A ROBINSON CRUSOE

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11512, 7 October 1915, Page 7

A ROBINSON CRUSOE

—- DISCOVERED 8Y THE NAVY. FARMING TCRTMSS. Ihe long period of weary watching by British" warships; wlii< lipreceded the i tinal dest ruction oi t.l»o Konigsborg_ on itlnly 11 bv the monitor!* under Admual King-Hail, it> described in a letter from ii midshipman. in an armed me- 1 chantninn which wa,-> on duty lor many months in and near the month of the Rutigi liivcr. Tho letter appeared in the Calcutta " State-man." Too writer "Wo had to go to A Ida bra (which is about 400 miles cast. oi Zanzibar), where litis »hip was supposed to be hiding. K very thing v.as ready for instant action, and' boarding purine were told off, as we meant to capturo lier if possible. Wo arrived oft' tbe island ai, dawn ono day, and as there uere no signs of the ship, a landing partv -wast sent ashore to find out what tliev could. While we were doing this tho old iva* going to steam round the island, ft distance of about sixty Miles, to see if the enemy was on the other side. Well, away wo went, all merry and bright, and "\v:hen we ' got within about '((XI yards of tho beach a tort put off with a white man in it. He turned out to be a Frenchman. the only white man on tho island. A CUP OF COFFEE. " When ho earnc closo to us he asked us what wo wanted, and wo said we M'ov© going to land; so he showed, us the way through the .repfo. When wo got ashore, he very hospitably refused i° do any business till we had jjoue to hr> shanty and had a. cup of cofreo. S-- - and i, not having had any breakfast. Mere delighted. we arrived at tho house a gigantic black man handed us each a green coconut in the husk, with a hole cut in the end, full of delicious coconut milk. After wo had negotiated these S began to question the Frenchman (who spoke. good English), and ho told us there was no sljip knocking round at present., but that a ship, which, by his description, tallied exactly with the ono that H .sunk,'had put in at tho inland only a week before for engine repairs." Oi course, wliei tho H- >sank her she bore no sign at all as to name or nationality, but whpn she was at tho island tho Frenchman went aboard, and 1 be has her down iu his hooks as the K —, a Danish ship with Danish officers. The yarn they told him wph that they were loaded with 'wood from the Cape, and as ho is cut off fi'orn the outside world, and did not know what was happening, he behoved them. Th 3 ship arrived at the island on Thursday, and the part that puzzled him was tliafc when on Sunday morning licflooked fother she was nowitore tof be seen; they had evidently slipped. away in tli.C 111K '* die of the night, without &nywg a word. NO TOBACCO. He had run out of tobacco, and when we offered him a cigarette* lie nearly wept ivith .joy. He hvos xin absolutely Robinson Crusoe existence. Ho didn t even know that Turkey was at war, and the last news he had was that tho Formidable was sunk. The only papers ho liad wera two "Tit-Bits" of 1913, mid ou© " Pall Mall Magazine - °| 19H. He informed us that he had read these over, and over again until he almost know them hy heart. When offered to send him off papers, tobacco, etc., from the ship, he d'id not know how to thank us. We went all oyer the island (or rather the inhabited part of ?t), and saw everything. There are flamingoes, ibis, frigate "birds and I don't know how many more varieties which you usually only see in a isob. XUMKUOI'S TURTLES. The business is chiefly turtle-catch-ing. He took us to see tho enclosure in which he keeps the turtles which ho is going to send, away alive. There were about twenty of the largest turtles I have ever Been in my life. It appears that they catch on an average fcixty turtles a night in. the season. Most of these, of course, they kill, but they keep Rome alive to send to Europe, where they fetch as much as £l2O each. "After being} on. the island about four hours, our ship appeared, so we had to put off. On leaving he inado us a present of a live turtle which had junt been caught, weighing abput 8501b. Some turtle! Of course we thanked him, and when we reached the ©hip we sent him some biscuits, milk, tobacco, etc., and enough reading matter to last him for six months. " While telling you all about the island I forgot what we were really there for. With our usual rotten luck we saw no signs of the enemy."