The chief, or rather the most popular and exciting, event
in the meeting of the British Association at Bristol this week has been the strange tale told by M. de Rougemont, who declares that he lived for thirty years among cannibal tribes in Australia, and was treated by them as a chief or King. The genuine- ness of his statements has been challenged, but we note that the experts at the British Association, including some Austra- lians, appear to accept his narrative, and that what seemed his most " difficult " statement—i.e, the riding on a turtle, the steering being done by kicking the turtle in the eye— has been vouched for by an Admiral. Admiral Moresby's letter in Wednesday's Daily Chronicle shows that turtle- riding is a well-recognised mode of water progression among midshipmen on the Australian station. We gather, indeed, from Admiral Moresby's statement that a midshipman "sitting well back " on a turtle is far safer than when engaged in the horse-riding expeditions which he always insists on taking when he gets on shore.
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