MODERN CRUSOES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 139, 13 June 1911, Page 6

MODERN CRUSOES.

LOVERS OF THE SOLITARY LIFE. About' four-years ago there appearcxl in. tho newspapers a proposal lor the sale or lease oi the uninhabited islands of Cante in the Azores, midway between Europe and America. The advertiser suggested thai they might be used as a wireless telegraph station. But in 1873 a young American named Liack. purposed to put these islands to a .much less sociable use. He offered in-teed to purchase the dsland from their ow:_er, in whose family they had. been for over five' centuries, for no other objeset than to pursue tharein a sort of Rotcnson, Crusoe existence. Lack went so fas as to charter a steamer, visit the islands, and draw up plans for a dwelling, uherein; but before he could _o_«----plete Ms project his wife, who had agreed to accompany hun, died- and his scheme was abandoned. | V-C__U-JT__R"_' EXILES. ' There has .been more than one attempt on the part of modern Crusoes to i.o-1 late themschvjs from ibe world-'in the West Indies. . A Spaniard named Rod- j rignez settled, in ESS., on an islet- off the south-west coast of Cuba, • taking solemn oath that, there he would remain until his death. He kept his row for' two years; and but for a cyclone, ac- j companied by a TudaL wave, which de_- ' t'royed.his tent and entire stock of pro visions, he would undoubtedly have re-1 mained till his deathi He was on the- '■ point of starvation wthen rescued, and he was, much against his will, removed j from his islet. One of the most into-resting attempts at self-exile whereof there is any re- ; cord was that made by one Mackintosh, a religious fanatic, but an exceptionally energeti. man, whose headstrong conduct had brought him into- conflict with the authorities of '^ydneyfc-Australia. ; ; ,He disappeared,' from thafc.. city, andiwas found a.year later on ah uninhabited island of the AEarqnesas group. Howhe got there was-not known; but he had made good use of his time, for he had cultivated a small tract of land, erected a neat.cabin, and. maintained a score of pigs. He resolutely refused to quit his little kingdom, declaring ironically that he preferred to "rule pigs than be ruled by them." A LOST WAGER. A wager was the cause of the voluntary exile of one Foala -Lebedieff, an officer an the Czar's "Guards, who left St. Petersburg in 1900 for Red Island, in TJdskaya Bay, in the Sea of Okhotsk, where he undertook to remain a whole year. The difficulty in winning the wager lay in the frightful climate of the island, which is in the same latitude as Central Kamchatka. Lebedieff lived alone for six months; but iv January, 1901, being Unable to withstand the -cold, then at its worst, he abandoned the attempt. After incurring frightful hardships, he succeeded in reaching Nikolaievsk, at the mouth of the Amur River. Sooner than spend the remainder of the winter in the awful darkness and solitude of Red Island, he paid hs oppon- i ent £7000. In the 'SO's an Englishman named , Chandler lived alone on an islet of the Ladrone group, in the Pacific, for a year and a half. Chandler, an avowed misanj thrope, threatened to shoot the man who wou d invade his domain. For sixteen months he lived on the fruits and I herb 3 grown upon the islet. Then he went mad. The master of the American trading barque Louisa, when six miles west of the island, observed Chandler through a glass capering and dancing stark naked. He took the exile aboard and landed him at Manila. When I Chandler recovered he insisted on returning to his islet. He left San Francisco in 1884, and was never more heard of. CIVILISATION SICKNESS. An island in the Sea of Aral, near the mouth of the Oxus, was the strange place of refuge selected by one Zingler, a Berlin fur trader of considerable wealth, who, to use his own words, "suffered from civilisation sickness." In 1895, Zingler repaired to the island in the Sea of Aral, and gave to it the name of "Eternity," as it was part of his deetrine that only by self communion could man attain to perfection fitting him for immortal life. In 1905, Signor Corteai. a highly esteemed merchant of Milan, announced ' that he had found a modern Garden of ! Eden somewhere in the Adriatic, and j proposed, in the company of his wife, to ! establish himself there permanently. Ac- ! cordingly he completed arrangements to take up his Crusoe existence, and, so far as is known, he is still there.