AN ISLAND TALE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20323, 3 February 1928, Page 12

AN ISLAND TALE.

JUANNA BETTER-THAN-NOTHING. There is a curious tale told of the “ lost woman ” of San Nicolas Island, a little piece of land poking up out of the sea about 100 miles off the coast of Southern California (states the New York Times). Known only by the name Joanna Better-Than-Nothing, she spent 20 years alone on San Nicolas, in true Robinson Crusoe fashion. There are several versions of the story, but this is probably the most correct:

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 this island to the mainland, so that they might be afforded better protection ; gainst the Russians, then in the habit of making periodic raids down the coast. Whc- 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, cried out that she had forgotten her baby. The boat con 1 not put back on account of the surf. But the young woman jumped overboard, swam to the island, and was left there. She remained for the next 20 years, supposedly in utter solitude. At the end of that period the mission fathers of Santa Barbara —having heard the story, which wsu. supported by the tale of a fisherman —sent a boat, the Better-Than-Nothing, to San Nicolas. The woman was thus rescued, although nothing was ever heard of the baby sin had jumped overboard to join.