The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont

by Louis de Rougemont

  CHAPTER XVI

  A teacher of English--Myself as a black-fellow--I rest content--Anunknown terror--Manufacture of gunpowder--A curious find--The fieryraft--In the lair of snakes--A dangerous enemy--An exciting scene--Aqueer sport--Respect for the victor--A vain hope--Soredisappointment--Yamba in danger--A strange duel--My opponent greets me.

  My two children were a source of great delight to me at thistime,--although of course they were half-castes, the colour of their skinbeing very little different from that of their mother. The whiteness oftheir hands and finger-nails, however, clearly indicated their origin.They were not christened in the Christian way, neither were they broughtup exactly in the same way as the native children.

  I taught them English. I loved them very dearly, and used to make forthem a variety of gold ornaments, such as bangles and armlets. They didnot participate in all the rough games of the black children, yet theywere very popular, having winning manners, and being very quick to learn.I often told them about my life in other parts of the world; but wheneverI spoke of civilisation, I classed all the nations of the universetogether, and referred to them as "my home," or "my country." I did notattempt to distinguish between France and Switzerland, England andAmerica. Curiously enough, the subject that interested them most was theanimal kingdom, and when I told them that I hoped some day to take themaway with me to see my great country and the animals it contained, theywere immensely delighted. Particularly they wanted to see the horse, thelion, and the elephant. Taking a yam-stick as pointer, I would oftendraw roughly in the sand almost every animal in Nature. But even whenthese rough designs were made for my admiring audience, I found itextremely difficult to convey an idea of the part in the economy ofNature which each creature played. I would tell them, however, that thehorse was used for fighting purposes and for travel; that the cow yieldedfood and drink, and that the dogs drew sledges. It was absolutelynecessary to dwell only on the utilitarian side of things. Beasts ofburden would be incomprehensible. Both of my children were very proud ofmy position among and influence over the blacks.

  And really I looked like a black-fellow myself at this time--not so muchon account of exposure, as because my body was constantly coated with thecharcoal and grease which serves as a protection from the weather andfrom insects. My children, you may be interested to learn, never graspedthe fact that my exile was other than quite voluntary on my part.

  The children of the blacks continued to interest me as much as ever (Iwas always fond of children); and I never grew tired of watching them attheir quaint little games. I think they all loved me as much as I didthem, and I was glad to see that their lives were one long dream ofhappiness. They had no school to attend, no work to perform, and nopunishment to suffer. There are no children like the children of thebush for perfect contentment. They seldom or never quarrelled, and wereall day long playing happily about the camp, practising throwing theirreed spears; climbing the trees after the honey-pods, and indulging in athousand and one merry pranks. Often and often I looked at those robustlittle rascals, and compared them sadly with my own children, who weredelicate almost from birth, and who caused me so much anxiety andheartache.

  When the combination of circumstances, which is now well known to myreaders, caused me to settle in my mountain home, two or three hundredmiles to the north of Gibson's Desert, I had no idea that I should remainthere for many years.

  But strangely enough, as year after year slipped by, the desire to returnto civilisation seemed to leave me, and I grew quite content with my lot.Gradually I began to feel that if civilisation--represented, say, by alarge caravan--were to come to me, and its leader was willing not merelyto take me away, but my wife and children also, then indeed I wouldconsent to go; but for no other consideration could I be induced to leavethose who were now so near and dear to me. I may as well mention herethat I had many chances of returning _alone_ to civilisation, but neveravailed myself of them. As I spent the greater part of twenty years inmy mountain home, it stands to reason that it is this part of my careerwhich I consult for curious and remarkable incidents.

  One day a great darkness suddenly came over the face of Nature. Thesombre gloom was relieved only by a strange lurid glare, which hung onthe distant horizon far away across that weird land. The air was soonfilled with fine ashes, which descended in such quantities as to coverall vegetation, and completely hide exposed water-holes and lagoons. Evenat the time I attributed the phenomenon to volcanic disturbance, and Ihave since found that it was most likely due to an eruption of thevolcano of Krakatoa. This visitation occasioned very great consternationamong the superstitious blacks, who concluded that the spirits had beenangered by some of their own misdeeds, and were manifesting their wrathin this unpleasant way. I did not attempt to enlighten them as to itstrue cause, but gave them to understand vaguely that I had something todo with it. I also told them that the great spirit, whose representativeI was, was burning up the land.

  Another phenomenon that caused much mystification and terror was aneclipse of the sun. Never have I seen my blacks in such a state ofexcitement and terror as when that intense darkness came suddenly overthe world at midday. They came crowding instinctively to me, and I stoodsilent among the cowering creatures, not thinking it politic for a momentto break the strange and appalling stillness that prevailed on everyhand--and which extended even to the animal world. The trembling blackswere convinced that night had suddenly descended upon them, but they hadno explanation whatever to offer. They seemed quite unfamiliar with thephenomenon, and it was apparently not one of those many things whichtheir forefathers wove superstitious stories around, to hand down totheir children. As the great darkness continued, the natives retired torest, without even holding the usual evening chant. I did not attempt toexplain the real reason of the phenomenon, but as I had no particular endto serve, I did not tell them that it was due to my power.

  Never once, you see, did I lose an opportunity of impressing the savagesamong whom I dwelt. On several occasions, having all the ingredients atmy disposal, I attempted to make gunpowder, but truth to tell, myexperiments were not attended with very great success. I had charcoal,saltpetre, and sulphur ready to my hand,--all obtainable from naturalsources close by; but the result of all my efforts (and I tried mixingthe ingredients in every conceivable way) was a very coarse kind ofpowder with practically no explosive force, but which would go off withan absurd "puff."

  Now I was very anxious to make an _explosive_ powder, not merely becauseit would assist me in impressing the blacks, but also because I proposedcarrying out certain blasting operations in order to obtain minerals andstones which I thought would be useful. The net result was that althoughI could not manufacture any potent explosive, yet I did succeed inarousing the intense curiosity of the blacks. My powder burnt withoutnoise, and the natives could never quite make out where the flame camefrom.

  As there seemed to be a never-ending eagerness on the part of the blacksto witness the wonders of the white man, I even tried my hand at makingice--a commodity which is, of course, absolutely unknown in CentralAustralia. The idea came to me one day when I found myself in a verycool cave, in which there was a well of surprisingly cold water.Accordingly, I filled some opossum skins with the refreshing fluid,placed them in the coolest part of the cave, and then covered them withsaltpetre, of which there was an abundance. When I tell you that theexperiment was quite fruitless, you will readily understand that I didnot always succeed in my role of wonder-worker. But whenever I wasdefeated, it only had the effect of making me set my wits to work todevise something still more wonderful--something which I was certainwould be an assured success.

  Whilst taking, a stroll in the region of my mountain home one day, myeyes--which were by this time almost as highly trained as those of theblacks themselves--suddenly fastened upon a thin stream of some greenishfluid which was apparently oozing out of the rocky ground. Closerinvestigation proved that this was not water. I collected a quantity of
it in a kangaroo skin, but this took a considerable time, because theliquid oozed very slowly.

  I would not have taken this trouble were it not that I was pretty certain_I had discovered a spring of crude petroleum_. Immediately, and by akind of instinct, it occurred to me that I might make use of this oil asyet another means of impressing the blacks with my magical powers. Itold no one of my discovery--not even Yamba. First of all I constructeda sort of raft from the branches of trees, thoroughly saturating eachbranch with the oil. I also placed a shallow skin reservoir of oil onthe upper end of the raft, and concealed it with twigs and leaves. Thisdone, I launched my interesting craft on the waters of the lagoon, havingso far carried out all my preparations in the strictest secrecy. Wheneverything was ready I sent out invitations by mail-men, smoke signals,and message sticks to tribes both far and near, to come and see me _setfire to the water_! In parentheses, I may remark, that with regard tosmoke-signals, white smoke only is allowed to ascend in wreaths andcurls; while black smoke is sent up in one great volume. As by this timemy fame was pretty well established, the wonder-loving children of Naturelost no time in responding to the summons; and at length, when the mysticglow of a Central Australian evening had settled over the scene, a greatgathering established itself on the shores of the lagoon. On suchoccasions, however, I always saw to it that my audience were not toonear. But anyhow there was little chance of failure, because the blackshad long since grown to believe in me blindly and implicitly.

  With much ceremony I set fire to the raft, hoisted a little bark sailupon it, and pushed it off. It lay very low in the water, and as theamazed onlookers saw it gliding across the placid waters of the lagoonenveloped in smoke and flames, they did actually believe that I had setfire to the water itself--particularly when the blazing oil was seen inlurid patches on the placid surface. They remained watching till thefire died down, when they retired to their own homes, more convinced thanever that the white man among them was indeed a great and powerfulspirit.

  But, human nature being fundamentally the same all the world over, it wasnatural enough--and, indeed, the wonder is how I escaped so long--thatone or other of the tribal medicine-men should get jealous of my powerand seek to overthrow me. Now, the medicine-man belonging to the tribein my mountain home presently found himself (or fancied himself) under acloud,--the reason, of course, being that my display of wonders fartranscended anything which he himself could do. So my rival commenced aninsidious campaign against me, trying to explain away every wonderfulthing that I did, and assuring the blacks that if I were a spirit at allit was certainly a spirit of evil. He never once lost an opportunity ofthrowing discredit and ridicule upon me and my powers; and at length Idiscerned symptoms in the tribe which rendered it imperatively necessarythat I should take immediate and drastic steps to overthrow my enemy,who, by the way, had commenced trying to duplicate every one of my tricksor feats. I gave the matter some little thought, and one day, whilst outon one of my solitary rambles, I came across a curious natural feature ofthe landscape, which suggested to me a novel and, I venture to say,remarkable solution of a very serious situation.

  I suddenly found myself on the brink of a peculiar basin-like depression,which, from its obvious dampness and profusion of bush and cover, I atonce recognised as the ideal abode of innumerable snakes. I marked thespot in my mind, and returned home, pondering the details of the dramaticvictory I hoped to win. Day by day I returned to this depression andcaught numerous black and carpet snakes. From each of these dangerousand poisonous reptiles I removed the poison fangs only; and then, afterscoring it with a cross by means of my stiletto, I let it go, knowingthat it would never leave a spot so ideal--from a snake's point of view.I operated on a great number of the deadly reptiles in this way, but, ofcourse there remained many who were not so treated; whilst several of myqueer patients died outright under the operation. Needless to say, Imight have met my own death in this extraordinary business had I not beenassisted by my devoted wife. When we had finished our work, there wasabsolutely nothing in the appearance of the place to indicate that it wasany different from its state when I first cast my eyes upon it.

  Then, all being ready, I chose a specially dramatic moment at a_corroboree_ to challenge my rival in a war song, this challenge beingsubstantially as follows: "You tell the people that you are as great asI--the all-powerful white spirit-man. Well, now, I offer you a formalchallenge to perform the feat which I shall perform on a certain day andat a certain spot." The day was the very next day, and the spot, thescene of my strange surgical operations upon the snakes. The effect ofmy challenge was magical.

  The jealous medicine-man, boldly and openly challenged before the wholetribe, had no time to make up an evasive reply, and he accepted then andthere. Urgent messages were despatched, by the fun-loving blacks, to allthe tribes, so that we were pretty sure of a large and attentiveaudience. It was about midday when the ridge round the depression wascrowded with expectant blacks, every one of whom dearly loved a contest,or competition, of whatever kind. I lost no time--for in love or warshilly-shallying is unknown among the blacks--but boldly leaped down intothe hollow armed only with a reed whistle, which I had made for myselfsolely with the view of enticing the snakes from their holes. I cast atriumphant glance at my impassive rival, who, up to this moment, had notthe faintest idea what the proposed ordeal was. I commenced to play aslively a tune as the limited number of notes in the whistle would allow,and before I had been playing many minutes the snakes came gliding out,swinging their heads backwards and forwards and from side to side asthough they were under a spell. Selecting a huge black snake, who boreunobtrusively my safety mark, I pounced down upon him and presented mybare arm. After teasing the reptile two or three times I allowed him tostrike his teeth deep into my flesh, and immediately the blood began torun. I also permitted several other fangless snakes to bite me until myarms and legs, breast and back, were covered with blood. Personally, Idid not feel much the worse, as the bites were mere punctures, and I knewthe selected reptiles to be quite innocuous. Several "unmarked" snakes,however, manifested an eager desire to join in the fun, and I had somedifficulty in escaping their deadly attentions. I had to wave them asidewith a stick.

  All this time the blacks above me were yelling with excitement, and I amunder the impression that several were lamenting my madness, whilstothers were turning angrily upon my rival, and accusing him of havingbrought about my death. At a favourable moment I rushed up the ridge ofthe hollow and stood before the horrified medicine-man, who, in responseto my triumphant demand to go and do likewise, returned a feeble andtremulous negative. Even he, I think, was now sincerely convinced that Ipossessed superhuman powers; but it would have been awkward had he comealong when I was laboriously and surreptitiously extracting the poisonfangs from the snakes, and placing my "hall mark" upon them.

  His refusal cost him his prestige, and he was forthwith driven from thetribe as a fraud, whilst my fame rose higher than ever. The blacks nowwished me to take over the office of medicine-man, but I declined to doso, and nominated instead a youth I had trained for the position. It maybe necessary here to remark that the blacks, under no circumstances, killa medicine-man. My defeated rival was a man of very considerable power,and I knew quite well that if I did not get the best of him he would have_me_ driven out of the tribe and perhaps speared.

  Mention of the snake incident reminds me of a very peculiar andinteresting sport which the blacks indulge in. I refer to fights betweensnakes and iguanas. These combats certainly afford very fine sport. Thetwo creatures are always at mortal enmity with one another, but as a rulethe iguana commences the attack, no matter how much bigger the snake maybe than himself; or whether it is poisonous or not. I have seen iguanasattack black snakes from six feet to ten feet in length, whilst theythemselves rarely measured more than three or four feet. As a rule theiguana makes a snapping bite at the snake a few inches below its head,and the latter instantly retaliates by striking it
s enemy with itspoisonous fangs. Then an extraordinary thing happens. The iguana willlet go his hold and straightway make for a kind of fern, which he eats inconsiderable quantities, the object of this being to counteract theeffects of the poison. When he thinks he has had enough of the antidotehe rushes back to the scene of the encounter and resumes the attack; _thesnake always waits there for him_. Again and again the snake bites theiguana, and as often the latter has recourse to the counteractinginfluences of the antidote. The fight may last for upwards of an hour,but eventually the iguana conquers. The final struggle is most exciting.The iguana seizes hold of the snake five or six inches below the head,and this time refuses to let go his hold, no matter how much the snakemay struggle and enwrap him in its coils. Over and over roll thecombatants, but the grip of the iguana is relentless; and the strugglesof the snake grow weaker, until at length he is stretched out dead. Thenthe triumphant iguana steals slowly away.

  The spectators would never dream of killing him,--partly on account oftheir admiration for his prowess, but more particularly because his fleshis tainted with poison from the repeated snake bites. These curiousfights generally take place near water-holes.

  I have also seen remarkable combats between snakes of various species andsizes. A small snake will always respond to the challenge of a muchlarger one, this challenge taking the form of rearing up and hissing. Thelittle snake will then advance slowly towards its opponent and attempt tostrike, but, as a rule, the big one crushes it before it can do any harm.I had often heard of the joke about two snakes of equal size trying toswallow one another, and was, therefore, the more interested when I cameacross this identical situation in real life. One day, right in mytrack, lay two very large snakes which had evidently been engaged in avery serious encounter; and the victor had commenced swallowing hisexhausted adversary. He had disposed of some three or four feet of thatadversary's length when I arrived on the scene, and was evidently restingbefore taking in the rest. I easily made prisoners of both.

  Not long after this incident a delusive hope was held out to me that Imight be able to return to civilisation. News was brought one day thatthe tracks of some strange and hitherto unknown animals had been found tothe north, and, accompanied by Yamba, I went off to inspect them. Ifound that they were camel tracks--for the second time; and as Yambainformed me that, from the appearance of the trail, there was no one withthem, I concluded that in all probability the creatures were wild, havinglong ago belonged to some exploring party which had come to grief.

  "Here at length," I thought, "is the means of returning to civilisation.If I can only reach these creatures--and why should I not with so muchassistance at my disposal?--I will break them in, and then strike southacross the deserts with my wife and family." I returned to the camp, andtaking with me a party of the most intelligent tribesmen, set off afterthe wild camels. When we had been several days continuously tracking wecame up with the beasts. There were four of them altogether, and rightwild and vicious-looking brutes they were. They marched close togetherin a band, and never parted company. The moment I and my men tried toseparate and head them off, the leader would swoop down upon us with openmouth, and the result of this appalling apparition was that my blackassistants fled precipitately. Alone I followed the camels for severaldays in the hope of being able ultimately to drive them into some ravine,where I thought I might possibly bring them into a state of subjection bysystematic starvation. But it was a vain effort on my part. They keptin the track of water-holes, and wandered on from one to the other atconsiderable speed.

  At length I abandoned hope altogether, though not without a feeling ofsore disappointment, as I watched the curious, ungainly creaturesdisappearing over the ridge of a sand-hill. Of course I took good carenot to tell any of the natives the real reason of my desire to possess acamel,--though I did try to explain to them some of the uses to whichpeople in other parts of the world put these wonderful animals.

  I never lost an opportunity of leaving records wherever I could. As Ihave said before, I was constantly blazing trees and even making drawingsupon them; and I would have left records in cairns had I been able tomake any writing material. Talking about this, I was for a long timepossessed with the desire to make myself a kind of paper, and Ifrequently experimented with the fibres of a certain kind of tree. Thismaterial I reduced to a pulp, and then endeavoured to roll into sheets.Here again, however, I had to confess failure. I found the ordinarysheets of bark much more suitable for my purpose.

  Pens I had in thousands from the quills of the wild swan and goose; and Imade ink from the juice of a certain dark-coloured berry, mixed withsoot, which I collected on the bottom of my gold cooking-kettle. I alsothought it advisable to make myself plates from which to eat my food--notbecause of any fastidiousness on my part, but from that ever-presentdesire to impress the blacks, which was now my strongest instinct. Inthe course of my ramblings in the northern regions I came acrossquantities of silver-lead, which I smelted with the object of obtaininglead to beat out into plates. I also went some hundreds of miles for thesake of getting copper, and found great quantities of ores of differentkinds in the Kimberley district.

  A very strange experience befell Yamba not long after I had settled downamong the blacks in my mountain home; and it serves to illustrate thestrictness with which the laws against poaching are observed. Theincident I am about to relate concerned me very nearly, and might havecost me my life as well as my wife. Well, it happened that Yamba and Iwere one day returning from one of the many "walkabouts" which we wereconstantly undertaking alone and with natives, and which sometimesextended over several weeks and even months. We had pitched our camp forthe afternoon, and Yamba went off, as usual, in search of roots and gamefor the evening meal. She had been gone some little time when I suddenlyheard her well-known "coo-eey" and knowing that she must be in trouble ofsome kind, I immediately grasped my weapons and went off to her rescue,guiding myself by her tracks.

  A quarter of a mile away I came upon a scene that filled me withamazement. There was Yamba--surely the most devoted wife a man,civilised or savage, ever had--struggling in the midst of quite a crowdof blacks, who were yelling and trying forcibly to drag her away. Atonce I saw what had happened. Yamba had been hunting for roots over theboundary of territory belonging to a tribe with whom we had not yet madefriends; and as she had plainly been guilty of the great crime oftrespass, she was, according to inviolable native law, confiscated bythose who had detected her. I rushed up to the blacks and began toremonstrate with them in their own tongue, but they were both truculentand obstinate, and refused to release my now weeping and terrified Yamba.At last we effected a compromise,--I agreeing to accompany the party,with their captive, back to their encampment, and there have the mattersettled by the chief. Fortunately we had not many miles to march, but,as I anticipated, the chief took the side of his own warriors, andpromptly declared that he would appropriate Yamba for himself. Iexplained to him, but in vain, that my wife's trespass was committed allunknowingly, and that had I known his tribe were encamped in thedistrict, I would have come immediately and stayed with them a fewnights.

  As showing what a remarkable person I was, I went through part of myacrobatic repertoire; and even my poor eager Bruno, who evidently scentedtrouble, began on his own account to give a hurried and imperfect show.He stood on his head and tumbled backwards and forwards in a lamentablyloose and unscientific manner, barking and yelling all the time.

  I do not know whether the wily chief had made up his mind to see more ofus or not; but at any rate he looked at me very fiercely as thoughdetermined to carry his point, and then replied that there was but onelaw--which was that Yamba should be confiscated for poaching, whether thecrime was intentional on her part or not. So emphatically was this saidthat I began to think I had really lost my faithful companion for ever.As this awful thought grew upon me, and I pondered over the terriblepast, I made up my mind that if necessary I would lose my own life in herdefenc
e, and to this end I adopted a very haughty attitude, which causedthe chief suddenly to discover a kind of by-law to the effect that insuch cases as this one the nearest relative of the prisoner might win herback by fighting for her. This, of course, was what I wanted, above allthings--particularly as the old chief had not as yet seen me use mywonderful weapons. And as I felt certain he would choose throwingspears, I knew that victory was mine. He selected, with a critical eye,three well-made spears, whilst I chose three arrows, which I purposelybrandished aloft, so as to give my opponent the impression that they wereactually small spears, and were to be thrown, as such, javelin-fashion.The old chief and his blacks laughed heartily and pityingly at thisexhibition, and ridiculed the idea that I could do any damage with suchtoy weapons.

  The demeanour of the chief himself was eloquent of the good-humouredcontempt in which he held me as an antagonist; and a distance of twentypaces having been measured out, we took our places and prepared for thedramatic encounter, upon which depended something more precious to methan even my own life. Although outwardly cool and even haughty, I wasreally in a state of most terrible anxiety. I fixed my eyes intentlyupon the spare but sinewy chief, and without moving a muscle allowed himto throw his spears first. The formidable weapons came whizzing throughthe air with extraordinary rapidity one after the other; but longexperience of the weapon and my own nimbleness enabled me to avoid them.But no sooner had I stepped back into position for the third time than,with lightning dexterity, I unslung my bow and let fly an arrow at myantagonist which I had purposely made heavier than usual by weighting itwith fully an ounce of gold. Naturally he failed to see the littlefeathered shaft approach, and it pierced him right in the fleshy part ofthe left thigh--exactly where I intended. The chief leaped from theground more in surprise than pain, as though suddenly possessed by anevil spirit. His warriors, too, were vastly impressed. As blood wasdrawn in this way, honour and the law were alike supposed to besatisfied, so Yamba was immediately restored to me, trembling and halfafraid to credit her own joyful senses.

  My readers will, perhaps, wonder why these cannibal savages did not goback on their bargain and refuse to give her up, even after I hadvanquished their chief in fair fight; but the honourable course theyadopted is attributable solely to their own innate sense of fair-play,and their admiration for superior prowess and skill.

  Why, when the chief had recovered from his astonishment he came up to me,and greeted me warmly, without even taking the trouble to remove my arrowfrom his bleeding thigh! We became the very best of friends; and Yambaand I stayed with him for some days as his guests. When at length wewere obliged to leave, he gave me quite an imposing escort, as though Iwere a powerful friendly chief who had done him a great service!