THE ADVENTURES OF LOUIS DE ROUGEMONT




CHAPTER I



Early life--Leaving home--I meet Jensen--I go pearling--Daily
routine--Submarine beauties--A fortune in pearls--Seized by an
octopus--Shark-killing extraordinary--Trading with the natives--
Impending trouble--Preparing for the attack--Baffling the savages.


I was born in or near Paris, in the year 1844. My father was a
fairly prosperous man of business--a general merchant, to be
precise, who dealt largely in shoes; but when I was about ten years
old, my mother, in consequence of certain domestic differences,
took me to live with her at Montreux, and other places in
Switzerland, where I was educated. I visited many of the towns
near Montreux, including Lausanne, Geneva, Neufchatel, &c. The
whole of the time I was at school I mixed extensively with English
boys on account of their language and sports, both of which
attracted me.

Boys soon begin to display their bent, and mine, curiously enough,
was in the direction of geology. I was constantly bringing home
pieces of stone and minerals picked up in the streets and on the
mountains, and asking questions about their origin and history. My