Sounds like a pretty impressive stick

'The absence of trees and the presence of fog explain why noises sound so strange here. There is not the slightest rustle on this bare plateau, nothing but voices. Is it the wind or my companions? The invisible voices murmur above me like the spirits of the air. I can make out a dark shape. It's Captain Couesnon waving his stick at me. He looks like the archangel brandishing the flaming sword at the outcasts of the Garden of Eden'

- Jean-Paul Kauffmann, 'The Arch of Kerguelen', 1993 (English translation 2000)