The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont

by Louis de Rougemont

The very afternoon I arrived I went down to the shores of the lagoon with all the natives, and had not long to wait before I beheld what was apparently a huge fish careering wildly and erratically hither and thither in the water. On seeing it the natives appeared tremendously excited, and they danced and yelled, hoping thereby to drive the creature away. My first move was in the nature of an experiment—merely with the object of getting a better view of the monster. I endeavoured to angle for it with a hook made out of a large piece of sharpened bone. I then produced large nets made out of strips of green hide and stringy-bark rope. Placing these on the shores of the lagoon, I directed Yamba to build a little bark canoe just big enough to hold her and me.

At length we embarked and paddled out a few hundred yards, when we threw the net overboard. It had previously been weighted, and now floated so that it promptly expanded to its utmost capacity. No sooner had we done this than the invisible monster charged down upon us, making a tremendous commotion in the water. Neither Yamba nor I waited for the coming impact, but threw ourselves overboard just as the creature’s white sawlike weapon showed itself close to the surface only a few yards away. We heard a crash, and then, looking backward as we swam, saw that the long snout of the fish had actually pierced both sides of the canoe, whilst his body was evidently entangled in the meshes of the net. So desperate had been the charge that our little craft was now actually a serious encumbrance to the monster. It struggled madly to free itself, leaping almost clear of the water and lashing the placid lagoon into a perfect maëlstrom.

Several times the canoe was lifted high out of the water; and then the fish would try to drag it underneath, but was prevented by its great buoyancy. In the meantime Yamba and I swam safely ashore, and watched the struggles of the “evil spirit” from the shore, among a crowd of frantic natives.

We waited until the efforts of the fish grew feebler, and then put off in another bark canoe (the celerity with which Yamba made one was something amazing), when I easily despatched the now weakened creature with my tomahawk. I might here mention that this was actually the first time that these inland savages had seen a canoe or boat of any description, so that naturally the two I launched occasioned endless amazement.

Afterwards, by the way, I tried to describe to them what the sea was like, but had to give it up, because it only confused them, and was quite beyond their comprehension. When we dragged the monster ashore, with its elongated snout still embedded in the little canoe, I saw at a glance that the long-dreaded evil spirit of the lagoon was a huge sawfish, fully fourteen feet long, its formidable saw alone measuring nearly five feet. This interesting weapon I claimed as a trophy, and when I got back to where Bruno and his human charge were, I exhibited it to crowds of admiring blacks, who had long heard of the evil spirit. The great fish itself was cooked and eaten at one of the biggest corroborees I had ever seen. The blacks had no theory of their own (save the superstitious one), as to how it got into the lagoon; and the only supposition I can offer is, that it must have been brought thither, when very small and young, either by a rain-cloud or at some unusually big flood time.

So delighted were the blacks at the service I had done them, that they paid me the greatest compliment in their power by offering me a chieftainship, and inviting me to stay with them for ever. I refused the flattering offer, however, as I was quite bent on getting back to Cambridge Gulf.

On returning to my friends on the other side of the lagoon I learned for the first time that there was a half-caste girl living among them; and subsequent inquiries went to prove that her father was a white man who had penetrated into these regions and lived for some little time at least among the blacks—much as I myself was doing. My interest in the matter was first of all roused by the accidental discovery of a cairn five feet or six feet high, made of loose flat stones. My experience was such by this time that I saw at a glance this cairn was not the work of a native. Drawings and figures, and a variety of curious characters, were faintly discernible on some of the stones, but were not distinct enough to be legible.

On one, however, I distinctly traced the initials “L. L.,” which had withstood the ravages of time because the stone containing them was in a protected place.

Naturally the existence of this structure set me inquiring among the older natives as to whether they ever remembered seeing a white man before; and then I learned that perhaps twenty years previously a man like myself had made his appearance in those regions, and had died a few months afterwards, before the wife who, according to custom, was allotted to him had given birth to the half-caste baby girl, who was now a woman before me. They never knew the white stranger’s name, nor where he had come from. The girl, by the way, was by no means good-looking, and her skin was decidedly more black than white; I could tell by her hand, however, that she was a half-caste.

On the strength of our supposed affinity, she was offered to me as a wife, and I accepted her, more as a help for Yamba than anything else; she was called Luigi. Yamba, by the way, was anxious that I should possess at least half-a-dozen wives, partly because this circumstance would be more in keeping with my rank; but I did not fall in with the idea. I had quite enough to do already to maintain my authority among the tribe at large, and did not care to have to rule in addition half-a-dozen women in my own establishment. This tribe always lingers in my memory, on account of the half-caste girl, whom I now believe to have been the daughter of Ludwig Leichhardt, the lost Australian explorer. Mr. Giles says: “Ludwig Leichhardt was a surgeon and botanist, who successfully conducted an expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, on the northern coast. A military and penal settlement had been established at Port Essington by the Government of New South Wales, to which colony the whole territory then belonged. At this settlement—the only point of relief after eighteen months’ travel—Leichhardt and his exhausted party arrived.