BOUND FOR EVELESS EDEN

Evening Star, Issue 19520, 30 March 1927, Page 12

BOUND FOR EVELESS EDEN

“No women; no trouble!” Such is the slogan of Captain Christensen, leader of the Santa Maria Island settlement for men only. In a few tiny's’ time says an overseas exchange dated February, the magnificeutlytitted auxiliary schooner Floreana will steam for a dream isle in the romantic Galapagos carrying with her nine passengers, all men, bound for an Evelcss Eden. When the glittering ship, with Ijer strange company, fades from sight, the violet mists of the' southern horizon will serve as curtain for tho first of an astonishing real-lifo drama. The nine men are sailing to join their twelve misanthropic comrades who have been busy building bungalows amid tho tropic vegetation that mantles the tiny island of Santa -Maria, in the Galapagos Group, off the coast of Ecuador, South America

Hero, where such giant tortoises as jjOins do Kougemoni (les.nbyd crawl lazily under burning equatorial skies, and'where the craters of two hundred volcanoes now. and then spume forth burning ashes and smoke, iho_ twenty* one adventurers will make their home. That homo is to be without a woman. Aliy upon this erstwhile base of the old-time buccaneers ? - Why on this faroff isle, uninhabited these many years 1 Captain August Christensen, leader of the expedition, answersßecause where there are women there.is tronblb. \Ve are' taking over■ Santa Maria to escape dhe eterpal_ entanglements of a woman-ridden civilisation.'’

The personal experience of these Adams, who will have no more of Eve, has been bitter. Three are divorced; tiio other eighteen are separated from their wives They have tried the orthodoxl Eden, and .found.- 1 *atof, strife,;- they, are .golhg.stp hpve ja .newone of, their, own. Emancipated from fem’inihe thraldom, they:; fopdly- picture a life of harmonious. |ihss,. aii existence without bills or bickerings. : Eor their purpose, they could' not have chosen a more perfect place./,, Santa' -Maria, like the other isles of tins burning arcliioelago, has' a perfect climate, tropical, but cooled by the Peruvian cm.eao. The scanery-'is opulently magnificent with' luxuriant" vegetation.- The Ecuadorian Government has granted the land to the Eyeless colonisers who are anticipating, not only tranquil domestic lives, but the -piling up of- vast fortunes from the cultivation of the .•fmazingly prolific soil, and the whale fishing. (Jenturies ago,,, this glowing isle echoed-to the drunken shouts of buccaneers who uSfed it as their headquarters, and whose.fiones have., grown white under the sun.' Old'barrels, mere ribbed skeletons, leathern bottles, ancient fire-looks, _ and awe-inspiring sabres, alone remain to tell «tho tale of forgotten acts of high, seas piracy, bloodshed, and debauch.- In those days it was known as Charlie’s Island, so named-after a notorious cut-throat follower' of"the Black Flag. Later, for a short time, it- became a penal settlement, then it returned to its eternal dreams., Santa Maria abounds in wild game which will yield to the Eveless Colony meat in plenty. On a clear

day, a. dim shadow on the horizon, Juan Fernandez Island, where Robinson Crusoe was marooned, is visible. What will bo the second chapter in this adventure? It is fore-shadowed by an incident that happened a few weeks ago. Ono evening a member of the Florenna’s crew went ashore. When he came back to the ship, he announced his atention of withdrawing from the enterprise. H:e had been regarded as one of tho most bitter of woman haters. Alas! his escape was prevented at the eleventh hour dv tho wiles of a- woman. Ho found that fcve, after all, is not so had, not so destitute of charms, that one need flee from her so far as the Equator. In tho days to come there may he a rebel who will take courage from the ghosts of the dead buccaneers, and lift aloft tho jazz flag of modern Eve and declare for the admission of women. And when that' day arrives perhaps a few among the little company of misanthropes will slip over to his side and. bring about the first revolution in the Eveless Paradise. Time will show; meanwhile the graceful lines of tho Floreana as she lies in the harbor of San Francisco are an object of deep interest to every hobbedhaired maiden.