TALE THAT ROCKED THE WORLD

Radio Record, 10 June 1938, Page 10

TALE THAT ROCKED

THE WORLD

Written for the "Record" by

WILL

GRAVE

$0 HE LIVED WITH YAMBA AND HIS DOG BRUNO

oO N Empire shortwave broadcast, the BBC lately gave feature programme on the life of Louis de Rougement. The tales of this adventurer of 40 years ago once rocked the world, first with amazement, then with disbelief and finally with derision. Sober New Zealand turned down the story that was later to set Fleet Street aflame but still in the Turnbull Library, Wellington, are records of this astonishing mon, one of the greatest liers, or greatest adventurers, the world has ever known.

} ORTY ONE years ago a small, elderly man, with skin oddly wrinkled and scorched, walked into the offices of a Wellington news-

paper. He wanted to tell the newspaper a story. Befriended by spiritualist friends in Wellington, — lx was introduced us Mr. de Green to the well-known newspuper man, Mr. T. L. Mills, uow of Yeilding, who hus known most celebrities of Australia and New Zealand in hig busy life, and has spoken of them at times over the air for the NBS. ’ "| HAD the reputation of being able to suffer Cools gladly," says Mr. Mills, "but Mr. de Green was too much for me. His tales were incoherent and so was his» manner." : Mr. Mills took him to a circus that evening and fobbea him off. The strange Mr. de Green caught the New Zealand Shipping Company's vessel, "The Port Waikato," for england. Tap On Door OON afterwards he walked into the offices of the "Wide World Magazine" in London. He first appeared in the editerial offices of the "Wide World" at 4 p.m. on a late spring day. .°- ; The editor heard a.timid tap on the door. A man entered; bearded, of striking appearance. His manner was quiet and courteous. His accent foreign. He said he had been for 30 years among the cannibals of unexplored North-western Australia. The -"Wide World" published the story that the Wellington newspaper turned down. It was a story that threw the whole of England first into amazement, then into doubt and finally into a storm of derision. But-before the derision stage was reached, the aimazing Mr. de Green, now going under the name of Mr. Louis de Rougement, had told his experiences to a solemn conelave of the august scientific body, the British Association,

and had roused a fierce controversy that has not yet quite died down. Men asked themselves: "Can such things be?" ND even to-day the name of Louis de

Rougement is remembered as the man who out-lied Baron Munchausen or out-did Mareo Polo. Only a few days ago the BBC broadeast a feature programme called, "The Strange Story of Louis de Rougement." To-day, in the Turnbull Library, Wellington, the story of the adventurer reposes, and along with it a letter written in his own haud, Choking The Sharks IS adventures begun, suid de Rougement, when he saileé in a pearling expedition from Batavia to New Guinea with a certain Captain Jensen, a number of Malayan divers and the captain’s dog Bruno. Eyen in the pearling odd things happened. When sharks came near the diving beds, the Malayans jumped overboard with 2 small knife in one hand, and a short stick of hard wood like a butcher's skewer, five inches in length and pointed at each end, in the other hand. The diver floated stationary on the-surface. until the shark made for him. As the shark rolled over to bite, the Malayan glided out of the way with a few strokes of the left hand, and with the right planted the skewer upright between the jaws of the shark. The result was simple and surprising. Unable to close its mouth, the shark found water rushing down its threat. The gills were forced tight and the water could not escape. The shark choked to death. FARLY one morning in 1864, the whole ship’s complement of Captain Jensen and the natives-all except de. Rougement and Bruno the dog-were out in the small boats when a storm came up. De Rougement had stayed on board ‘to receive and check the oyster shells. The smali boats were blown awuy to sea.

Alone on the ship with Bruno, de Rougement sailed for thirteen days until he foundered on a reei off the Australian coast. The ship was piled on the reef. De Rougement and Bruno took to the sea. Feeling himself sinking with exhaustion, de Rougement held on to the tip of Bruno's tail with his teeth until the faithful animal pulled him ashore. « PE found himself on a small sand-pit of an island, ~ 100 yards long, ten yards wide and eight feet above sea-level at high water. Next day the storm having gone down he was able to get out to the wreck. He got a tomahawk, a bow and arrows; a .stiletto and some Indian corn seeds from the ship. To grow food, he filled a large turtle with sand and clay, wetted it with turtle’s blood and puddled it. He planted the corn seed. The crop did well and later he transplanted it. Collecting the old used pearl shells from the ship, he next made himself a house out of them. He fed himself by fishing and by bringing down birds with his bow and arrows, ° To ward of ennui and the depression caused by his solitary state, he took up the exercise of gymnasties. He became a proficient tumbler and acrobat and could turn two or three somersaults in the air while diving down from the sloping roof of his pearl shell hut, before reaching the ground. Suicide Averted QETEN he rushed into the sea to drown himself, the faithful Bruno barking meanwhile in anguish at his side, but he would cure himself of the desire by catching hold of a large turtle and swimming on the creature's back until his thoughts had been diverted into other channels. He liked swimming on turtles. This is how he did it’ He would wade out and catching a big one of 600Ib. weight, he would sit astride its back.

Away would swim the startled turtle. De Rougement steered it in a curious way. To make it turn left, he put his foot in its right eye, and vice versa to make it turn right. . To make it stop, he simply put his two big toes over the creature’s eyes. Sometimes he would go a mile out to sea on these rides. "TIME hung on his hands. He made a drum to beat from shark skins to cheer himself up, and he fastened messages round the necks of pelicans, stating his predicament, but the birds never came back. Often he would preach long sermons on Gospel texts to the faithful Bruno. ' Visitors Arrive QA duy he saw a catamaran floating near his island, followed by shurks. He drew the boat ashore and found four blacks lying on board, all emaciated and exhausted with hunger and thirst. a we One of them was 2 Woman, Yamba; who was to become his faithful companion and "wife." ie Before this, de Rougenent bad made a small boat from the timber of the wreck. Now, with the black people, he set out to their habitation down the coast *towards® the Cambridge Gulf. , ag a 13 was well reeeived. ‘The blacks’ admired his acrobatics. But lhe grew weary and longed for. civilisation. With Yamba he proposed a trip overland. They wandered on for many days. Once, when he was lassooing a young buffalo calf from a tree, the angry bull buffalo approached and endangered the life. of Yamba. . From the tree de Rougement fired with his bow and arrow. The arrow took the buffalo in the eye and stopped him. De Rougement fired at the other eye. . The buffalo was blinded. He descended from the tree and dispatched the animal with his tomahawk. . . wr That evening he felt the chills of fever. He could not get warm. To get heat, he slit the carease of thé buffalo from end te end and crawled into the interior. (Continued on page 39).° , a

Rocked The World

(Continned from page 11.) There he stayed the rest of the day and the night. Next morning he was A prisoner, the carecase having becoms eold and rigid. He had literally to dig himself out. But he came out cured. QYVERLAND wanderings brought him back to- Cambridge Gulf, where he fell in with a friendly tribe that was being attacked by its nelghbours. He fought and won the battle for them. This is how he @id it: He made himself stilts 18 inehes high and shot at the enemy with his bow and arrow. They fled in terror, Once he found. two white girls Raughters of a Captain Rogers, whose 700 ton barque had been wrecked on the coast. They were in the hands of a native chief. He rescued them, They lived happily together for a time-de Rongement, the two girls, Yamba und Brunv-but as the years passed he lost them all. The two girls were drowned and Yamba died. De Rougement had a son and daughter by Yamba, but they died too. AFTER this he left on a long march southward to civilisation until he fell in with prospectors. He went on to Coolgardie; to Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, Then it was that he came to Wellington. This, at least, is true, because ‘Tom Mills saw him. FROM Wellington, to London, and so to the "Wide World" offices and then to extraordinary fame. But after the first wave of belief in England cold doubt ‘crept in, The British public could not stomach, figuratively, these turtles, Fomented by a press campaign, a wave of disbelief In the tale swept the country, thongh de Rougement himeelf protested its truth till the last. He sank into obsenrity, and died in 1921. But in 1917, the North-west Australia Sefentifie Expedition brought back a film that, in many ways, bore out de fongement’s story, There were even mielures of peonle riding turtles,