The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-01-05
MADE A SOUTH SEA FIRE
Jack London's Companion Learned
Trick From Cannibals.

Independence. Kan, Jan. 5.-Swaylns
fythmically from side to slde. as the
story tellers say the serpehts 40 uIlueL
the spell of the charmer's lutte, young
man sat with shield, purCnaseo IHv =.
q savage Solomon islander, between his
crossed legs, and as he swayed he
scraped q wooden pestle upon the shield
continuously, energetically, earnestly. 1t
happened in this city. The young man
was Martin Johnson OF the SHARK
crew. You know the Shark.
The pestle dug into the soft fiber of
the shield. The young man worked
harder and harder. until presently he
was forced to cease his efforts from
sheer exhaustion.
That's queer" he remarked as he
puffed all out of breath. i've done the
trick many a time. I can do it this
time, too. Woods too soft, that's all.
Won't hold the fire. If 1 had a log
she'd come in a hurry"
The Punk GIowed: Blue Flame Came.
Then he scraped the fragile shavings
made by the grinding of the stick
against the shield into little head at
the end of the groove he had worn with
the pestle and resumed.
He worked with greater energy than
before, and presently a tiny, thin, blue
stream of smoke about as big as a
morse hair began to worm its way up
ward. With that the pestle operator
Duckled down to his job still more
closely. In a short time the punk be-
gan to glow and then a bit Of a flame
leaped up. Thoroughly exhausted the
young man stopped and lighted his
cigarette from the first wood friction
nre made in this region, so far as local
chronicles relate, since the days when
the Indians had to get along without
the white mans inventions.
Martin Johnson is not a savage. He's
Kansan of this city, who made a trip
across the Pacific ocean with the
novelist, Jack London, in his 45-foot
poat, the Shark and after leaving Lon
don and wife in Australia made his way
on around the globe by the way of the
Suez canal
The Skull of an Eaten Man.
II have learned the art of making
fire with birthstone from the natives
of the Marquessas, explained Martin.
"The shield 1 obtained from a Solo
mon island cannibal in exchange for
bit of tobacco"
Behind Martin as he worked lay a
grinning human skull that he had
picked up in the Solomon islands
Seaweed was growing through the eyes
and nose when he found the gruesome
relic.
rs it the skull of a white man. do
you suppose?" queried the bystander.
"Oh, 1 don't know. 1 saw lots of
them and 1 could never notice any
dlfference," was the reply. ut might
nave Deen the skull of missionary,
or of big chief or of a common war
rior. Life is not very precious in the
Solomons, and it's up to every man,
white or black, to take care of his own
hide, and incidentally-his own head
piece.
The Shark Nosed Into a Strange Cover
1.-THE Shark plowed through seas
and prow1ed into hooks and crannies
that white men seldom or never visit.
Its crew saw things that few white
people see. The Solomons were the
most primitive and savage of the spots
visited.
1.-THE Marquesas are the most beau
tiful and nearest to what the Garden
of Eden must have been. There the
people are gentle of manner ana kind
ly disposed. They are lazy, but there
is no need for industry. All they re-
quire for sustaining life grows in
abundance and there is no incentive
to labor. 1t is the lazy mans para
disc. The women are handsome as a
rule and the men are fine specimens,
but diseases peculiar to the islands
make it impossible for white men to
dwell there for many years at a
stretch. 1t doesn't cost much if a man