THE AMERICAN ADVENTURER: STORY OF THE SECOND TRAVELER (1879) – ANCIENT SCI FI

THE AMERICAN ADVENTURER: STORY OF THE SECOND TRAVELER (1879) – While looking for new blog posts to mark Frontierado this year I unexpectedly came across this short story that is more sci-fi than Wild West. 

Author and poet Don Maguire’s short story collection The American Adventurer is basically an Old West imitation of Canterbury Tales. The title figure is an itinerant peddler in the west who invites other guests at a Little Rock, AR inn to take turns sharing a tale from their life. The individual tales are titled Story of the First Traveler, and so on. 

Most of the stories would fit in with Wild West tall tales and the like, but Story of the Second Traveler features wild science fiction elements. An Irishman named Fitzhugh relates how he was once shipwrecked off the coast of South America. (But wait, there’s more as the old joke goes.)

Clinging to a makeshift raft he found an abandoned Spanish ship loaded with gold plundered in the 1500s. Eventually reaching Lima, Peru, Fitzhugh mustered a party to recover the gold and became wealthy beyond his dreams.

Traveling the world on his fortune, the Irishman hears legends about an island on which gold is nearly as plentiful as wood. Fitzhugh organizes a new expedition and sets sail from Africa to search for the Golden Island.

When the Irishman and his crew reach the isle of gold they discover that it possesses unusual scientific properties. Golden ore is so plentiful that it is used to make everyday products, meaning tools and furnishings of little worth on the island would be worth fortunes elsewhere.

The native inhabitants of the Golden Island are so welcoming and kind-hearted that Fitzhugh and his men drop their plan to make off with as much gold as possible. Instead, they settle down on the isle to spend the rest of their lives.

The islanders provide the newcomers with wives and show off the benefits of life there. There is no sickness and no want, because the island boasts plenty of food, water, vegetation, etc. The food and water of the isle so alter human anatomy that when the islanders die their bodies do not decay.

The birds who live on the Golden Island are so intelligent they can be trained to harvest crops, so the inhabitants are spared even that form of labor. Enormous birds called swavees can be ridden by people to get around the island very quickly. 

The island’s interior is home to a race of three-eyed humanoid creatures with tails and with six fingers on each hand. The inhabitants of the Golden Island never ride their swavees very far off the isle because neighboring islands are forbidden as too dangerous.

Fitzhugh and his crew have just enough adventurous spirit left to want to explore those dangerous locales. The islanders won’t let them fly swavees there, so the Irishman and his party sail off in the ship they arrived in.

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Arriving at a different island, Fitzhugh and company are horrified to find it is inhabited by gigantic natives. Those natives are very hostile and slaughter the crew, with only the Irish captain escaping back to sea.

Fitzhugh’s luck holds and he is eventually picked up by a passing ship and returned to civilization.

Some critics see parallels with the Odyssey in the Irishman’s adventures, given the brand of Lotus Eaters contentment and complacency that fills one after too much time on the Golden Island and with the giant natives sharing traits with the cyclops named Polyphemus, who killed and ate some of Odysseus’ men.

Story of the Second Traveler is not a must read but I wanted to post this review right away because this short story was a new discovery for me. 

FOR WASHINGTON IRVING’S 1809 depiction of an invasion from the moon click here:     https://glitternight.com/2014/05/05/ancient-science-fiction-the-men-of-the-moon-1809-by-washington-irving/

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