NO.

So all right, they didn’t say “muscle” back then, and happy birthday to IBM.

Now only an idiot would have taken the job, but I was a twenty-year-old kid intoxicated by the Discovery Mystique and mad to make a name for myself. Headline: NED CURZON DISCOVERS NORTH POLE!!! Like it was missing. Or, NED CURZON, THE AFRICAN EXPLORER. “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Only M’bantu says Stanley never said that, and I take M’bantu’s word; he was there with a bindle on his head. Bindle? Bundle? McBee was there with a crate of four-buckle arctics on his head.

I was alone on the island in a bamboo warehouse with nothing but a terrier for company, but the locals sailed over to trade. They asked for the damndest things and offered me the damndest things, including their women, who would bounce into bed for a gill of trade whiskey. Ah! Those fabulous tropical beauties immortalized by Stanley! Not Sir Henry Morton Stanley of Africa; Darryl F. Stanley of Hollywood. Their skins were crocodiled with ceremonial scars and they cackled when you balled them, displaying teeth blackened by betel nut. Bring back Dorothy Lamour.

The natives knew that Krakatoa’s Mt. Rakata was an active volcano, but it was so small, compared to the boss jobs on Java and Sumatra, that it never prevented them from visiting. Rakata would complain and steam up pumice occasionally but you got used to it. There were earthquake grumbles now and then, so slight that I could hardly distinguish them from the pounding of the surf. Even my idiot dog didn’t have the sense to be alarmed. You know, the dumb friend barking to give warning of the unseen menace.

The big blowup came on August 26 and I did receive a rather odd warning. The day before, old Markoloua sailed over with his young men and women and a boatload of bêche-de-mer, which I loathe, but the Inscrutables love. They cook with ‘em. The locals were all chattering excitedly about fish.