EXILES PERISH.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20476, 30 November 1934, Page 1

EXILES PERISH.

Death on Barren Volcanic Island. VANCOUVER, November 19. Starvation and thirst on a barren volcanic island off the coast of Ecuador, ended the Adam and Eve existence of Arthur Wittmer and his German wife, and, probably, four others, who had sought happiness in isolation. The victims were members of a more or less nudist colony of Germans and French self-exiles who were located on desolate islands of the Galapagos group. The two Wittmers and their child evidently attempted a visit from their island to Marchena, where a Frenchman named Lorenz was settled. Members of the crew of an American fishing boat, the Santa Amaro, noticed a canoe beached and went ashore to investigate. They found the bodies of the three Wittmers and, from other evidence, they suspect that Lorenz and several others perished in a recent storm. Among the victims were Baroness Wehrborn, who once kept a famous curio shop in Paris, and Robert Phillippsohn, a German business man. The beach tragedy disclosed that Wittmer died first and his wife expired after having written a pathetic letter to Captain Allan Hancock, of Los Angeles, the backer of Sir Charles Ivingsford Smith. The Galapagos Islands lie 600 miles west of Ecuador, in the Pacific Ocean. There are thirteen main islands, all of which bear English names, having formerly been a refuge for English whalers and buccaneers.