Keltie, Mill and de Rougemont and the Australian affair

A find in the GA archives from the papers of Hugh Robert Mill - correspondence with Leonard Huxley. It seems he and John Scott Keltie were drawn into a strange affair involving an apparent trip made to Australia which was reported in a magazine.

This website provides a little more detail on the controversy, which included an apparent sport called turtle riding.

De Rougemont’s story begins with his birth as Henri Louis Grin, in Switzerland in 1847. In 1875 Grin came to Australia where he bought the pearling cutter, Ada. The vessel was reported missing in 1877 and the wreck discovered several months later near Cooktown. But what had happened to Ada’s master? Grin’s story of survival was incredible: he made claims to have sailed 3000 miles as the sole survivor of an attack by Aborigines at Lacrosse Island.

After this incident Grin moved regularly, changing jobs and identities. He married and then deserted his wife, Eliza. He worked as a dishwasher, waiter and photographer. 

In New Zealand he resurfaced as a spiritualist before arriving in England in 1898. 

Emerging now as Louis de Rougemont, Grin reinvented himself and his story to a fascinated public. The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont as Told by Himself was published in 1899 and contained incredible tales of his adventures as a castaway in North-West and Central Australia.

De Rougemont’s book was an instant sensation – and caused a huge uproar. He began touring and giving lectures to scientific and exploration societies such as the British Association for the Advancement of Science where he was greeted with fascination and, of course, disbelief. 

De Rougemont refused to demonstrate the Aboriginal language skills he professed to have learnt and could not specify on a map where his adventures had taken place. Among the stories so vividly described in his book were tales of single-handedly fighting alligators, the devoted deeds of his Aboriginal wife Yamba and his horror of cannibal feasts. Of all of the fantastic stories included in de Rougemont’s ‘memoir’, however, the one that caused the biggest outcry by far was his claim to have ridden turtles – many believed this to be simply impossible.

There is more about him here. It sounds like a tale worth following up.