AN ISLAND MYSTERY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18444, 4 January 1922, Page 6

AN ISLAND MYSTERY

RUSSIAN BARON’S SUICIDE. CRAVING , FOR SOLITUDE. LIVED AS A HERMIT. ■ ” (New Zealand Herald Correspondent.) i 'SUVA, December 24. \ News comes from the Lau or Windward' 1 Group of the suicide of a recluse Baron, Koster Wrede, a Russian baron, connected with some of the leading families of Russia and Finland. Oyer a year, ago the baron arrived in Fiji with a party of. tourists, and induced them to put him ashore with some provisions and tools on a small island named Yosaga, in the southern portion of the group. Here he laboriously built himself a house, and a month or tjvo later was found by some natives from a neighbouring island in a very sick condition. The Fijians took him into their care, and nursed him back to health, but he could not be induced to stay with them and returned to his island solitude. How he passed the time, no, one eeems to know, but about six weeks or so dgo Mi; Stewart, manager for Burns Philp (South Sea) Company,' Ltd, at Lakemba, when passing Tasaga in a cutter, found Baron Wrede standing under a tree in a very bad way, Ho could hardly move his limbs and was suffering from scurvy, due it is said to a diet of nothing but rice. He was carried on board the cutter and taken to Mr Stewart’s house at Lakemba. Here everything possible wae done for him ahd he gradually, regained health and strength. He was a tall, handsofne, fairhaired man, and was agreeable in manner, but very reserved. One day the sound of a shot came from the billiard room; and on the people going into the room. they found the heron dead \ and a discharged revolver in his hand. He left i .a 1 brief note simply stating he opuld, not stand it any longer. He never gave any hint as to the cause of his craving for solitude. i The people / with whom became to Fiji said® he was excellently connected, but little else is known of his former history. ’ . The Curator of Estates says he had no estate or-funds In the colony.- He has'been the object of much speculation since he came here. While at Lakemba he said if anything, happened to him he did not wish any publicity given to his death. The; case l is another one of those mysterious happenings of the Pacific, where so many have sought oblivion.