AN ISLAND TALE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 23, 28 January 1928, Page 20

AN ISLAND TALE

rfTTANNA BETTEB-THAN-NOTHING. There is a curious tale told of the "lost woman" of San Nioolas Island, a little piece of land poking up oat of the sea^ebout a hundred miles,off the ieoast of Southern California, state* the «<New York Times." Known only by the name Juanna Better-Than-Nothing, the spent twenty years alone on San Nicolas, in true Robinson. Crusoe fashion. There are several versions of the atory, but this is probably the moat correct: —■ 1 In 1830, or before, the Mexican Government, at the request of the Spanish mission fathers, sent a boat to remove the few remaining Indians from thia island to the mainland, so that they: might be afforded better protection against th» Bnssians, then in the habit vt making periodic -raids down the ieoast. When the Mexican boat arrived, it was found that there remained only a handful of Indians. They were put aboard and the boat started back. Suddenly one of them, a young woman, tried out that she had forgotten her baby. The boat could not put back on account of the surf. But the young woman jumped overboard, swam to ithe island, and was left there. She Remained for the next twenty years, supposedly in utter solitude. At the end of tnat period the mission fathers of Santa Br.rbara—having heard the story, which was supported by the tale of a fisherman —sent a boat, the Better-Than-Nothing, to San Nicolas. ( The woman was thus rescued, although iiothing was ever heard of the baby, she liad jumped overboard to join.