CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
PETER BOTTE.
THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.
CURIOSITIES OF THE VOICE.
FOX-HUNTING ON THE MOUNTAINS OF SCOTLAND.
SMUGGLING IN ITS DROLL ASPECTS.
THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.
A FIJIAN TRAGEDY.
| No. 709. | SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1877. | Price 1½d. |
PETER BOTTE.
In the island of Mauritius, in the Southern Ocean,stands Pieter Both (or Peter Botte), one of thestrangest shaped and most inaccessible mountainsin the world. From the sea it is most calculatedto impress beholders. Its quaint shape towersabove the rugged mountain mass which againdominates over Port-Louis; and its still quaintername dates from so far back as 1616, when PieterBoth d'Amersfort, a Dutch admiral, or General ofthe Sea, as he is described in the records, happeningto be shipwrecked on the island, wasperpetuated by name in the mountain which castits shadow across his drowned body.
The travellers' tales which are heard beyond theseas of the ascents of a mountain, insignificantin size, but by reputation ranking with monarchsof Alpine celebrity, have contributed to lend agrandeur and a mystery to Pieter Both in theimaginations of those who approach him for thefirst time. Though various ascents have beenmade from time to time (one of which wasdescribed in this Journal as far back as 1834),that made in June 1876 by a party of elevenseems to have been of special interest, as thefollowing narrative, from the pen of one of theparty, will shew. His story runs as follows:
An Indian, Deebee by name, a carriole driver bycalling, by repeated ascents has made himself somuch at home on the mountain as to be able toarrange a system of ropes and rough rope-laddersby which any one with a good head and fairlystrong muscles can reach the top with comparativeease. Deebee is a short square-built East Indian,with a pock-marked face, whose dress on the lasttime I saw him was a soldier's old tunic, and alady's 'cloud,' also old, about his head and chin.This worthy, after the preliminaries are settledwith the leader of the expedition, purchases a coilof two and a half inch Manilla rope, arms himselfwith a wonderfully battered horse-pistol and abroken cutlass, takes into his confidence sundryothers of his countrymen, and starts up the mountainthe day previous to that on which the ascentis to be attempted. Upon the 'Shoulder,' whichI shall presently notice, he has built a smallhut, where he and his band sl