Penguin, Blubber, Their Daily Diet

1916

ONCE THEY DINE ON FISH FROM SEAL'S STOMACH.

Lacking Tobacco, Shackleton's Marooned Men Smoke Grass Taken From Boot Padding.

LONDON, England, Sept. 14. — Life on Elephant Island, in the Antarctic, as it was experienced by the marooned men of Lieutenant Sir Ernest Shackleton's south polar expedition, who were rescued recently and taken to Chili, is described in a message received from Punta Arenas and published in the Daily Chronicle.

"The day began," says the description, "with breakfast, which consisted merely of penguin, fried in blubber, with a drink of water. The morning's duties consisted in clearing away snowdrifts and catching penguin.

"Lunch was served at 1 o'clock, consisting of a biscuit with raw blubber. The afternoon was occupied with regular exercise over a track 100 yards in length.

Smoke Grass From Boots.

"At 5 o'clock, when darkness fell, came dinner, consisting of penguin breast and beef tea. Lacking tobacco, the men smoked grass from the padding in their boots, while the pipes were carved from birds' bones and wood.

"The members of the party took turns in reading aloud from the only available books, namely, the Bible, an encyclopedia, Browning, Bacon's Essays and Carlyle's French Revolution. Saturday evening was always marked by a concert, the feature of which was banjo playing. A banjo was the only musical instrument in camp.

Fish as Change of Diet.

"On one occasion there was a welcome addition to the diet when several undigested fish were found in the stomach of a seal, and greatly enjoyed. These were the only fish obtained during our stay. In August there was a change in the diet when limpets were gathered and seaweed was available as a vegetable.

"We were in the midst of one of these limpet and seaweed lunches when the rescue boat was sighted.

"'When was the war over?' was the first question we asked."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 5.

Henry M. Stanley's Graphic Story Against Africans, Cannibals, In Battle

1878

Stanley's Graphic Story

Incidents of His March across the Continent — Fighting with Cannibals — A Monster Canoe — A Temple of Ivory

Henry M. Stanley continues his graphic story of African exploration in a letter to the New York Herald. We give the most interesting incidents: On January 4, 1877, we came to the first of what proved a series of cataracts, or, to use a more correct term, falls, below the confluence of the Lumami, and the Lualaba, or the Lowa, as the river was now called. Our troubles began now in earnest. We were hunted like game. Night and day every nerve was strained to defend ourselves. Four times on January 4 we broke through the lines of canoes brought out against us, and finally we were halted by the Baswa Falls. The savages seemed to think that we had no resource left but to surrender and be eaten at their leisure.

Again and again were we compelled to repulse the furious charges that they made to drive us over the falls. The people of the Falls Islands also came up to assist the cannibals of Mwana Ntaba. We were at bay, and became desperate. Return we could not, as we could not pull against stream and fight. We pulled ashore first on the right bank, then across river to the left, and made a camp in the woods, drawing our canoes and boat up after us. After constructing a fence of brush around on the forest side the best sharpshooters were placed in position for defence. After a short time the natives retired and left us to rest.

For the ensuing twenty-four days we had fearful work, constructing camps by night along the line marked out during the day, cutting roads from above to below each fall, dragging our heavy canoes during the day, while the most active of the young men — the boat's crew — repulsed the savages and foraged for food. On January 27 we had passed in this desperate way forty-two geographical miles, by six falls, and to effect it had dragged our canoes a distance of thirteen miles by land and by roads which we had cut through the forest. Our provisions in the meantime we had to procure as we best could. When we had cleared the last fall, we halted two days for rest, which we all very much needed. In the passage of these falls we lost five men only.

After passing this series of falls we entered upon different scenes. The river was gradually widening from the usual 1,500 to 2,000 yards breadth to two and there miles. It then began to receive grander affluents, and soon assumed a lacustrine breadth from four to ten miles. Islands also were so numerous that once a day were we able to obtain a glimpse of the opposite bank. We had reached the great basin lying between the maritime and lake regions.

The first day we entered this region we were attacked three times by three separate tribes; the second day we maintained a running fight almost the entire day, which culminated in a grand naval fight at the confluence of the Aruwimi — the Welle (?) — with the Lualaba. As we crossed over from the current of the Lualaba to that of the Aruwimi, and had taken a glance at the breadth of the magnificent affluent, we were quite taken aback at the grand preparations for our reception. Fifty-four canoes rushing down on us with such fury that I saw I must act at once if I wished to save the expedition. Four of our canoes, in a desperate fright, became panic stricken and began to pull fast down stream, but hey were soon brought back.

We dropped our stone anchors, formed a close line and calmly waited events. Down the natives came, fast and furious but in magnificent style. Everything about them was superb. Their canoes were enormous things, one especially, a monster, eighty paddlers, forty on a side, with paddles eight feet long, spear-pointed, and really pointed with iron blades for close quarters, I presume. The top of each paddle shaft was adorned with ivory balls. The chiefs pranced up and down a planking that ran from stem to stem. On a platform near the bow were ten choice young fellows swaying their long spears ready. At the stern of this great war canoe stood eight steersmen, guiding her toward us. There were about twenty — three-fourths of her size — also fine looking, but none made such an imposing show. At a rough guess there must have been from fifteen hundred to two thousand savages within these fifty-four canoes.

I cannot think that these belonged to one power. I imagine that it was a pre-concerted arrangement with neighboring tribes, got up especially for our entertainment. We had no time even to breathe a short prayer or to think of indulging in a sentimental farewell to the murderous cannibalistic world in which we found ourselves. The enemy, in full confidence of victory, was on us, and the big monster as it shot past us launched a spear — the first. We waited no longer; they came to fight. The cruel faces, the loudly triumphant drums, the deafening horns, the launched spears, swaying bodies, all proved it; and every gun in our little fleet angrily gave response to our foes. We were in a second almost surrounded, and clouds of spears hurtled and hissed for a short time — say, ten minutes. They then gave way, and we lifted our anchors and charged them, following them with fatal result. We were carried away with our feelings. We followed them to the shore, chased them on land into their villages, ten or twelve of them, and, after securing some of the abundance of food we found there, I sounded the recall.

To the victors belong the spoil — at least so thought my people — and the amount of ivory they discovered lying useless about astonished me. There was an ivory "temple," a structure of solid tusks surrounding an idol; ivory logs, which, by the marks of hatchets visible on them, they must have used to chop wood upon; ivory war horns, some of them three feet long; ivory mallets, ivory wedges to split wood, ivory pestles to grind their cassava, and before the chief's house was a veranda, or burzah, the posts of which were long tusks of ivory. There were 133 pieces of ivory, which, according to rough calculation, would realize, or ought to realize, about $10,000. These, I told the men, they must consider as their prize money. In this fight we only lost one man.

River in Paraguay Leads Only To Mystery

1903

A GREAT MYSTERY

A Land From Which No Traveler Has Returned

One of the great mysteries of the world that is left for explorers to solve is the course of a river in South America and the land through which it runs.

The river is the Pilcomayo, and the land is the territory known as the Chaco in Paraguay. Explorer after explorer has entered this unknown country and none has returned. Last year the famous explorer, Erland Nordenskiold, one of the great Nordenskiold family of explorers and naturalists, tried to follow the Pilcomayo to its source, but, although he penetrated further than any other man ever managed to go and return, he did not succeed.

Enemies who could not be seen surrounded him day and night, and at last the mysterious terrors of the region forced even him to return. He has announced that Chaco still waits for the traveler who can conquer its secrets. So constant and unchangeable has been the doom of the explorers who tried it that the natives have named the Pilcomayo the River of Death and they speak of the Chaco as the Unknown Land.

Geographers know where the Pilcomayo river begins. It is in the high plateau of Bolivia. Near Asuncion in Paraguay, a broad and beautiful river empties into the Paraguay river. It is called the Pilcomayo, and it is supposed that it is that river. But no man knows for no man has followed the great stream from its source to its mouth.

Men have tried to follow the Pilcomayo in canoes that were hung with hides to serve as protection against Indians who occupy the Chaco. But after days of fighting they were beaten back and accounted themselves lucky to escape alive. Some of the best men of South America have lost their lives there, and of their parties not one man escaped to tell what fate had befallen them.

Fiercest of the several tribes of Indians who hold Chaco against exploration are the Tobias and Chorotes Indians. They are utterly uncivilized, subsisting entirely on game, fish, wild honey and roots. Their few garments and shelters are made from jaguar skins. They rub pieces of wood together to make fire.

Most of them are gorgeously painted and tattooed and they ornament themselves still further with feathers and flowers.

They do not know anything about metal working and do not even use flints for their weapons, but make them entirely out of hard wood, even their arrows being made simply out of pointed wood.

They bore holes through their lips and ears and thrust a piece of polished wood through them. They are splendidly formed, immensely strong and agile, but hideous in countenance; and they will not have anything to do with strangers, but seek to kill them as soon as they find them. They fight fiercely among themselves, also, and it is believed that they are cannibals — at least part of them.

This is the county that has lured explorer after explorer in the last twenty years without letting one return. It appears probably that it will continue to defy the world for many years to come. — Ex.

Dr. Livingstone's Ordeal — Attacked By A Crazed Lion

1895

Incident of One of Dr. Livingstone's Exploring Expeditions In Africa

One of the most famous encounters with a lion, from which the chief actor escaped and was able to relate full particulars, is that recorded in the life of Dr. Livingstone. "I meant," he says, "to have kept it to tell to my children in my dotage," but friends considered it so marvelous that he was persuaded to relate it in his first book. The testimony of such a man is far more valuable than accounts of the average sportsman and traveler, and the story in Dr. Livingstone's own words has become one of the classics of the English language. It is as follows:

"The Bakatia of the village of Mabosta were troubled by lions which leaped into the cattle pens by night and destroyed their cows. They even attacked the herds in open day. This was so unusual an occurrence that the people believed themselves to be bewitched, 'given,' as they said, 'into the power of the lions by a neighboring tribe.' They went once to attack the animals, but going rather cowardly in comparison with the Bechunas in general they returned without slaying any.

"It is well known that if one in a troop of lions is killed the remainder leave that part of the country. The next time, therefore, the herds were attacked I went with the people to encourage them to rid themselves of the annoyance by destroying one of the marauders. We found the animals on a small hill covered with trees. The men formed round it in a circle and gradually closed up as they advanced. Being below on the plain with a native schoolmaster named Mabalwe, I saw one of the lions sitting on a piece of rock within the ring. Mabalwe fired at him and the ball hit the rock on which the animal was sitting. He bit at the spot struck, as a dog does at a stick or stone thrown at him; and then leaping away, broke through the circle and escaped unhurt. If the Bakatia had acted according to the custom of the country they would have speared him in his attempt to get out, but they were afraid to attack him. When the circle was re-formed we saw two other lions in it, but dared not fire lest we should shoot some of the people. The beasts burst through the line, and, as it was evident the men could not be prevailed upon to face their foes, we bent our footsteps toward the village. In going round the end of the hill I saw a lion sitting on a piece of rock, about thirty yards off with a little bush in front of him. I took a good aim at him through the bush and fired both barrels into it. The men called out, 'he is shot, he is shot!' Others cried, 'he has been shot by another man, too; let us go to him!' I saw the lion's tail erected in anger, and, turning to the people, said: 'Stop a little till I load again.' While in the act of ramming down the bullets, I heard a shout, and, looking half around, I saw the lion in the act of springing upon me. He caught me by the shoulder and we both came to the ground together. Growling horribly, he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first grip of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain or feeling of terror, though I was quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe — they see the operation, but do not feel the knife. This placidity is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivora; and, if so, is a merciful provision of the Creator for lessening the pain of death. As he had one paw on the back of my head, I turned round to relieve myself of the weight, and saw his eyes directed at Mabalwe, who was aiming at him from a distance of ten or fifteen yards. His gun, which was a flint one, missed fire in both barrels. The animal immediately left me to attack him and bit his thigh. Another man, whose life I had saved after he had been tossed by a buffalo, attempted to spear the lion, upon which he turned from Mabalwe and seized this fresh foe by the shoulder. At that moment the bullets the beast had received took effect and he fell down dead. The whole was the work of a few moments, and must have been his paroxysm of dying rage. In order to take out the charm from him the Bakatia on the following day made a huge bonfire over the carcass, which was declared to be the largest ever seen. Besides crunching the bones into splinters, eleven of his teeth had penetrated the upper part of my arm. The bite of a lion resembles a gunshot wound. It is generally followed by a great deal of sloughing and discharge, and ever afterward pains are felt periodically in the part. I had on a tartan jacket, which I believe wiped off the virus from the teeth that pierced the flesh, for my two companions in the affray have both suffered from the usual pains, while I have escaped with only the inconvenience of a false joint in my limb. The wound of the man who was bit in the shoulder actually burst forth afresh on the same month of the following year. This curious point deserves the attention of inquirers." — Chicago Chronicle.