A Modern Robinson Crusoe.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 237, 20 December 1888, Page 3

A Modern Robinson Crusoe.

An English paper gives the following details explaining a cable message published in the New Zealand papers :— An aged gentleman, named Murtagh, residing in Brooklyn, received a letter on the 11th inst. from one of the uninhabited islands of the South Sea Group, Ojee, written by a friend of his named Captain Green, who was supposed to have been lost at sea in 1858, in a vessel commanded by him, called the Confederation. The letter, written on a soiled leaf of a ship's log, was dated July, 1887, and had been put aboard a whaling barque which passed near the Island about that time. The writer observes that no doubt all hands aboard the Cunfederation had been given up as lost. He then relates how the vessel foundered in a gale, after being pipe weeks at sea, and how her crew, including himself and two women, having taken to the boats, after forty days, landed on the coral reefs of the Island of Ojee, there being no signs of habitation, but an abundance of game, fish, fruit and water. No vessel came near the place until one evening in December, 1862, whan eight of the crew put off in a boat to intercept her. The weather being very stormy, they never returned to the island and Captain Green thinks they were lost. He further states that the two women became wives of two of the remaining castaways, and that although there had been several deaths on the island, the population at the time he wrote consisted of twelve persons, who felt quite contented, they were, however, badly in need of clothing. During thirty years they had communicated from the island with only three vessels, and this letter had been four years written and been ready to be sent by some ship. Captain Green adds that he is sixty-eight jears ol age, and in good Healtli,,

1 The other day a waggish member of our staff placed in our window a picture representing a game of football between some Canadians and Indians, which, however, the wag ticketed “ Warbrick in England.” The picture has since been an enormous attraction, especially to the Maoris, but though the joke seemed so shallow a great many have been “ taken in ” by it, and have run away with the idea that the picture is either intended as a cartoon or is badly done. The Maoris are completely amazed by it, and know not what to think, but they admit that their dark brethren must have been transmogrified if that is the way they appear in England, and think they must be taken a ‘ rise ” out of the innocent whites.