SEARCH OF RISK AND ADVENTURE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 60, 27 March 1937, Page 9

SEARCH OF RISK AND ADVENTURE

COURAGE & ENDURANCE Rare Animals and Birds

JgVERY YEAR a number of expeditions set out on some quest in the less known corners of the world. Some of them pursue ecientific aims, but the majority consist of men, lately ako of an increasing number of women, overcome by a sudden desire to break with a commonplace and secnre present and go in search of risk and adventure, writes Michael Candie. But quite a few of these expeditions are organised for the purpose of captuVing rare animals and birds and "bringing them back alive," for this is merchandise which knows no depression. Within the past few years at least 300 people have tried to win the prize offered by the London Zoo for a eertain antelope. All of them failed, which is all the more surprising as some of these creatures have a very showy fur and have frequently been observed by natives and white men. The London Zoo will pay from 5000 dollars upward for a specimen of the bonzo or chirou, and the lucky fellow who brings a dwarf antelope of New Guinea to London will earn the eternal gratitude of the Zoo, even if he deigned to accept the 20,000 dollars offered for it. The creature haunts the dreams of the zo«logists which is not to be wondered at. Mtmsidering that it is striped like a zebra and not larger than a rabbit. A similar amount is offered for a specimen of the "spectaeled" antelope. The highest price would undoubtedly be fetehed by a live okapi. The only specimen living in captivity died recently. It was the property of the Antwerp Zoo and the pet of the nation. Most likelv it would fetch from 20,000 dollars to 30,000 dollars to-day. The giant or Comodo Lizard, the only snrvival of the legendary creature, discovcred a few years ago, brought 20,000 dollars, so that the American who captured eight of them made quite a bit of money. Nobody can say that this is a business which is not luerative. Slrangely enough, nol a living animal

but a prehistoric skeleton heads the list of these quotations. Searchers from all lands have dug up the eands of New Zealand and only one expedition was lucky enough to find a few bones_, which could be reconstructed into part of the skeleton of the moa. Even this meagre booty brought the lucky finders severn] hundred thousaud dollars. The man who finds a complete skeleton, will become a irillionaire over night. It was tiie passion of adventure that drove my friend Captain Swen, whose acquaintance I had made somewhere on the Baltic, to give up his ship and luerative hunting trade and join a Russian expedition to Kamchatka. After a long and perilous journey on sledges fortune smiled on them: they discovered three great mammoths. In glowing colours Swen himself described the details of his unique experience. After several charges of dynamite they finally succeeded in releasing one of the beasts from its prison of ice in which it must have been sleeping at least 300,000 years. Awe:strieken they stood before it and even the Eskimo dogs, famous for their courage, were trembling with fear. The mammoth looked exactly as it must have looked the day it was overtaken by death. The flesh was as fresh and appetising as though it had just come from the butcher. They were almost sorry to have sliced it off. It was tlirown to the dogs, who enjoyed their meal hugely and were none the worse for it. On my peregrinations through the port of Rio I ran into my old friend

banchez, who was walking toward me dangling a bag on his arm. "Want to see what's in it?" he asked me. I piunged my arm into the bag and pulled out something of the size of a large apple, covered with a coarse thick aown. I took a look at it and threw it away with a scream of horror: the horrible, shrivelled little thing had eyes, hair, a nose and a mouthj It was a reduced human head. Banchez looked at me disapprovingly, picked up the head aud carefully replaced it in his bag. "£>ince you Parisians never know what is going on in your city, you may not be aware thot these knick-knacks are all the craze just now. I supply two Paris firms and I can't fill their orders, although I am particularly well placed for getting the ' 'mammons.'.' He then proceeded to explain the rather complicated processing of these horrors. The skull is smashed open, emptied and filled with hot sand. Then a substance, for" which each tribe has its own jsalously guarded secret formula, is poured into the nostrik. A second time 1 came across human heads, in natural size however, at a ••urio-shop in Ban Francisco. T'hc\ came from New Guinea, the dealer told me. He had only four left of a eollection of 150, sold out in a few days. His agent, a Mr. Brown, was exploring tlie interior of New Guinea in search of more merchandise. He had not heard from him for eight montlis and had therefore sent out a second man. He was expecting to hear from the latter in a few

days and invited me to call again. I did call again in ten days and, as the dealer had suspected 'Mr. Brown had fallen the victim of his devotion to the business. He employed a native boy to help him hunt for "bargains." As they had not found anything for quite some time, Brown offered the boy a special reward if he would dig up something. This sot the native thinking and he remembered that he had an enemy of long standing in the neiglibourhood. He then decided to satisfy his spirit of vengeance and earn the reward in one stroke. The head was duly chopped off and brought to Mr. Brown, but the boy 'a triumpb was short-lived. The relatives of the victim found him out and chopped his head off. This started . a bloody f eud between the two clans and not a day passed without a murder. The war soon spread to one half of the island and a British cruiser had to bo summonej to make pea-ce. In the meantime, however, the original head was discovered in the possesslon of- Mr. Brown, who paid with his own life for his imprudence. The news reaclied the dealer a lew days before tlie merchandise shipped by the second agent. When he went about unpaclting the cases — something he always attends to personally — he nearly fainted, for one of the packages contained the unrortunate Mr. Brown 'a head, complete with red hair and golden teeth. He spent a sleeplss night wondering whether he ought to burn it or drop it into the ocean, since he could not very well present it to the widow. Finally he deeided to sell it and share the proceeds with the widow. After that who could say that romance and adventure have gone out of our lives? There is still plenty of both. What is lacking is the courage to break with comfort and convention and to exchange seeurity for the hazards of adventure. And no wonder, for the dreams of those who dare saies ora come true.