CRUSOE IN REAL LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21112, 20 February 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

CRUSOE IN REAL LIFE.

« DEAD" SAILOR RETURNS. STORY OF ADVENTURES.. AN UNINHABITED ISLE. Given up for dead 20 years ago, shipwrecked, cast away on a desert island where he lived like Itobinson Crusoe for nearly three years, a man has revealed himself to his relatives in England like an apparition from the past, after nearly half a century of roving. He is AndrewSwan, who appeared the other day in dramatic fashion/ at the house of his cousin, Mr. Dugald Macfadyen, of Letchworth, Hertfordshire. -■ Thirty-four years ago Mr. Swan left Greenock in a sailing ship. While on a voyage from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Honolulu with a cargo of wood, coal and mineral water, the ship took fire near the equator and was abandoned. Mr. Swan says that, with four others, he landed on an uninhabited island, where their first discovery was evidence of an earlier tragedy. They found a small hut, and, stretched on a roughlymade couch, a skeleton. Beside it was the skeleton of a dog sitting with his forepaws on the human skeleton, where ho had kept his last watch with his master. There were a few scraps of newspapers, dater 1821, the year of the deatli of Napoleon Bonaparte. This was the only scrap of information that they could gather; there was nothing to identify the central figure of the tragedy, to explain his presence on the island, or to tell his story. One member of the party had a Bible in his kit and, says Mr. Swan, they gave the skeleton a " Christian burial." Rescue After Three Years. The party lived mainly on bananas, coconuts, and pineapples. Fisn could ba caught, and turtles visited the island to lay their eggs. In addition, there was food brought from the ship, and later the burned hull of their ship drifted into sight and they towed it ashore. It was 18 months before they consumed the last food taken from the ship. A fire was kept going night and day, as the party were short of matches. They built an enclosure with heavy stones and turf, and inside erected a house with ,a canva3 roof, using the sails of the ship. After nearly three years the five were taken off by a Portuguese vessel, whose captain had seen the fire, and who had put in for fruit. A few. more voyages in various vessels convinced Mr. Swan that a sailor's lot was not a happy one. The food was bad, the tea muddy, the biscuits could only be eaten after being smashed with a belaying pin and soaked in a moisture of molasses and water. Ihe forecastle was stuffy in winter and like an oven in summer, and the pay was poor. So Mr* Swan became a diver. Profitable Diving Job. One of Mr. Swan's best jobs was to recover stolen title deeds of real estate in Philadelphia from the wreck of a ship on which the absconding thief had been travelling in the Gulf of Mexico. The deeds were worth millions. When be landed on the wreck he had no difficulty in feeling his way to the companionway which led below. There were the passengers' cabins, the doors shut, just as tbey had been when the ship struck and went down. Mr. Swan says that he opened a door and on the berth lav the-skeleton of a man. H e kicked underneath the berth, and feeling a box, pulled it out. It felt lik© a deed-box—thick metal with another case inside. And it was securely locked. He took it in charge and signalled to his mates that he wanted to come up. When thev opened the box on deck they found that it was the identical musing receptable of the stolen deed 3. And the deeds were there., Mr. Swan had been down for one hour and 15 minutes. He got £SOO for he job, and his employers threw in th® diving-suit into the bargain. , Between his diving jobs—which often involved fights with sharks and octopi--Mr. Swan, according to his story, hun.ei for ambergris on the sands of Zealand. Now he is back home, resting awhile before seeking new adventures.