M. de Rougemont's regular paper was read at the meeting
of the Geographical Section on Monday, and described how he was shipwrecked in the year 1865, and how he wandered about the northern part of the Australian Continent for many years trying to make his way back to civilisation. He once or twice met parties of white explorers, but being stark naked and smeared with black greasy clay, he was always taken for a savage, and generally fired at. At last he got tired of the hopeless search, and determined to live in solitude. His savage friends, however, suggested that instead he should be Xing among them. He accepted the offer, and for twenty years 'ruled a King the pathless wilds" of Northern Australia. Then came the influenza and destroyed his wife and children. Thus left alone, he determined to once more try to reach eivilisation, and this time succeeded. One of the incidents recorded by M. de Rongemont is very picturesque. In 1875 te found an old newspaper on a white man's trail. Much of the information this paper contained puzzled him greatly, and he nearly worried himself into insanity over a statement that" the Deputies of Alsace and Lorraine had refused to vote in the German Parliament, and had walked out." Turn it over bow he might, "he could not understand how the repre- sentatives of two great Departments in his own country could possibly be in the German Parliament, as of course he knew nothing of the War of 1870."
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