Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-12-12
Qriun1phS OLA
MJonquelleX
by MELVILLE DAWSON Posi- y
% 1909 NA Service. Inc

lie Was sane and clever-hOW Sane
and how clever you will realize when
you get the whole thing clearly in
your mind. 1t was a long time be-
lore we understood it, although how
we could have been so stupid seems
to me now a greater wonder than
the fantastic incidents with which
Chauvannes filed the closing pages
OF his journal.
II think the first clew we got was
the method Chauvannes had taken
to be sure that the journal would
get into paris after his death. His
direction written on the back of it,
was that the bearer who brought it
in should be paid five thousand
francs by the executors of his es-
tate. You see he was offering a re-
ward for the thing to get in.
only one of the three men that
Chauvannes constantly speaks of in
his journal ever appeared. One can
imagine what happened to the other
two-the same thing, doubtless, that
happened to all the persons who
started with Ch%Guvannes northeast
to the Nyanza after he had aban-
doned his excavations"
The big man beyond Monsieur
Jonquelle in the dark seemed to
have composed himself to listen. He
was silent, and Monsieur Jonuuelle
went on:
These men, who were the only
persons alive with Chauvannes when
he finally reached the Ituri on the
morning of the 18th of December.
must have been three of the most
desperate adventures in the world.
They were evidently broken men at
the end of their tether, willing to
stake everything on a last chance,
or they would not have Joined
C~hauvannes. They were not men he
selected. He never would have Sc
lected men of this character. They
seem to have followed him in and
to have literally annexed themselves
to his expedition when he left tbs
congo east of the Leopold. They
u have been an exquisite devils
guard-those three; the little wolf
laced Apache Lecture, the Finn SAL
lor, and the American beachcomber
they called Captain Dix.
1.-The Apache was the one who
came in with the journal. He must
nave been, after all, what you would
all the best man of the three.
Nevertheless it was these three hell
birds who came out alive with
Chauvannes. And what he had to
say about them is on every mage Of
the journal. He must have changed
his mind very shortly after they
joined him, because the first impress
sions he wrote down, which were
probably what our own would have
been, were afterward scratched out.
We might lave believed that some
one else had made these erasures
u for the fact that the journal
from ThIG time ~ - -
speak of these three men in the
highest terms. Their tirelessness,
their energy, their courage, their
devotion to Chauvannes is the one
note that continues through this
journal to the end.
OF course, one could say that as
these men had to depend on Chau-
Vannes to bring them out, the pres
ence OF a common peril would have
united them in his support and that
while they were apparently exertins
themselves for him, they were, in
fact, laboring to get out of that will
derness alive.
They were evidently densely ig-
norant persons of a low order, every |
one of them. The Finn and the
American b~eachcomber had no edu-
cation whatever: Lecture could read,
10 was a QSocTLoT, we mink, IRON
the Foreign Legion-and he had a
sort OF devils shrewdness. But he
was no match, when it came to wits.
for Chauvannes. None of them were.
They were ignorant and s~upersti-
tious. But they were determined. |
desperate to the last degree and
afraid of nothing.
"One of the features of the Jour
nal that first impressed me was the
that Chauvannes had no illu-
sions about these men. He under
stood each of them perfectly. He
pinned the success of his great plan
to an accurate conception of the
Apache Lecture. He thought this
desperate human creature was what
would call the best man. He
expected him to come out the best
man, and he laid the plan he had
In mind to fit that e~ventuality. And
ne was right. I saw that when I
got to thinking about the journal.
And 1 saw something else. I
saw that Chauvannes realized his
own situation pretty early in the
march of events. He knew what he
going into. And he knew where
the thing would lead. He realized