Date: the morning of February 1, 1895
Event: Kador ben Saden's men take Tarzan back to Bou Saada.
Source: "While they were mounting in the douar of Kadour ben Saden the morning of their departure, the girl came to bid farewell to Tarzan." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Bou Saada
Date: after dark February 1, 1895
Event: Tarzan arrives at Bou Saada and receives orders to go to Cape Town immediately.
Source: "Thus, making his entrance after dark, as he did, he was not seen by anyone who knew him, and reached the inn unobserved." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan. "One was an order from his superior to lay off on his present work, and hasten to Cape Town by the first steamer he could get." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Bou Saada
Date: the night of February 1, 1895
Event: Tarzan makes arrangements to leave Bou Saada for Cape Town. The ape-man then finds Nickolas Rockoff and takes the secret papers from the Russian he had just obtained from Lieutenant Gernois.
Source: "It was for there he headed." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Bou Saada
Date: shortly before eight o'clock on the morning of February 2, 1895
Event: Tarzan rode north to Bouira and Algiers.
Source: "The next morning Tarzan rode north on his way to Bouira and Algiers." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan. "He shot himself about eight o'clock this morning." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Bouira, Algeria
Date: the evening of February 2, 1895
Event: Tarzan arrives at Sidi Aissa and discovers Lieutenant Gernois has killed himself.
Source: "At Sidi Aissa Tarzan met a French officer with whom he had become acquainted on the occasion of his recent sojourn in the town." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan. "You left Bou Saada early," ERB-The Return Of Tarzan. "He shot himself about eight o'clock this morning." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Sidi Aissa, Algeria
Date: February 4, 1895
Event: Tarzan arrives in Algiers.
Source: "Two days after Tarzan reached Algiers." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
 |
| Algiers, Algeria |
Date: February 6, 1895
Event: Tarzan remains in Algiers for two days while waiting for his ship to Cape Town.
Source: "There he found that he would have a two day's wait before he could catch a ship bound for Cape Town." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Algiers, Algeria
Date: February 6, 1895
Event: Tarzan boards a ship for Cape Town using the name John Caldwell of London.
Source: "There he found that he would have a two day's wait before he could catch a ship bound for Cape Town." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Algiers, Algeria
Date: the night of February 6, 1895
Event: Tarzan meets Hazel Strong.
Source: "At dinner that night Tarzan set next to a young woman whose place was at the captain's left." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Al Anderson
Event: Lord Tennington's yacht and Tarzan's English steamer passed in the Strait of Gibraltar.
Source: "And so it happened that on a certain day two vessels passed in the Strait of Gibraltar." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan. "This vessel flies the English flag." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Chat: At first glance one assumes that Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author, offers very little information to date this event, but using simple logic he does. According to Alan Hanson's A Chrono-log of ERB'S Tarzan Series, the jungle lord's ocean voyage from Algiers to Cape Town takes two weeks. The passing of the ships passing at the Strait of Gibraltar occurs shortly after the ape-mans' departure from Algiers, so, therefore, we know the ships passing is occurring very early in the voyage.
Although exact dates can't be provided for this and the following five events all occur within a ten-day time period according to Alan Hanson's A Chrono-log of ERB'S Tarzan Series. Using this information we have provided working dates that do not oppose Edgar Rice Burroughs, the authors, provided information.
Event: As the yacht and steamer passed Tarzan was talking to Hazel Strong, Jane's longtime friend, and discovered she had yet to marry Clayton. The ape-man also learned Jane was in love with him instead of his cousin William Cecil.
Source: "When the yacht had passed the man resumed the conversation that her appearance had broken off." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
C. Edmund Monroe
Date: February 8 through 11, 1895
Event: The next few days passed uneventfully aboard the passenger steamer.
Source: "The next few days passed uneventfully." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Rafael Palacious
Event: Tarzan, still going by his spy name, John Caldwell, meets Nickolas Rokoff going by the name of Monsieur Thuran,
Source: "One day Tarzan found Miss Strong in conversation with a stranger, a man he had not seen on board before." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Chat: The interesting thing here is that Tarzan is looking at Nickolas Rockoff who he had just seen less than two weeks ago in Bou Saada, Algeria, and does not recognize him either by sight or smell. Without actually saying it Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author, is clearly indicating that Nickolas Rokoff had altered his appearance. Why didn't the ape-man smell the Russian's scent? As a spy, Nickolas Rokoff often played the part of an aristocrat. Therefore, the Russian spy would have used the manly perfumes of the day. Being a traveler he most likely owned more than one brand and scent. The changing of the perfumes would keep the jungle lord's keen sense off balance.
Robert Abbit
Date: February 17, 1895
Event: Days later Nickolas Rockoff searched Tarzan's room for secret papers.
Source: "He did not see the man again for days." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Barclay Shaw
Date: the night of February 17, 1895
Event: That night Tarzan is thrown overboard.
Source: "After Miss Strong had gone below that night Tarzan stood leaning over the rail looking far out to sea." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Chat: Alan Hanson in his A Chrono-log Of ERB's Tarzan Series suggests Tarzan's trip from Algiers to Cape Town takes right at two weeks. Since I have no way of researching the ship's travel time so I will depend on Alan's research for working dates. According to William Cecil Clayton's description in Tarzan Of The Apes,10" degrees, South Latitude is the location of John and Alice Clayton's cabin in Portuguese Angola. By chance, this is also the exact location where Tarzan was thrown overboard by Nickolas Rokoff and Alexis Paulvitch in The Return Of Tarzan.
Russ Manning
Date: the night of February 17, 1895
Event: After swimming briefly, Tarzan noticed his secret papers were gone.
Source: "Now he knew that something more than revenge had prompted Rockoff to pitch him overboard - the Russian had managed to obtain possession of the papers Tarzan had wrested from him at Bou Saada." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Russ Manning
Event: Near dawn, Tarzan happened upon the wrecked bottom of a derelict. There he slept.
Source: "The first faint evidence of dawn was paling the stars ahead of him when the dim outlines of a low-lying black mass loomed up directly in his track. ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Walpole Champney
Date: around forenoon February 18, 1895
Event: Tarzan awakes and discovers a little boat and a distant shoreline.
Source: "The heat of the sun awoke him early in the forenoon." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Joe Kubert
Date: late afternoon February 18, 1895
Event: By late in the afternoon Tarzan was close enough to shore to discover he was at his birthplace.
Source: "It was late in the afternoon by the time he came close enough to distinguish objects on land, or to make out the contour of the shoreline." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Daryl Mandryk
Date: February 18, 1895
Event: At age twenty-two, Tarzan enters the cabin he had left nearly two years before.
Source: "Nothing had been disturbed; there were the table, the bed, and the little crib built by his father - the shelves and cupboards just as they had stood for over twenty-three years - just as he had left them nearly two years before.." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Harry Wooley
Date: growing dark February 18, 1895
Event: Tarzan kills Horta, the boar.
Source: "While it was yet light Tarzan came to a drinking place by the side of a jungle river. On a low branch, he squatted above the trail. For an hour he waited. It was growing dark." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Harry Wooley
Date: growing dark February 18, 1895
Event: Jane Porter and William Cecil Clayton eat dinner upon the Lady Alice in the Indian Ocean.
Source: "He wiped his bloody hands on a bunch of leaves, slung the remains of his kill across his shoulder, and swung off through the middle terrace of the forest toward his cabin, and at the same instant Jane Porter and William Cecil Clayton arose from a sumptuous dinner upon the Lady Alice, thousands of miles to the east, in the Indian Ocean." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Ron Ely
Date: following forenoon February 19, 1895
Event: Tarzan swam in the sea, ate, then went in search of weapons.
Source: "Tarzan slept late into the following forenoon, for he had been very tired from the labors and extortion of the long night and day upon the ocean, and the jungle jaunt that had brought into play muscles that he had scarce used for nearly two years.." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Chat: This is the second passage in The Return Of Tarzan that informs us Tarzan has been gone from Portuguese Angola for nearly two years.
J. Allen St. John
Date: that night February 19, 1895
Event: Tarzan discovered Mbonga's village was no longer, so he went inland in search of another village. That night he slept in the jungle.
Source: "That night he slept far inland from his cabin, securely wedged into the crotch of a giant tree, swaying a hundred feet above the ground." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Chat: Edgar Rice Burroughs the author, never mentions the fate of Tibo, or his mother Momaya. All we know is that the two never again appear in the Tarzan series.
John Coleman Burroughs
Date: early the next morning February 20, 1895
Event: Tarzan continued inland following the course of the stream.
Source: "Early the next morning he resumed his journey, always following the course of the stream." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
The Return Of Tarzan
Event: Hazel Strong, along with Nickolas Rokoff, arrives at Cape Town.
Source: "Monsieur Thuran became a frequent visitor at the home of Hazel Strong's uncle in Cape Town." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Chat: This "fourteen-day theory" of the ship traveling from Algiers to Cape Town are working dates only and are derived from A Chrono-log Of ERB's Tarzan Series, by Alan Hanson. Another researched theory, within reason, could be used and the calendar dates shifted somewhat and still be in agreement with Edgar Rice Burroughs's described information.
Chat: This is the first of two passages in The Return Of Tarzan that directly implies the events of The Return Of Tarzan cover a time span of two years.
Neal Adams
Event: Jane Porter and Hazel Strong run into each other at Cape Town.
Source: "The next day Hazel Strong enjoyed one of the happiest surprises of her life - she ran face to face upon Jane Porter as she was coming out of a jeweler's shop." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan. "By the time mutual explanations had been made Hazel knew that Lord Tennington's yacht had put in at Cape Town for at least a week's stay and at the end of that time was to continue on her voyage - this time up the West Coast - and so back to England." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
The Return Of Tarzan
Event: After three days of Traveling Tarzan came to a part of the jungle he had never been to before.
Source: "For three days he continued his quest, until he had come to a part of the jungle in which he had never before been." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
The Return Of Tarzan
Event: Hazel Strong's mother was summoned back to Baltimore by her attorneys. Lord Tennington offered to let Mrs. Strong, Hazel, and Monsieur Thuran (Nickolas Rokoff), travel as far as England on his yacht.
Source: "Mrs. Strong had been telling them how much she had enjoyed her visit at Cape Town, and that she regretted that a letter just received from her attorneys in Baltimore had necessitated her cutting her visit shorter than they had intended." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan. "It's to take Mrs. Strong and Miss Strong, and Thuran too, if he will come, as far as England with us on the yacht." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Date: February 24, 1895
Event: Tarzan rescues Busuli, Chief of the Waziri.
Source: "On the morning of the fourth day his nostrils were suddenly surprised by a faint new scent." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Date: the morning of February 24, 1895
Event: Monsieur Thuran (Nickolas Rokoff), befriends Hazel Strong the same instant Tarzan rescues Busuli, Chief of the Waziri.
Source: "And if he could have seen Rokoff at that moment as he assiduously bent every endeavor to the pleasant task of ingratiating himself into the affections of the beautiful Miss Strong, he would have longed more than ever to mete out to the man the fate he deserved." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Date: night February 24, 1895
Event: The Waziri natives have a wild orgy in Tarzan's honor.
Source: "Tarzan's first night with the savages was devoted to a wild orgy in his honor." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Chat: Here we learn the Waziri are not your normal West Coast natives. "As the warriors danced in the firelight, Tarzan was again impressed by the symmetry of their figures and the regularity of their features - the flat noses and thick lips of the typical West Coast savage were entirely missing." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan. "Busuli, the warrior whom he had stalked to the village, told him many of the tribal legends - how, many years before, his people had come many long marches from the north; how once they had been a great and powerful tribe; and how the slave raiders had wrought such havoc among them with their death-dealing guns that they had been reduced to a mere remnant of their former numbers and power." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Source: "Mrs. Strong had been telling them how much she had enjoyed her visit at Cape Town, and that she regretted that a letter just received from her attorneys in Baltimore had necessitated her cutting her visit shorter than they had intended." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan. "It's to take Mrs. Strong and Miss Strong, and Thuran too, if he will come, as far as England with us on the yacht." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
The Return Of Tarzan
Event: Tarzan rescues Busuli, Chief of the Waziri.
Source: "On the morning of the fourth day his nostrils were suddenly surprised by a faint new scent." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Edward Mortleman
Event: Monsieur Thuran (Nickolas Rokoff), befriends Hazel Strong the same instant Tarzan rescues Busuli, Chief of the Waziri.
Source: "And if he could have seen Rokoff at that moment as he assiduously bent every endeavor to the pleasant task of ingratiating himself into the affections of the beautiful Miss Strong, he would have longed more than ever to mete out to the man the fate he deserved." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
The Return Of Tarzan
Event: The Waziri natives have a wild orgy in Tarzan's honor.
Source: "Tarzan's first night with the savages was devoted to a wild orgy in his honor." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
Chat: Here we learn the Waziri are not your normal West Coast natives. "As the warriors danced in the firelight, Tarzan was again impressed by the symmetry of their figures and the regularity of their features - the flat noses and thick lips of the typical West Coast savage were entirely missing." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan. "Busuli, the warrior whom he had stalked to the village, told him many of the tribal legends - how, many years before, his people had come many long marches from the north; how once they had been a great and powerful tribe; and how the slave raiders had wrought such havoc among them with their death-dealing guns that they had been reduced to a mere remnant of their former numbers and power." ERB-The Return Of Tarzan.
The Return Of Tarzan
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Michael Moody is a lifelong fan and collector of Edger Rice Burroughs. Over the past forty-five years, Moody has contributed over two hundred articles to various ERB-related fanzines. He also manages an unauthorized Tarzan blog titled Greystoke Chronologist: James Michael Moody. There, the researcher chronologies the Tarzan books starting in May 1872 (known as the pushback theory) instead of the more accepted date, May 1888.
James Michael Moody also authorizes the action-packed Sci-Fi fantasy adventure Unium series. Pioneers On Unium, published December 31, 2019, Exiled On Unium, published August 25, 2022, and Swordsman On Unium, published on July 15, 2024.
