a.youngster, in Holland, I kept rabbits, and other animals, and when my father planned a career at sea for me, I thought that would mean the end of all that sore of thing, but curiously enough I got deeper into my hobby than ever, as you shall see. I became, after a while, second officer on an old sternwheel steamer on one of the rivers in Sumatra. That was away in the very depths of the jungle, and as we crept, along the river tapirs and other animals literally walked the decks. So I got to studying their habits. Then when I was put on the Australian run and met Australian animals, I determined to take some back with me to Java and the East in exchange for some of the beasts over there. Now, you can’t ferry animals across the ocean without losing some, and I began to study their diet. Gradually, I got together a complete larder of special food, including every sort of bird-seed.

Peezo, my Japanese “ boy,” who has been with me for 29 years, has an uncanny influence over birds and animals. It is almost as though they recognised him as one of themselves. He is my cabin boy on the ship, but my chief of animal staff as well. We never make a voyage without carrying animals and birds for exchange, arid Peezo has the job of valeting these passengers. He can do anything with them. He was born in the jungle, and the jungle creatures recognise in him their own kin. I remember one time we were taking four wild tigers caught in the jungles of Sumatra to the Sydney Zoo. Great, ferocious creatures they were, and my Japanese crew shuddered at their terrible, menacing roar. They were unapproachable, except by Peezo, and> within four days at sea Peezo was stroking their heads and talking to them in their own language for surely jungle creatures have a language. Peezo has been foster-mother to many of my animals. He brought up by hand a little Malayan honeybear, which had lost its mother, for instance. Peezo supplied the absent parent’s place, feeding the little fellow with milk and arrowroot, and when they had to part, both of them wept.' That is the tragedy of the thing to Peezo. Continual partings from his pets of a voyage never accustom to the separation.

It have said that I have to study diets to bring animals and birds,safely across the ocean. I have found that it is bad to overfeed them—in which they are like human being. A little starvation is healthy. For instance, I feed my tigers big chunks of meat every day but Friday. That day that fast, healthily hungry. Birds easily die if they do not get exactly the right diet. It is curious how birds, even of the same species, differ in differing climates. As an instance, I was very struck by the size of hens’ eggs in Australia. In Java the eggs qyq tijiy, I couldn’t understand it, so I bought a lot of prize birds in Australia and took them back to Java. I exhibited them at shows, and won over 40 silver medals. What is more important, those prize hens have preached bigger and better eggs to Javanese birds with the result that to-day Java gets eggs nearly as big as those laid by Australian fowls. Such is the force of example. The finest passengers I have ever carried are pythons —in fact, snakes, generally. They go down into their state room on arrival, you see; they have no luggage, they need no meals, and no drinks. They make themselves comfortable and go into a state of coma until a steward rouses them at the end of the voyage and they remark, “So this is Melbourne!” and step on shore. That is the ideal passenger. Sometimes, by the way, amusing things happen. A few months ago I was bringing some peacocks to Melbourne for Mr Foster Woods. The first night at sea Peezo woke me by knocking excitedly at my cabin. It appeared that the whole of the Javanese crew were alarmed and could not be quitened. The peacocks had been uttering the cries which, m the jungle from which most of the crew

had come, showed the dreaded presence of the man-eating tiger. The sailors could not rid their minds of the idea that danger still threatened from their age-old enemy.

Most of our animals are for exchange between the various zoos. The biggest we carry are tapirs, the smallest come as passengers on the largest. lam a great admirer of Australian birds, many of which I have taken abroad. For plumage and song there are none in the world like them. The tropical birds I bring to Australia in exchange are generally rare, and even in Java are costly to buy. They cost, when landed here, anything frorii £5 to £lO each, so you see them are worth taking care of. It may seem strange that an ani-mal-lover should also be a big-game hunter. When I am on shore my chief sport is shooting. The best game is wild boar, which provides plenty of excitement. Personally, I have never had any adventures while hunting, but that is my good luck. Big-game hunting is very expensive, and therefore is generally enjoyed only by the Wealthy. Rich Americans go to Sumatra, where the best game abounds, and organise expeditions which go from Palembang, on the South Coast or Medan on the North, 400 or 500 miles. Sumatra is the El Dorado of these hunting expeditions, which take no account of expense. Some Americans I knew took a European chef and a big staff of servants with them, and all modern conveniences. Such an expedition would cost as much as 20,000 dollars for a month.

I wish I could relate hair-raising adventures of the sort that gamehunters tell. Unfortunately I have no imagination! In all my sea experiences, for instance, the only bad storm I remember was a cyclone off the west coast of Australia 12 years ago. I was then in command of the Le Matang. The cyclone lasted for three days. There was nothing I could do to stop it, so I took observations. The Queen of the Netherlands gives a gold and a silver medal each year for the meteorological observations furnished by the merchant service, and I got the gold medal for my work during the cyclone. | I think the only other untoward even happened during the war, when I was stopped by the German cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Geier. They wanted coal. We were burning oil. They were very courteous, and left immediately with regrets for stopping us. Not much of an adventure in that..

Sea-captains sometimes have splendid yarns to tell of curious passengei’s. I have been asked by seekers after romance if I have ever married people at sea, since we sea-cap-tains have that power. I reply to all who have asked me to marry them — “You can easily wait till we get to port.” On our run we are never more than eight days from a real parson. And they have waited. On adventure with a passenger I do recall. It was some time ago. We were at Port Moresby when a man came on board and began to' drink. Soon after we left Port Moresby he got a gun and came looking for me. He wanted to shoot me. I didn’t want him to, so I arrested him and locked him in a cabin till we got to Thursday Island. Then I handed him over, but I don’t remember what became of him. Our fleet is under contract to the Dutch Government to land soldiers when required, if any trouble occurs in the islands. Twenty-five years ago, when the Sultan of Boni, in the Celebes, was giving trouble, my ship was ordered to take soldiers and land them on the beach. I was chief officer then, and was in charge of the surf boats filled with soldiers. Fifty men, under an officer, were qrammed into each boat, of which there were 24, and we had to land in the face of a gruelling fire from 10,000 men behind ramparts. It was the worst experience I have ever had. We landed, beat off the defending force, and then put all the soldiers on shore without difficulty. The Sultan was

deposed, and the Government put in a Resident. Life has been very good to me. An uneventful life began for me when I was taken away from my rabbits. Bigger animals took the place of those little creatures for a time, but now I am back in a shore job, representing my company in Melbourne, I think I will go back to keeping rabbits, if the law will allow me. So will Peezo, who also is retiring from the sea on a pension, and intends, in Java, to start a chinchilla rabbit farm for the fur trade. A peaceful business for him, one of a race which is the most peaceful and faithful in the world. As for me, I shall be glad to settle down in this land I have learned to loye.