Show CONCLUDING NARRATIVE How de Eougemont Finally Made His Way to Civilization I In making his first attempt to regaIn I civIlizatIon it was necessary for De Rousemon to proceed entirely at random ran-dom as he was totally unfamlllar with the geography of the country It was his impression however that by traveling trav-eling overland to the northwest he would be most likely to fall in with white men or with natives who could tell hIm where they were to be found Therefore he set out in this direction accompanied by hIs native wife After journeying for hundreds of miles over the barren lands of that region re-gion suffering agonies of thIrst in the desert and running many risks he at length reached a large river which he afterward learned must have been the Roper Here he built a rude raft and upon it he started to float down the stream The raIny season had just begun be-gun and as he went on the water rose and the current became more swift un tll finally he was swept along at a tremendous tre-mendous rate by the rushing current whith carried him out to sea Some distance from the mouth of the river De Rougemont and his wife land ed on a large island inhabIted by a number of natives who gave him a dugout canoe to take the place of hIs raft Thence he proceeded Ilong the coast in the direction in which he be lieved rape York to lie At length they fell in with a small Vessel carrying a Malay beche de mer expedition The fishermen receIved them hospitably and offered to carry them back to Kopang in the Dutch islands At this pOint however De lougemon black wife refused to ac company the party through fear of the Malays and rather than desert her De Rougemont gave up this opportunIty of rescue This iuas bout the year 1868 Captain Davis the commander of the Malay Vefsel 1nfotmed De llougemont that he would be likely to find white men at Port DarwIn between 300 and 400 miles away De Rougemont accord ingly fet out in his canoe to reach Port Darwin After traveling forward for two weeks lngefg and when he believed he must be close to Port Darwin a terrific storm arose which swept the canoe out of sight of land and nearly cost the lives of Its occupants In thecourse of the storm they were eVidently swept past Port Danrr for after sailing on for many days lre they came In sight of familiar land and found themselves once more on the shores of Cambridge gulf the identical point from which they had started WELCOMED BACK r The natives welcomed them back with every sign of delight and De Rougemont was careful not to explain to them that his rturn was involuntary For a long time after this bitter disappointment he remained among hlt Cambrldge gulf friends always keeIng a sharp lookout short fo visiting ships and making several xplorlng expeditions along the coast but not attempting another trip across the continent On ono occasion while the whole tribe was in camp some distance from their regular home a ship was sighted some three or four miles off shore Do Rouge mont and his followers made frantic slg nals to her and when these received answer they set no out In their canoes and rafts to reach her When within hailing distance a volley fired from the ships side wounded De Rougemont and over turned his canoe the crew of the vessel evidently believing that they were being attacked by hostile natives Before the canoe to was righted the ship made all sail get away Some months afterward when he had re coveted from his wound De Rouemont determined to male another strike for civilization and set off due south not knowIng that this dIrection would take hIm directly into the unexplored heart of the continent On this trip many wood ers were encountered tn u Including a rain w O > u uougnt aown live fish a countless horde of rats which devastated all the country It passed over and a cave full or Immense snakes There were also hands many narrow of hpstiie escapes natives from death at the On one oCasion believing that a native chief meditated treachery De Rougemont and his wife left the camp which they had constructed and slept in the bush In the morning they found a number of spears sticking through the bark sides of the camp In the place where they would have spent ordinuil Month after th the Journey was continued in a southerly direction It was impossible to travel due south but they followed a zigzag course from waterhole to waterhole after the man nor of the natives When he was some seven months out and whllo traveling In company wIth a I small party of blacks De Rougemont came sUddenly upon four white men At this time he was naked like the savages and so tanned and browned by to the weather that In appearance exposure he much like was them Forgetting this In his excitement however he rushed toward the white men who promptly fired his party and then retreated For upon this affair De Rougemont assumes the entire blame saying that he would doubtless have done the same thing under like cir cumstances I Two or three weeks after this encounter De Rougemont und his wife came across another white man who had lost his reason and was wandering about in the desert This man lived aimlessly with them for some two years recovering his mind finally just before his death sum clently to inform Dc < Rougemont that his name was Gibson and that he had been a member of the Giles expedition After the death or Gibson finding that there was apparently no hope of reaching civIlIzation b by following an overland ront n Rn Ln wuu ucmmeu to settle down among th friendly blacks and It necessary end his days there To this decision he says he was moved largely by the pleadlnhS or his native wife for whom he hud come to entertain a most sincere affection He therefore down in the mountainous settled center or thd continent region and near the became king ultimately or ruler over a number or large tribes In this manrw he lived out the next 2 years of his liCe and would probably have ended his days there had not an epidemic of influenza swept over the continent and carried away his wife and children I ONE MORE ATTEMPT BeIng thus left alone Dc Rougemant decided to make one more attempt to reach civilization and leaving his moun tain home set out toward the southwest In this as in previous journeys he was unable to follow a direct line but had to go hither and thither with the tribes that he met in his Journey After a time ho came across a tree malro Forrest evidently the name ot an explorer Who hud passed that way Turning south from rem this point he at length several days journey north of Mount Iarga learned that a party of white prospectors near by Taught by his previous were ex perience he decided to get seine of the natives to procure clothes for him before h Vhenhe presented Jind himself theprospecting to the white men party u uunucu LDCffi tnat he had bee journeying from the Interior for nine or ten months they looked upon him as a person of wpak Intellect and when he asked the question What year is this they were convlncecl that he was crazy However they permitted him to accom pan them back to Mount Marga which i was the nearest camp Thence by slow stages he worked his way to Melbourne reaching there early In 189 For over two years he suppirted himself by various moro or less menial occupations gradu nib becpmlng accustomed to civilization and learning of the events that had taken place durIng the time when he was lost to the world Early in the pres i < I ent year he worked his passage to Lon don on a trading vessel and soon afterward I after-ward all the world heard of him under the title of the new Robinson Crusoe |