St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1899-10-14
CAST AWAY AMONG sAvAGES.
Strange Adventures Of q ErenchmaD
That Outrival Anything
i'm Fiction.

The adventures of Louis de Rouge
mont recently stirred England with a
very considerable controversy, and il
was pretty conclusively proven that
this traveller could not have been cast
away among the aborigines of Aus
tralia quite as he said. The result was
a general belief that most such claim
ants were impostors. But there was
one Frenchman who, it turns out, did
have very much the adventures which
NJ. de Rougemont claimed as his.
Narcisse Pierre Pelletier Tor Peltier),
the son of a shoemaker of St. Giles,
near lie d'Ieu, on the coast of France.
sailed as cabin boy in the ST. Paul OF
Bordeaux, which was wrecked in 1858
on the reef in the Lousiade archipelago.
In the endeavor of the crew to reach
an English settlement in an open boat,
the captain and others, after enduring
the greatest hardships. finally reached
the northeast coast of Australia.
Here Narcisse, half dead with hun
ger. thirst and exposure. was unable
any longer to keep up with his com
panions. and consequently was left to
his fate. and was ultimately discovered
by the savages.
With these aborigines he remained
II years and was given up for dead by
his family and friends. On April IL,
1875. however, he was discovered and
rescued by the crew of the British
schooner John Bell. pearl ship, then
lying a. Night ISLAM.
When found Pelletier was one with
the. savages.z lie was stark naked: his
body was burnt by the sun TO rich
red color and had a glazed appearance
produced by some savage appliance.
His breast was adorned after the
custom of the tribe among which his
lot had been for so long cast. with
raised lines of flesh to'the thickness OF
an ordinary leadpencil. and the lobe
of his right ear was ornamented with
q piece of wood over an inch and q
half in diameter and four inches long
Says paper. of July 81. 1873:
..The sailors of the John Bell who
brought him off are under the impress
sion that he came willingly, and tina,
the savages understood he was being
ransomed with trade Narcisse
states. however. that neither did the
natives wish him to go. nor did he
himself wish to leave them, but that
they feared resistance would have
caused the sailors to fire upon them.
For the first few days after his re-
turn to civilization he was described
as being restless and uneasy, and as
having sat upon a rail like a bird
watching every one in a frightened
manner. The most extraordinary
feature of the case is that, although a
mere boy when deserted, he has re-
tanned his knowledge of reading and
writing. and can now count up with
ease to 100, although on his first at.
tempt to do SO he failed when he
reached so. MGf& TN
Ills account of life among the say.
ages is necessarily meager. partly be.
cause he has still some difficulty in
expressing his ideas in. French. and
partly from a natural reticeht DISPOSE
ton. His life, like that of the men OF
his tribe. appears to have been prin.
cipally passed in fishing and hunting
with an occasional brush with hostile
tribe"
Narcisse was taken to brisbane and
was there put into the hands of the
French consul, who send him back to the
land of his birth. Among his family
and friends he quickly reacquired the
knowledge and love of civilization, and
lived as fisherman with them until his
death ten years ago.-St. Louis Repub
lie. E-s#