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ON May 18, 1856, two young men left the village of Quequene, in the Argentine, with the idea of walking some 700 miles across country. One was French, by name Alphonse Guinnard; the other, Julio Pedritto, was Italian. Each was about 23 years old.
At that date the Argentine Republic was ruled by a brute called Rasas, and the country was in sad condition. These two youths, who had come out to Argentina to make their fortune, found the eastern cities in such a state that no work was to be had so they decided to make for the big farms in the south-west.
They had no horses, although in the Argentine even the beggars ride; they had guns, some food and a compass, no tent, no waterproofs. May is the beginning of winter in the southern Argentine, and on the second day out they were caught in a "pampero," an icy gale with torrents of rain, which lasted four days. They had no shelter, and how they survived is a marvel.
THEIR next adventure, was in a swamp, where they nearly lost their lives and did lose their shoes. They went on barefooted, and reached a river with high clay banks, in which they dug a cave where they might spend the night. They were hardly asleep before water poured in upon them. The river was in flood, and they had to scramble for dear life. They saved their guns but lost their food.
They were obliged to swim the river, and nearly died of cold. Then their way led across sheer desert, and by morning all was white with hoar frost. The unfortunate travellers quenched their thirst by licking the frost off pebbles, but were growing weak from hunger and their feet were in a sad state.
At midday they reached a pool, and were drinking when they heard a rustle. Guinnard whirled in time to see a great yellow puma crouching ready to leap upon them. He snatched up his gun, fired, and knocked the brute over. He finished it with his knife, and he and his companion drank the warm blood, then cooked and ate the flesh.
They had been travelling by compass. Now Guinnard made the terrifying discovery that the needle was rusted in its socket and the instrument useless! In consequence they were far to the south of their intended line of travel and deep in the country of the dreaded Indians—dreaded because these savages usually killed all whites on sight.
CHANGING course, they made back north and reached some hills as a fresh storm blew up. They piled a shelter from slabs of stone and lay there two days while wind thundered, rain fell in sheets and rock slides crashed from the mountain.
Starving again, they went in search of food, but sighted Indians and scuttled back to their refuge, where they lay for another twenty-four hours before they were driven out by hunger. They shot a buck, and were cleaning it when Indians rose all around them. They were hideous creatures with thick, uncombed hair hanging over painted faces.
"We must fight," said Guinnard, and, firing, knocked over an Indian.
Arrows showered upon them, and Pedritto fell dying, pierced by three shafts. Guinnard had one through the arm, and before he could reload a bolas, or stone ball, struck him on the head and he knew no more until he found himself stripped, tied on the bare back of a horse, galloping with the Indians across the pampas.
For five days the Indians travelled. By night Guinnard lay naked on the bare ground; the only food given him was raw-dried horse flesh. Injured as he was, it is hard to understand how he lived.
Arrived at last at the Indian village, Guinnard was cut loose, but was not allowed inside a hut. As soon as his wounds healed he was set to work to herd the cattle. He had no clothes and was forced to sleep out in all weathers. These Indians were Poyuches. They soon tired of their white slave, and sold him to another tribe, the Puelches, who were even more brutal than his first masters.
"Get out, dog of a Christian! Get outside. It is good enough for you." Remarks like these, with kicks and blows, were his everyday experience. Yet he learned to ride and to use the bolas, the double stones attached to one another by a leather thong, which can be so thrown as to bring down an ostrich or any animal.
Still, Guinnard's thoughts were of escape but no possible chance offered. The Indians seemed to read his thoughts.
The Puelches finally sold him to a third tribe, the Pampeans, for two horses and some red cloth. Once more he was turned out, naked, to work desperately for scanty food, while he was watched as carefully as before. The children used him as a butt, lassoing him and dragging him behind their ponies, yet he never dared complain. His only small pleasure was in the horses, which he tamed so that they would come at his call.
One day the chief sent for him, and ordered him to write a letter to the Commandant of a frontier post. This letter was to offer ostrich leathers and other goods in return for trade. The "trade" the Indians hoped to get was brandy. Guinnard jumped at the chance, for he thought he could conceal a message from himself in the letter. But the Indians were too clever for him; they had an Argentine deserter who could read and Guinnard was told he would read the letter after it was finished. So Guinnard wrote as he was told, and the letter was sent by two Indians, who were accompanied by some children.
A FORTNIGHT later the children came back to say that the messengers had been seized and ironed. Guinnard know at once that his fate was sealed, and, sure enough, he heard the Indians deciding to kill him next morning. They believed he had tricked them.
He determined to escape but, to his horror, found that his horse had been taken away and a lame old beast substituted. He mounted, and was riding towards the herd when he saw armed Indians following him.
He gave a shrill whistle, and the herd galloped towards him. It was the work of a moment to spring on the back of the best beast, then to scatter the rest of the herd and gallop away.
Guinnard was too far from civilisation to hope to reach the nearest outpost. He made for the head quarters of Calfoucourah, the hundred-year-old chief of the Indian Confederation. He reached it as night fell and appealed to the old chief who, when he heard the story, gave him protection, yet said that, if the Pampeans could give proof of his treachery, Guinnard should die by torture.
WEEKS of suspense followed, then suddenly the two original envoys returned safely and testified that Guinnard was innocent. For the first time for two years Guinnard found himself treated like a human being. He was allowed to build himself a house, and was given decent food. He even planted a field of maize which grew well and was looked on with amazement by the Indians, who lived entirely by the chase. But he was guarded as closely as ever, and began to despair of ever getting away.
His chance come unexpectedly. Urquiza became President in place of the terrible Rosas, and at once set to work to pacify the Indians. He sent presents to Calfoucourah, including some casks of brandy. Within a few hours the entire tribe, including the women and children, were completely drunk. Guinnard seized three horses and went away at a gallop.
For thirteen days he travelled at top speed, constantly changing horses, and only stopping when it was necessary to kill game for food and to allow his weary animals time to graze. He killed two horses, and he himself and more dead than alive when he reached a ranch on the Rio Quinto, where he was kindly received and put to bed. There he stayed for six weeks, very ill.
At last he recovered; he and his host, Don Juan José, became good friends and the Don offered him work.
IT might be supposed that this was the end of poor Guinnard's troubles, but not at all. The Indians had followed him over a distance of 500 miles and, though they dared not attack the fortified ranch, were lurking about, evidently awaiting a chance to seize their prisoner. Life became an absolute nightmare to Guinnard, and in the end he slipped away on foot. Travelling by night and hiding by day he walked 400 miles to Mendoza, a town at the foot of the Andes Mountains, where he was lucky enough to meet a countryman who was kind.
But Guinnard could find no work, and presently went on again. He crossed the Andes on foot, a distance of more than 200 miles, and nearly died of cold and hunger on the Altiplanicle, the great frozen tableland at the summit. There is not space to recount all his further adventures. He at last reached Lima, whence the French Minister sent him home in a war ship. In France he became a member of the Geographical Society, and wrote the story of his remarkable journey.
PEOPLE who don't know mountains think that you just go up one side and come down the other. That does not apply to the Rockies of North America, a range that in some places is several hundred miles wide.
Nowadays you can go through the Rockies by train or car or over them by aeroplanes, but when young Lord Milton and his friend, Dr. Cheadle, crossed the Canadian Rockies, more than seventy years ago, there were no roads of any sort, and the only way to travel was on horseback or afoot.
In August, 1862, the two reached Fort Garry, then a little frontier post—now the great city of Winnipeg, with almost a quarter million people. They learned that it was too late in the year to make the whole journey across the mountain to British Columbia, as they had intended, so they hired guides and pushed on to Whitefish Lake, where they built a log cabin in which to spend the winter.
Early in November everything froze up, and by Christmas it was so cold that a crust of ice would form over the tea in the tin cups, although they sat within a yard of a roaring fire. They had no tinned food, and lived mainly on the meat of buffalo and deer which they shot,
THEY had brought material for a Christmas pudding, and spent all Christmas day making it. It was huge and splendid, so huge that they could not eat it all that night. Next morning all were out of bed before daylight, each terrified that he might lose his share of pudding for breakfast!
Early in the spring the travellers started again. Their old guides had left them, and at Fort Pitt, a Hudson Bay post, they hired a half-breed named "the Assineboine." His left hand had been shattered by a gun explosion, yet he was an excellent woodsman. He brought with him his wife, who cooked, and his son, a lad of sixteen.
This was good luck for the travellers. What was not so good was that an Irishman named O'Brien attached himself to them. O'Brien wore a long coat, like that of a parson, and a black parson-like wideawake hat, garments that went oddly with a pair of old corduroy trousers and a face that had not known a razor for many days.
He was an educated man, and had had a post as private teacher in the United States, but had been driven out by the Civil War, and was trying to get to friends in British Columbia. As far as anything practical went he was the most complete fool that ever stepped. Milton didn't want him. The Assineboine loathed him, but he got round Dr. Cheadle, and they took him along.
ON June 3, 1863, they left Edmonton with thirteen horses, six of which carried packs, and soon reached the mountains, which were covered with dense forest, while the ground beneath the trees was so boggy and rotten that the horses sank to their girths. O'Brien was full of complaints and good advice, but never raised a finger to help when a horse was bogged. Worse than that, he lagged behind, and when he lost sight of the rest would simply pull up and yell for help.
One day O'Brien, who had been lagging as usual, came tearing up to the others. He was white and shaking. "Bear!" he gasped; "a huge grizzly bear!" But it was no bear. The Assineboine had hidden behind a tree and given a splendid imitation. For a time that cured O'Brien of loafing.
Grass was scarce, and huge horse flies, called "bull dogs," bit the horses till they literally streamed with blood. The horses grew so weak that travel became slow. The going was terrible, for the trail was thick with fallen trees, which often had to be cut with axes before the horses could move. There was no going round, because there was a roaring river on one side and a cliff the other.
The flies were so bad that the horses would stand in the smoke of the camp fire to escape them. One evening a horse kicked a burning ember out of the fire, and instantly the forest, dry as tinder, blazed up. Tree after tree flashed into flame like torches. Axes were seized, trees cut, water brought in buckets. Even O'Brien brought water—in a pint mug! But it was all no use. They had to pack hastily and clear out, and the fire burned for two days before a thunder storm put it out.
[In the sixties of last century two Englishmen, Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle, accompanied by a half-breed called the Assineboine, and an Irishman named O'Brien, set out to cross the Canadian Rockies on horseback. They experienced many hardships, and their food began to run short.]
Delays were so great that food ran short, yet the trail grew steeper and worse. Also it became very cold at night, for they were now 6000 or 7000 feet up, were all convinced that they were lost, for the trail was no longer visible. Then in a small opening in the forest they came upon a horrible sight. The corpse of an Indian sat upright over the ashes of a small fire; some broken bones lay beside him, and a tattered blanket hung over the mummified remains. It was only too plain that the unfortunate man had died of starvation.
On August 9 they were compelled to kill one of their horses. Some of the flesh they ate fresh, the rest they dried. All were beginning to feel terribly faint and weak. They crawled onwards first up hill, then down, not knowing where they were going. They were again nearly starving when they had the luck to kill a porcupine, and had one good meal.
THEN, just as things looked a little brighter, the Assineboine stepped on a sharp rock and cut his left foot to the bone. His courage ebbed, and he declared that they were all doomed.
The travellers had now been 90 days among the mountains, and were lost in the labyrinth of peaks, forests and bogs. Their horses were mere skeletons, and could hardly move. They debated whether they should build a raft and take to the river. It was lucky they did not do so, for they would certainly have perished in the terrible rapids lower down. Again they pushed on, doing about five miles a day, and then on August 21, suddenly they found a blazed trail. It led them to lovely little prairie, where the horses were up to their knees in rich grass. Better still, Indians were camped here, and had potatoes and rabbits. They told Milton's party that they were not far from Fort Kamloops, a Hudson Bay post.
The Indians wanted pay for their food, and Milton had to give them his embroidered Indian saddle, in return for a bucket of potatoes. O'Brien swapped his waistcoat for a rabbit. But how good that meal tasted! The Indians consented to guide them, and at long last they all arrived at the fort, a pack of gaunt scarecrows.
Today much of the wilderness through which Milton and Cheadle tolled so painfully has been converted by the Canadian Government into a magnificent National Park, with splendid motor roads and every modern convenience.
WHEN the Napoleonic wars were ended and Napoleon Bonaparte safely shut up on the island of St. Helena, many English soldiers and sailors found themselves out of a job. One of these was Captain John Dundas Cochrane, R.N., who was nephew of the tenth Lord Dundonald, the famous Admiral Cochrane, who led the South American republics in their successful revolt against the Spanish yoke. Seeing no chance of employment, but being still young and full of the spirit of adventure Captain Cochrane decided to walk round the world!
Cochrane had very little money, which was the reason why he decided to travel on foot. He started soon from Christmas, 1820, and reached Berlin without trouble. It was not until he was approaching the port of Danzig, on the North German coast, that he had a real adventure. In trying to cross a frozen lake the ice broke and he fell in. Fortunately for him the water was shallow, and he managed to wade out, breaking the ice in front of him. He lost his cap, tore his trousers to pieces, damaged his shoes, so that he had to tie them to his feet and, in that condition, was obliged to walk some miles to the nearest post-house, where he was fed, warmed and dried.
As he crossed Poland a black gentleman driving in a very line four-horse carriage, offered him a lift, and took him all the way to St. Petersburg. This man posed as a wealthy merchant, but later Cochrane learned that he was servant to young Prince Labanoff, who had sent him to Berlin to bring back a carriage which he had left there.
IT had taken Cochrane 83 days to get from London to St. Petersburg. There he called on the British Consul and was lucky enough to get a pass, signed by the Czar of Russia himself, including a special letter to the Governor General of Siberia.
On May 24 Cochrane left the Russian capital and, despite his line credentials, promptly fell among thieves. He was sitting on a mile-stone, enjoying a pip, when two armed ruffians seized him, stripped him of his clothes, his watch, his money, and left him tied to a tree. A boy released him, and Cochrane, finding that he had a blue jacket and two flannel waistcoats left, dressed himself in these, using one as a kilt, and walked off, barefoot.
He came upon soldiers making a road, and their commanding officer gave Cochrane fresh clothes. At Novgorod, a merchant, to whom Cochrane had an introduction, provided him with an entirely fresh outfit. Nearly all the people Cochrane met were kind to him, and often he had free meals of cabbage soup, with meat, milk and bread, at small farms.
He crossed the Ural Mountains and reached Tobolsk, where he dined with the Governor. All went well until he reached Tukalensk on the River Irtish. There the small tin case containing his passport was stolen while he was at lunch, and he was left in a very serious position. He walked on to Omsk and called on the Chief of Police, to whom he explained his loss. The police acted promptly, with the result that the case was recovered, and, as Cochrane quaintly says, "I was restored to society."
FOR whole days he tramped in heavy rain, soaked to the skin. There were, of course, no waterproofs at that date! At a place called by the quaint name of Barnacle he found General Speranski, the Governor-General, who told him that an expedition was being fitted out to explore the Arctic Sea, and that he thought that Cochrane could join it. Cochrane jumped at the chance, got a boat and made down the great River Lena.
It was now October, and getting colder every day. The river began to freeze, and Cochrane was forced to take to a horse, on which he rode to Yakutsk. The temperature was 18 deg. below zero, yet the astonishing Cochrane walked the streets in a suit of thin material, and "was not at all incommoded," as he put it.
He was "incommoded," however, when he tried to travel by sledge to Kolymsk, on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. He nearly had his feet frozen, and was obliged to get out and run. He, and the Cossacks with him, were forced to sleep in the open in 60 deg. of frost—60 deg. below zero. Cochrane had no sleeping bag, and the Cossacks built a huge fire, so that he was roasted on one side, while the other side was frozen.
The last stage was done with dog sleighs, with the temperature 40 deg. below zero, but Cochrane survived and met the great explorer and scientist, Baron Wrangel, who was organising the expedition.
[In 1820 Captain John Cochrane, R.N., left London to walk round the world, then an extremely hazardous undertaking. After many adventures he penetrated Siberia, and reached the frozen shores of the Arctic Ocean, where he hoped to join an expedition to explore the Arctic.]
To Cochrane's deep disappointment he found that he could not be a member of the expedition because he was a foreigner, so he waited and watched it set off, and then himself started south-east for Kamchatka, the peninsula beginning the chain of islands connecting Siberia with Japan. He had with him a native guide and a Cossack, both complete fools; the cold was intense, there was no grazing, and the horses grew weak.
The guide lost the way, and led Cochrane into mountains so steep they could not be climbed. They spent two days chopping steps in the ice of the final slope, and had to haul up with ropes the horses, as well as the baggage. Food was short, and there was little fuel. All three were nearly dead when they reached the "yourt" or village of Peter Gotossop, chief of the Yakuts, and after fifteen nights in the snow Cochrane slept dry and warm.
Cochrane now made for Okhotsk, a seaport lying opposite Kamchatka. He was told that the journey was impossible at that time of year, for the ice would be breaking on the rivers while the snow was deep and soft. But Cochrane was a difficult man to stop, and off he started. For a few days all went well, then the thaw began, and they ran short of food. When they reached the River Okota, the ice was out and a flood running down. The guides said the horses could not cross unless they were unloaded.
There was a canoe on the opposite side of the river, and Cochrane was the only one of the party who could swim. The water was melted ice, and Cochrane was weak with starvation, yet that undaunted man went in.
"LORD BYRON swam the Hellespont," Cochrane wrote afterwards, "John Cochrane swam the Okota. Of the two feats, mine was surely the more difficult; his lordship was neither fatigued, hungry nor cold when compelled to the undertaking; while I had all and each of these evils to contend with."
Worse was to come. Another river was met which was in full flood, and, since there was no boat, they had to build a raft. The fierce current carried them on to a small island, across which a large tree was lodged. The raft caught in the branches and tipped up. The current tore the raft loose, but left Cochrane hanging from the tree up to his neck in the bitter water. Every ripple washed over his head, but with a last desperate struggle he climbed out and joined the others.
They were in a desperate fix, for between them and the bank lay a channel too swift for paddling the raft and too deep for poling. But Cochrane, always full of resource, broke up the raft, and made of it a kind of bridge, by which the whole party succeeded in reaching the far bank.
It was freezing so hard that Cochrane's clothes were caked with ice. When they started to light a fire their tinder was wet, and the spark from the flint, and steel failed to light it. It seemed as though they were doomed to freeze to death, but now the Yakuts saved him. They produced fire by friction, and soon a welcome blaze thawed their frozen clothes and bodies.
WHEN at last Cochrane reached Okhotsk he was in rags, his face was scarred by frostbite, his red hair hung down his back, and his beard was a foot long. The Governor gave him clothing, he had a shave and hair cut, and became once more "a genteel dressed man."
From Okhotsk, Cochrane went by sea to Kamchatka, and spent the summer and the whole of the following winter in that peninsula. It was not nearly so cold as the mainland, but the climate was very foggy. Kamchatka is volcanic, and Cochrane experienced three severe shocks of earthquake, and saw a volcano eruption, throwing up vast clouds of smoke and tongues of lurid flame.
But his most astonishing exploit was to woo and marry a lady of the country. The wedding, he tells us, was attended with more pomp and ceremony than if it had been celebrated in England. "I am," he writes, "the first Englishman that ever married a Kamchatkan, and my wife undoubtedly the first native of that peninsula that ever visited happy England."
Early in 1822 the captain and his bride started homewards, but they took a whole year over the journey. Unfortunately, Cochrane does not tell us what Mrs. Cochrane thought of "happy England," neither do we know anything of their lives after their return home,
IN 1935, Mr. Peter Fleming, a British author, and Miss Ella Maillart, a well-known Swiss lady traveller, made a great journey across China and Tibet to India. Sixty-seven years earlier, in 1868, an Englishman named T. T. Cooper made a similar but now almost forgotten journey. His object was to establish trade between India and Tibet.
Cooper had no railway to help him on his way up country, no motor lorries. There were not even steam boats by which he might ascend a river. He had no reliable maps, no companion, except a Chinese Christian, yet he ventured into country where all foreigners were looked upon as "devils" and treated accordingly.
On the advice of Chinese friends, he wore Chinese clothes, but even so he was soon spotted. Outside a village he happened to take off his glasses to wipe them. "Yang jen!" cried a girl, who had noticed that his eyes were blue. "Yang jen" means foreign devil, and at once a mob gathered—an ugly mob, for there were a number of Chinese soldiers in it. They began to hoot, and one man caught hold of Cooper's robe.
Cooper made the man a deep bow. "Surely this is a great soldier!" he remarked, at the same time winking at the bystanders. As it happened, the fellow was humped-backed and hideously ugly. The crowd began to laugh, and Cooper's assailant stumbled and fell on his back. The crowd roared and the danger was over; serious danger too, for if Cooper had tried either to fight or run he would have been beaten to death.
THE soldiers were the curse of China, for they were really nothing but bandits. At a place called Chung Chow one of these fellows, half drunk, marched into Cooper's room in the inn, flung himself on the bed and ordered Cooper to fill and light his pipe. Cooper was a very powerful man, and for once lost his temper. He seized the scoundrel, lifted him and slung him into the passage, knocking down another soldier who was in the passage.
In a moment a dozen ruffians piled in, yelling, and with them their mandarin, his fat face purple with rage. He pulled up short when he felt the muzzle of Cooper's revolver digging into his ribs and Cooper showed him his Viceroy's passport, and offered him tea and tobacco. After that all was peace, and that night the mandarin dined with Cooper and got very drunk.
Before leaving the mandarin presented Cooper with a packet of "rare tea," which Cooper found afterwards had been stolen from his own baggage.
Cooper left China at the bridge crossing the Tatow River. This was an iron suspension bridge, built as long ago as 1701. But it had no guard rails, and was closed at night, because so many people had been blown off it. Beyond was a pass running along the side of a tremendous ravine, with a drop of 600 feet to the river. The road was a mere ledge a yard wide and cut in the face of the precipice A terrible roaring was heard, and the coolies, who were carrying Cooper in a chair, shrieked in terror that "the whirlwind was coming." They all ran frantically, and just got out of the gorge as a terrific whirlwind came up behind them.
The force of the wind was so great that it tore up the water in sheets from the river and brought great boulders hopping like peas from the heights. Cooper was told that those hurricanes happened almost every day at this time of year, and that it was certain death to be caught by such a storm in the pass.
WHEN once in Tibet, Cooper exchanged his Chinese robes for English clothes. The Tibetans in the inn reared with laughter when they saw him. They declared that his trousers would never keep his legs warm and that his coat was too short. The only article of his attire of which they approved was his soft felt hat.
The heat, in the valleys was great but the cold in the high passes intense. On the Lithang Plain Cooper and his men encountered a hail storm so fierce that it cut their sun-blistered faces so that the wounds streamed with blood but at Lithang village the inhabitants brought warm water and fresh butter to soothe the pain.
The Taso Mountains were deep in snow, in which the ponies sank to their girths and had to be dug out. At this height—16,000 feet— the labor was incredible, for the rarefied air made breathing difficult. Blood poured from the noses of the men and at times they all flung themselves face downwards on the snow and lay motionless. It took eight hours to reach the summit, but then there was no rest, for the cold was so intense that all would have frozen to death if they had not kept moving.
A few days later the two guards, whom Cooper had engaged on crossing the frontier, disappeared, taking with them all the food. Cooper, Phillip, his servant, and the native Tibetans had nothing left but a few bricks of tea. At the next village, Pa-moo-tan, Cooper tried to buy food, but the lamas (priests) were hostile, and would not allow the villagers to sell food. But at night some of the people gave Cooper a few eggs and a little milk. They told him that a force of 300 soldiers were waiting to turn the white man's party back.
The fact was that the authorities knew that Cooper meant to travel to Lhassa. And they did not want him there, for they believed him to be a spy. Yet they dared not kill him because he had a Chinese passport.
[With the object of establishing trade between India and Tibet, an Englishman named T.T. Cooper, set out in 1868 to penetrate what was then unknown, and "forbidden" country. He had many exciting encounters with the natives, who looked upon him as a devil, and refused to sell him food. Eventually he was told that a force of soldiers were waiting to prevent him travelling to the sacred city of Lhassa.]
COOPER rode on and met the soldiers. He rode in among them and presented his passport to their leader. Fortunately for him, these people became in the end quite friendly, and after smoking a pipe with them, Cooper was allowed to proceed.
The country teemed with game, hares, deer and pheasants, but, though terribly hungry Cooper dared not shoot any of these creatures for fear of offending the lamas or priests. Reaching another village, Cooper tried again to buy food. He even offered its weight in silver, but the people were terrified and stoned him out of the village.
At a musk hunter's cabin Cooper had his first meal for forty-eight hours—two eggs and a little milk. The party then crossed a river, the water of which was bright scarlet in color, and on the far bank was attacked by bandits who fired at them with matchlocks. (The matchlock was an early type of gun, in which the gunpowder was fired through a touch-hole by means of a slow-burning "match" or fuse.) Cooper fired back and knocked two men out of their saddles. The range and accuracy of his rifle terrified the robbers, who retreated.
Next day they met native shepherds. The men refused to sell a sheep, so Cooper flung down the price of one, picked up a lamb and rode off. But when he and his servant, Philip, stopped to cook it they were surrounded by men and women armed with matchlocks and knives. A woman, enormously large and powerful, rushed at Cooper with a cudgel; a man held him and she beat him cruelly. He managed to release himself and, pulling his revolver, drove off the assailants.
Cooper was badly hurt; his little party were all starving, and presently they lost their way. Then luck changed, and they fell in with a tea caravan. Five hundred yaks, those stunted, shaggy Tibetan beasts of burden, carried the tea, and were in charge of mounted soldiers with two officers. The officers were good fellows and had a meal cooked for the famished party—boiled rice, roast mutton, delicious Pekoe tea. "I could have hugged my kind hosts," Cooper wrote.
With this caravan Cooper travelled up a steep mountain pass. Near the top was a hollow filled with snow so deep, so soft that a man sank over his head. There was no way round. The Tibetans unloaded the yaks and drove them forward into the snow. The first lot stuck, but the second walked over their backs and lay down in front. By this means the whole herd was got across, and the snow was tramped hard for the horses to follow.
They reached the Lan-tsan River, which they had to cross. The only bridge consisted of one great bamboo rope stretched across the stream from side to side, a distance of 200 yards. At the take-off point the rope was higher than on the far side. Each traveller in turn took his seat on a small wooden skid fitted to the rope, and was tied to it with leather thongs. One push and away he shot at great speed over the tremendous gorge!
On the other side was a village called Leisu, where Cooper's party were attacked by a pack of dogs savage as wolves. Cooper was forced to use his revolver, whereupon the villagers poured out with sticks and stones, and Cooper and his companions had to ride for their lives.
Presently Cooper found that he was running into a war. The Mahometans had rebelled, and fierce fighting was going on against the Chinese. A rumor spread that Cooper was a Chinese mandarin sent to report upon the war. He was attacked again and again, and only his revolver saved his life.
TO his disgust he was forced to turn back, but that was not the end of his troubles, for the Chinese mandarin at Weisee seized him, on pretence that he was a spy, and demanded a ransom of 2500 leeang (£350). When the mandarin found that Cooper had no money he made up his mind to murder him, but some local chiefs interfered in Cooper's favor, and he was released and allowed to leave.
The journey back was not quite so bad as that coining in, for it was now August, and there was more feed for the horses. Yet it was not without its adventures. Cooper and his companions camped one evening in a grassy glen close to a small stream. At the head of the glen was a very tall, conical peak. Smoking his pipe after supper, Cooper watched idly a cloud that was covering the mountain top. He noticed that this cloud was very black and thick.
Suddenly the cloud broke and dissolved into grey smoke. A few moments later came a deep-toned roar, and a white line appeared against the peak a thousand feet or more above the valley. The roar grew louder. It filled the air with a crash like a prolonged thunder peal. Then Cooper saw a wall of water sweeping down the valley!
He and the rest had just time to collect their goods and scramble to higher ground before the flood wave came racing past with a weight and fury that made the ground tremble. When it had passed, the rivulet was a dyke 30 feet deep, with huge rocks piled on either side. Cooper looked at the peak. Its whole shape was changed, and now it was merely a mound.
In November Cooper reached Hankow, and a little later started back for Calcutta.
A REMARKABLE boy was William Cotton Oswell. "I don't believe," says Judge Hughes, who wrote Tom Brown's Schooldays and was Oswell's friend at Rugby, the great English public school, "that he ever struck a small boy or spoke to one in anger. He once cleared 18 ft. 9 in. over a brook, which means, as you know. 20 ft. from takeoff to landing. No doubt his good looks added to his fascination; he stood six feet high in his stockings when he left school at eighteen, but did not look his height from the perfection of his figure—broad in the shoulders, thin in the flank, and so well developed that he was called the Muscleman."
When Oswell left Rugby he went to Haileybury, in those days the training college for the East India Company's service. He did well there, and in 1837 went to India, but unfortunately, the climate did not suit him, so in August, 1844, he left for South Africa in the sailing ship Anna Robertson. He was so ill that he had to be carried aboard, but during the voyage recovered completely. As soon as possible after arrival in Africa he went up country.
In those days the whole of South Africa, except a fringe along the coast, was still wild and uncivilised. Oswell trekked to Bakgatla, and there met Livingstone, the famous explorer and missionary, and stayed with him for some days. He calls him the best, the most modest and the most intelligent of missionaries. Thus began a friendship which was to last for many years.
OSWELL gained a great reputation as a huntsman, and the natives called him "Tlaga," meaning "the wary one." It was near Bakgatla that Oswell had the first of many narrow escapes. One morning, while the waggons were moving slowly through thick bush, he sighted three buffalo. He galloped alongside one, shot it, saw it fall apparently dead, then went after another. But the shot buffalo was not dead, and, before Oswell could get his horse into its stride, the buffalo was up and after him, charging into his horse with a terrific impact.
"I felt the thud," Oswell writes, "but the horse did not fall, and cantered on for twenty yards, when the whisp of its tall dabbled my trousers with blood. Getting off, I found a hole 30 inches deep and nearly wide enough to get into in the animal's flank, for the buffalo's horn had been driven up to its base."
Happily for Oswell, the buffalo was too badly wounded to follow. It died where it stood, but Orwell was forced to shoot the horse, his favorite animal, so badly was it wounded.
It was from the horn of a rhino, that Oswell had the narrowest escape in the whole of his hunting career. One evening he was riding back to camp when he met a very large rhinoceros. He fired both barrels of his rifle, but, instead of dropping, the great beast began to walk towards the smoke. Oswell turned his horse, only to find himself up against a thick clump of bush.
BEFORE he could get clear the rhino, was on him and drove its horn in under the flanks of the horse with such terrific force as to fling horse and rider into the air. In falling the stirrup iron struck Oswell's head, and partially scalped him.
As he scrambled to his knee Oswell saw the rhino, almost upon him. Although half-stunned and bleeding badly, he managed to gain his feet and fling himself to one side; the rhino passed within a foot without hurting him.
As Oswell rose a second time his servant came up with his second gun. Wringing the blood from his eyes and pressing down the loose piece of scalp, Oswell raised the rifle and shot the rhino. stone dead.
He then turned to his horse and put a bullet through the poor beast's head. So fearful had been the force of the great rhino.'s blow that the horn had gone completely through the horse's body, and the point had pierced the saddle!
Oswell turned back towards camp, a distance of ten miles, and, in spite of his fearful experience and his bad wound, insisted on walking half the distance before he took his servant's horse and let him walk.
That was not his only ugly experience with rhinos. One day he saw two rhinoceroses and went out alone to stalk them. He lay flat on the ground in thin bush, and waited until they worked up to within twenty or thirty paces, but both were head on. In this position they could not be killed, except at very close quarters for the horns completely guard the brain, which is small and lies very low in the head.
[Nearly a century ago, when almost the whole of South Africa was still wild and uncivilised, William C. Oswell, a great English athlete and sportsman, penetrated to remote parts of the great "dark continent," where he had many narrow escapes from buffalo and rhinos. One day he went out alone to stalk two rhinoceroses; lying concealed on the ground, he waited until they had come within a short distance of him.]
RHINOS' powers of sight are weak, and, since Oswell was down wind from the grazing monsters, the two forged closer and closer, until one, the female, was within its own length of him. He would have shot her up the nostril but a charging rhino always makes straight for the smoke of the gun and he knew that, even if he killed the nearest, the other would charge. Hoping that his sudden appearance would startle her, and so give him a chance of escape, he sprang up and dashed alongside of her, so as to get behind her. She was so close that he put his hand on her as he passed.
She at once gave chase, and within thirty yards was at his heels. A quick turn saved him, but she, too, "jinked," and came at him again. As the huge horn came lapping round his thigh lie swung round and, still running, fired both barrels into her head. Next moment he was sailing through the air, and it was not until three hours later that he recovered consciousness, to find his thigh opened down to the bone for a length of eight inches.
The limb had stiffened so that he could not get into the camp waggon, and for four weeks he made his bed under a bush. The fearful wound he kept covered with a wet cloth, and it says much for Oswell's splendid condition that it healed rapidly and completely.
Towards the end of this season Oswell had another of his hair-breadth escapes. He was after elephants in thick thornbush, and all he could see was several thick legs, the bodies of their owners being hidden by the bushy upper part of the thorns. He got off his horse, and leaving it standing crawled on hands and knees. In this way he came within twenty yards of the legs, but still was unable to see anything of their owners.
There was one large tree close by, and on reaching this Oswell was able to see an elephant quite near. But the creature was stern on. Oswell broke a twig to attract the animal's attention. As the elephant moved Oswell's bullet took him under the shoulder.
Screaming savagely, the elephant—a big bull—turned full round in the direction of the tree, but failed to see Oswell, who was hidden behind the trunk. The bush, however, was too thick for Oswell to risk a second shot. Meanwhile the other elephants had taken fright, and after a moment's hesitation the wounded one followed. The herd went through the dense thorn bush like steam rollers, and Oswell hurried back to his horse, mounted and followed.
Presently the thorns thinned, and Oswell caught sight of the wounded bull a little behind his fellows. Then the whole herd plunged into the tropical forest beyond. The growth was so thick that Oswell had to follow in the path the great beasts made. He was forced to lie flat on his horse's back, yet even then branches caught him and threatened to drag him from the saddle.
Then without warning the wounded elephant turned sharply round, and, with trunk tightly rolled, charged hack upon Oswell. His tall was up, and down he came like a gigantic bat, ten feet across.
ALL Oswell could do was to turn his horse and try to escape. But in this forest his horse could not travel nearly as fast, as the elephant, which with its enormous weight, smashed clown everything in front of him.
The next thing Oswell knew he was fast in the thick thorn bush, with the elephant almost on him. As a last resort Oswell tried to spring out of the saddle, but as he did so he accidentally spurred his horse, which made a convulsive leap and threw its rider leaving him right in the path of the charging bull.
Oswell saw the enormous forefoot exactly above him and instinctively flung his legs apart. Down came the foot between his legs, and the beast passed over him, apparently without seeing him!
The horse, relieved of his rider's weight, escaped, and the elephant turned and came back. One might have supposed that Oswell had had enough. Not at all. Regaining his feet, he fired again, and this time with mortal effect. Not only that, but five minutes later he came upon a second elephant in a small clearing, and killed that too.
Oswell was with Livingstone when he discovered Lake Ngami, and the two corresponded constantly up to the time of Livingstone's last journey.
IMAGINE standing on a cliff so high that if Mount Bogong were opposite, its summit would be almost on a level with you. The rock walls bounding that terrific cleft in the earth's surface, known as the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in the United States, rise to a height of 6200 feet above the surface of the river, which, in the course of millions of years, has cut this chasm, the width of which averages twelve miles.
The Colorado River is 2000 miles long, from its source to where it flows out into the Gulf of California, and for a quarter of its length it runs through a trench about a mile in depth. The Grand Canyon is 218 miles long. Marble Canyon, 65 miles; Glen Canyon, 155 miles; Narrow Canyon, 9 miles, and Cataract Canyon, 41 miles long.
Until 1869 the whole of this great gulf was an unknown land. True, Indians had settled here and there in the side canyons, and a few daring miners had visited the depths, but the first person to do any real exploration of the canyons was Major Powell. Several others tried to navigate the river, but all came to grief until, in 1889, Mr. Frank Brown, president of a new railway line planned to run from Grand Junction, Colorado, to the Gulf of California, organised an expedition by boat down the great river.
HIS second in command was Robert Brewster Stanton, a railway engineer, and these two started with five boats and sixteen men on May 25, 1889. The boats were too light for the task, for the river is one long series of cataracts and rapids. Some of these rapids can be portaged—that is, the men can land, carry their goods over the rocks and let the boats down by ropes. But with others, where the banks are sheer on either side, there is no choice but to "run" the rapid.
Although the boats were constantly upset, for the first few days nothing serious happened. The party reached Marble Canyon, and camped for the night. In the morning Brown said to Stanton quietly, "I dreamt of the rapids last night." His face was curiously grave.
Brown's boat was first to push off. He had with him a Scot named MacDonald. The current was very swift, and Stanton, who followed Brown, found his boat swept into a rapid. As the boat dipped into the head of the rapid he saw MacDonald running up the bank, and heard him cry, "Mr. Brown is in there."
The rapid was short, and, as Stanton's boat shot into the whirlpool at the bottom, he saw Brown's notebook floating and rescued it. But Brown was never seen again.
Stanton carried on with the rest of the party for three days, shooting 24 rapids. Then came fresh disaster. A boat with two men, Richards and Hausborough, was driven under an overhanging shelf of rock. It rolled over and both men were drowned.
STANTON had now not enough men left to carry on. He and the other survivors struggled up a side canyon, and reached civilisation, and at once Stanton began preparations for a second trip.
His new boats were built of oak, fastened together with copper rivets, and had air tanks, making them unsinkable. Cork Jackets were also provided for their crews. In November all was ready, and Stanton started afresh with twelve men.
This was the dry season, and the river was nine feet lower than it had been in the spring, but the rapids were just as vicious and dangerous as before. Yet the scenery was marvelous. Sheer cliffs towered to a vast height on each side, and these rocks were banded and streaked with every imaginable color. Here and there side canyons ran out like huge cracks, vanishing into gloom. In many places large springs of clear water gushed from the walls, making fountains and fairy falls. Around these springs were clumps of ferns and flowers, forming delicate patches of green against the dark rocks. The temperature was spring-like in these depths, yet, looking up, Stanton could see the heights crowned by snow.
On January 29 a danger spot was reached. Here the canyon narrowed, and the boiling river plunged down 80 feet in a distance of 700 yards. The party lined two boats down safely, but the third, the Marie, was forced against a rock, turned over on her side, and jammed between two immense boulders.
A man with a rope round his waist managed to reach the boat, and, standing waist deep in an icy swirl, succeeded in rescuing most of its contents. But the boat was so wedged that she could not be moved. They were forced to camp on a steep slope of rugged rock. Next morning the river had risen two feet, and they recovered the boat, but it was a wreck.
[Robert Stanton and several other explorers were making their way in rowing boats down the great Colorado River, over one long series of cataracts and rapids then unknown. Three men were lost, and the party returned to civilisation to prepare for a second expedition. Special boats were built and other preparations made. After passing through beautiful scenery the river plunged down a sleep gorge for 80 feet. One of the boats, the Marie, was wedged in some rock, and, although it was a wreck, it was recovered.]
Stanton decided on repairs, and his men cut four feet out of the middle of the Marie and rebuilt her. It was wasted labor, for a few days later they came to the worst rapid they had yet encountered. As they let the first boat down she filled and went under, but, hanging on like grim death, they saved her. Then they tried the Marie, but she hit the cliff and was smashed to fragments. The third boat "carried" over the rocks.
There were now too many men for the two boats, so two left, scrambling up a side canyon. The rest continued their hazardous journey. On February 12 they portaged two long rapids and, late in the day, saw two more ahead. From the thunderous roar they judged them to be bad, so Stanton went ahead to inspect.
Even his plucky soul quailed at the sight, for the first was a series of enormous waves like great white steps of foam; the second was a mass of boulders, and at the lower end was split by an immense rock. There was no way round; they had to run these rapids!
OVER the edge went Stanton's boat, and hit the first wave with a crack like a cannon shot. A weaker boat would have been split to pieces, but the stout ribs held. With a series of crashes she was flung from one wave to another; she drove through the last like a torpedo, coming out half full of water.
There was no time to bale out before she was in the second rapid. The great rock loomed up like a house. Stanton could have touched it as the boat fled past at 20 miles an hour; then she was in the smooth water below.
Stanton looked back, and the first thing he saw was a man on the top of the big rock, waving desperately. The second boat had been flung right up the steep side of the great rock, and all her crew had been able to step out. Stanton's boat was pulled back into the eddy behind the rock, and the men were taken off, then a rope was got round the stranded boat and she was hauled off, full of water but, most happily, undamaged.
You might think that nothing worse could be found than such rapids as these, yet presently the party came to something much more terrible—a rapid no less than a mile and a half in length, which resembled a gigantic mill race. Its surface was laced and streaked with lines of snowy foam, and its rear was deafening. Then, as they watched, there rose at its head a vast wave fifteen feet in height, covering the whole breadth of the river, and this rolled to the bottom of the rapid, where it broke in a thunder of white foam.
A second and a third wave followed, and presently they realised that they were watching the front of a cloud-burst flood. No craft made by man could live in such waves. The only course was to camp and wait till morning.
AT dawn anxious eyes scanned the torrent. The river had fallen a little, but the rapid still had the most terrifying appearance. It was no use looking at it. They had to go down it, for they certainly could not go back. They made all fast and let go.
The experience of the next few minutes can hardly be put into words. Over and over again it seemed as though nothing could save their boats from being smashed to atoms against the walls of the mighty canyon. At times the boats were borne high on the crests of racing waves, then they would be dropped into the trough with a crash that bruised every bone. At one spot all that saved the first boat was the pluck of one of her crew, who made a wild leap on to a ledge of rock, carrying a line, and dragged her into an eddy below.
There was, as already mentioned, a mile and a half of this wild water, and when at last the two boats reached the lower end the crews found themselves in the grip of a furious whirlpool, and had to pull till then muscles cracked in order to get clear.
Food was running short, tobacco was finished, and the weather had turned so cold that the spray froze on their boats and clothes. In the next two days they ran 35 rapids, and at last arrived at a small settlement called Diamond Creek, where they were able to get fresh supplies. The worst was now past, and, although many bad places had still to be passed and Stanton himself was nearly drowned in one of them, on March 17 the boats at last emerged from the canyon and floated on a smooth, broad river.
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