Louis de Rougemont

“ Day after day we kept doggedly on, hugging the shore very closely, going in and out of every bay, and visiting almost every island, yet never seeing a single human being. We were apparently still many hundreds of miles away from our destination. To add to the wretchedness of the situation, my poor Yamba, who had been so devoted, so hardy, and so contented, at length began to manifest symptoms of illness, and complained gently of the weariness of it all. “You are looking,” she would say, “for a place that does not exist. You are looking for friends of whose very existence you are unaware.” ”

“ The people seemed to be divided into clans, and when one clan was busy inspecting my implements and utensils, another was patiently waiting its turn to examine the white man’s wonders. I sat in the boat for some time, fairly bewildered and deafened by the uproarious jabberings and shrill, excited cries of amazement and wonder that filled the air all round me. At last, however, the blacks who had come out to meet us on the island came to my rescue, and escorted me through the crowd, with visible pride, to an eminence overlooking the native camping-ground. ”

“ As the months glided into years, and I reviewed the whole of my strange life since the days when I went pearling with Jensen, the thought began gradually to steal into my mind, “Why not wait until civilisation comes to you—as it must do in time? Why weary yourself any more with incessant struggles to get back to the world—especially when you are so comfortable here?” Gradually, then, I settled down and was made absolute chief over a tribe of perhaps five hundred souls. ”

“ He told me much about that expedition which I can never reveal, for I do not know whether he was lying or raving. Poor, vulgar, Cockney Gibson! He seemed to know full well that he was dying, and the thought seemed to please him rather than otherwise. He appeared to me to be too tired, too weary to live—that was the predominant symptom.
I introduced Yamba to him, and we did everything we possibly could to cheer him, but he gradually sank lower and lower. I would say, “Cheer up, Gibson. Why, when you are able to walk we will make tracks straightway for civilisation. ”

“ But here there was nothing to save the mind from madness—merely a tiny strip of sand, invisible a few hundred yards out at sea.
When the fits of depression came upon me I invariably concluded that life was unbearable, and would actually rush into the sea, with the deliberate object of putting an end to myself. At these times my agony of mind was far more dreadful that any degree of physical suffering could have been, and death seemed to have a fascination for me that I could not resist. ”

“ The roar of the fast-spreading fire, the thousands of kangaroos, opossums, rats, snakes, iguanas, and birds that dashed hither and thither, to the accompaniment of bewildering shouts from the men and shrill screeches from the women, who occasionally assisted, flitting hither and thither like eerie witches amidst the dense pall of black smoke—all these made up a picture which is indelibly imprinted on my mind. ”

“ Every second was precious and every argument futile. While Yamba was getting ready the canoe I rushed from one group of natives to the other, coaxing, promising, imploring. I pointed out to them that they could propel their catamarans faster than I could paddle my canoe; and I promised them that if I reached the ship I would send them presents from the white man’s land of tomahawks and knives; gaily coloured cloths and gorgeous jewellery. ”

“ Ignorant almost of Australian geography I fancied, on reaching the western shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, that I had struck the Coral Sea, and that all I had to do was to strike north to reach Somerset, the white settlement I had heard about from the pearlers. I felt so confident Cape York lay immediately to the north, that I continued my course in that direction, paddling all day and running in-shore to camp at night. We lived mainly on shell-fish and sea-birds’ eggs at this time, and altogether life became terribly wearisome and monotonous. ”

“ As I looked at the prostrate and attenuated form that lay silent on the couch of eucalyptus leaves, I felt that life was merely the acutest agony, and that I must immediately seek oblivion in some form or the other, or lose my reason. It seemed, I say, impossible that Yamba could cease to be. ”

“ In my delirium of grief I often besought the repulsive savages about me to spear me where I stood.
Upon this subject I can dwell no more, because of what followed I have only the vaguest recollection.
For days I seemed to live in a kind of dream, and was not even sure that the people I met day by day were real beings. As to my awful loss, I am sure I did not realise it. What I did realise, however, was the necessity for immediate action. Like a dream to me also is the memory of the sincere grief of my blacks and their well-meant endeavours to console me. ”

“ Later Gunda brought his friends to be introduced to me, and to the best of my ability I went through the same ridiculous ceremony. I must say my new friends evinced an almost uncontrollable terror at the sight of me. Gunda, however, made it clear that I was not a returned spirit, but a man like themselves—a great man certainly, and a mysterious man, but a man all the same. Although by this time my skin had become tanned and dark, there was seemingly no end to the amazement it caused the blacks. ”

“ On alighting on the island they emptied their pouches on the sand—too often, I must confess, solely for my benefit. Selfish bachelor birds on returning with full pouches jerked their catch into the air, and so swallowed it. It used to amuse me, however, to watch a robber gull, perched on their back, cleverly and neatly intercepting the fish as it ascended. These fish, with broiled turtle meat and tinned fruits, made quite a sumptuous repast.
After breakfast I would have a swim when the tide was low and there was no likelihood of sharks being about. ”

“ That evening a corroboree on a gigantic scale was held in my honour; and on every side the blacks manifested great rejoicing at my return, which, of course, they never dreamed was involuntary. Human nature is, as I found, the same the world over, and one reason for my warm welcome was, that my blacks had just been severely thrashed by a neighbouring tribe, and were convinced that if I would help them to retaliate, they could not fail to inflict tremendous punishment upon their enemies. ”

“ The blacks were almost paralysed with fear, and many of them threw themselves prostrate on the ground, ignoring the hail of stones that fell upon their naked bodies. I stalked about majestically among them, exulting in my power and the success of my manifestation. The big cairn burnt for many days more fiercely than even a stack of coal would do; and I never ceased to wonder that the blacks themselves had not long ago found out the inflammable nature of the “stone.”
By this time Yamba could speak English tolerably well, but we did not invariably use that language. ”

“ I found I had launched the boat in a sort of lagoon several miles in extent, barred by a crescent of coral rocks, over which I could not possibly drag my craft into the open sea. Although the water covered the reefs at high tide it was never of sufficient depth to allow me to sail the boat over them. I tried every possible opening, but was always arrested at some point or other. After the first acute paroxysm of despair—beating my head with my clenched fists—I consoled myself with the thought that when the high tides came, they would perhaps lift the boat over that terrible barrier. ”

“ As a matter of courtesy, however, I spent the greater part of the day with the chief, for any man who manifests a desire for women’s society loses caste immediately; and in the evening, when the fact of my presence among the tribe had become more extensively known, and their curiosity aroused by the stories that Yamba had taken care to circulate, I attended a great corroboree, which lasted nearly the whole of the night. As I was sitting near a big fire, joining in the chanting and festivities, Yamba noiselessly stole to my side, and whispered in my ear that she had found the two white women. ”

“ When the wonder-loving blacks were again before me I told them that I had a remarkable picture of the great British Queen to show them, and then, full of anticipation and childish delight, they trooped after me to the spot where I had drawn the great picture on the rocks. It is no exaggeration to say that the crowd of cannibals stood and squatted in front of my handiwork simply speechless with amazement. Eventually they burst out into cries of wonderment, making curious guttural sounds with their lips, and smacking their thighs in token of their appreciation. ”

“ They would remain meek and motionless under a shower of brutal blows from a thick stick, and would then walk quietly away and treat their bleeding wounds with a kind of earth. No matter how cruelly the women might be treated by their husbands, they hated sympathy, so their women friends always left them alone. It often surprised me how quickly the blacks’ most terrible wounds healed; and yet they were only treated with a kind of clay and leaves of the wild rose. ”

“ Never can I forget the scene that followed, when the blacks from the surrounding country responded to the smoke-signals announcing the capture of the “great fish.” From hundreds of miles south came the natives, literally in their thousands—every man provided with his stone tomahawk and a whole armoury of shell knives. They simply swarmed over the carcasses like vermin, and I saw many of them staggering away under solid lumps of flesh weighing between thirty and forty pounds. The children also took part in the general feasting, and they too swarmed about the whales like a plague of ants. ”

“ Yamba, of course, accompanied me, as also did my dog, and we were escorted across the bay by a host of my native friends in their catamarans. I pitched upon a fine bold spot for our dwelling-place, but the blacks assured me that we would find it uncomfortably cold and windy, to say nothing about the loneliness, which I could not but feel after so much intercourse with the friendly natives. I persisted, however, and we at length pitched our encampment, on the bleak headland, which I now know to be Cape Londonderry, the highest northern point of Western Australia. ”

“ Often we were almost choked by the intense heat which the wind occasionally wafted to us, and which, combined with the blazing sun and scarcity of water, rendered life positively intolerable.
I now wish to say a few words about Bruno—a few last sorrowful words—because at this period he was growing feeble, and, indeed, had never been the same since the death of Gibson. Still, I was constantly making use of his sagacity to impress the blacks. ”

“ Here we parted with our friends the blacks, who made off in an east-south-easterly direction.
The dominant feeling within me as I saw the white men ride off was one of uncontrollable rage and mad despair. I was apparently a pariah, with the hand of every white man—when I met one—against me. “Well,” I thought, “if civilisation is not prepared to receive me, I will wait until it is.” Disappointment after disappointment, coupled with the incessant persuasions of Yamba and my people generally, were gradually reconciling me to savage life ”

“ Should one member of a tribe be stricken down with a disease, his friends at once come to the conclusion that he has been “pointed at” by a member of another tribe who owed him a grudge; he has, in short, been bewitched, and an expedition is promptly organised to seek out and punish the individual in question and all his tribe. From this it is obvious that war is of pretty frequent occurrence. And not only so, but every death is likewise the signal for a tribal war. ”

“ The girls were in constant terror of being left alone—of being stolen, in fact. They had been told how the natives got wives by stealing them; and they would wake up in the dead of the night screaming in the most heart-rending manner, with a vague, nameless terror. Knowing that the ordinary food must be repulsive to my new and delightful companions, I went back to a certain island, where, during my journey from the little sand-spit to the main, I had hidden a quantity of corn beneath a cairn. ”

“ The girls knew no more of Australian geography than I did; and when I mention that I merely had a vague idea that the great cities of the continent—Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, and Melbourne—all lay in a southerly direction, you may imagine how dense was my ignorance of the great island. I am now the strongest possible advocate of a sound geographical training in schools.
On ordinary days we indulged in a variety of games, the principal one being a form of “rounders.” I made a ball out of opossum skin, stuffed with the light soft bark of the paper-tree, and stitched with gut. ”

“ He promptly accepted my challenge, greatly to the delight of all the warriors in his own tribe, with whom he was by no means popular. But, of course, the anticipation of coming sport had something to do with their glee at the acceptance of the challenge. The big man was as powerful in build as he was ugly, and the moment he opened his mouth I realised that for once Yamba had gone too far in proclaiming my prodigious valour. He said he had heard about my wonderful “flying-spears,” and declined to fight me if I used such preternatural weapons. ”

“ Of course the blacks failed to understand its purport as a book, having no written language of their own; but my manner and words served to impress them.
My natives seemed ever to manifest the keenest interest in the accounts I gave them of the wonderful resources of civilisation; but experience showed that I must adapt my descriptions to the intellect of my hearers. For example, I used to tell them that in the great cities (“camps” I called them) there was never any real darkness if men chose, because there were other lights at command which could be turned off and on at will. ”

“ Then Yamba had always to build him a shelter wherever we camped, so that far from being an invaluable assistance and a companion he was a burden—so great that, in moments of depression, I regretted not having left him to die. As it was, he would often have gone to his death in the great deserts were it not for the ever-vigilant Bruno. Still, I always thought that some day I would be able to take the man back to civilisation, and there find out who he was and whence he had come. ”

“ The part I had played in connection with the death of the two whales had already earned for me the admiration of the blacks—not only in my own tribe, but all over the adjacent country. And after this encounter with the alligator they looked upon me as a very great and powerful personage indeed. We did not bring the dead monster back with us, but next day a number of the blacks went over with their catamarans, and towed the reptile back to the mainland, where it was viewed with open-mouthed amazement by crowds of admiring natives. ”

“ We had seen several ships passing out at sea, and on more than one occasion Yamba and I, taught by previous lessons, had jumped into our canoe and pulled for many miles in the direction of the sail, leaving the girls watching us eagerly from the shore. But it was always useless, and we were compelled to return without having accomplished our purpose; we merely inflicted additional pain on ourselves.
I now come to what is possibly the most painful episode of my career, and one which I find it impossible to discuss, or write about, without very real pain. ”

“ Care has to be taken not to inflict a very severe wound, because the moment the other sharks taste the blood of a wounded companion, they will immediately turn upon him and eat him. When the inquisitive shark is seen coming in the direction of the boat, the Malay who has accosted him in this way quietly jumps overboard, armed only with his small knife and a short stick of hard wood, exactly like a butcher’s skewer, about five inches in length, and pointed at each end. ”