CRUSOE’S LONELY ISLE

Hokitika Guardian, 21 February 1929, Page 7

CRUSOE’S LONELY ISLE

LIKE AT JUAN FERNANDEZ

The host hoy’s story over written was written hy Daniel Defoe about tin* lonely life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor, on the island of Juan What do we know of Juan Fernandez ! J now asks an English writer. The answer, for most people, is that they know very little of it. lint quite recently one of the expert scientists ol the fine American Smithsonian Institution, Dr Waldo Schmitt, has keen living ifor some weeks on the isianct. studying its almost innumerable marine invertebrates, and he has brought hack into the world at large its latest news. Defoe placed his Crusoe’s island on the northern shore of South America in the month of Orinoco River, but no body is deceived by that. Alexander Selkirk was the man he had in his mind, and Juan Fernaijdez, named after the Spanish captain who first discovered it, some 'IOO miles off the coast of Chile, was the island of Crusoe. The island has had “ a strange, eventful history” both before and alter Alexander Selkirk was there, longing for years, according to Cowpor's poem, to hear “ the sound of the church-go-ing bell ” of civilisation, ft was Fernandez who stocked it with the goats Crusoe found there, which still abound. Seamen who deserted from ships which called there for water had lived on the island before Selkirk was left on it. l shore by his captain, till he was taken off by Rogers, captain of a privateer, in 1700., The Spaniards annexed the island in 1750, and put a garrison on it, and Chile took it over at the beginning of the last century and made it a prison for criminals. A century later this use of it had ceased, and it was said to have about *2O inhabitants. What of it now ? I)r Schmitt brings the news that Crusoe’s island is naturally one of the easiest places to exist in that can he found on the earth, a paradise ifor anyone who is content with an aimless life. About 13 miles long and four miles wide, rising ruggedly to over .3000 feet, with deep waters round it, it has gicon and wooded valleys, iresh streams, abundant vegetation, fantastic in its exuberant growth—almost every vogetnble—cither <>f native growth or intro dueed as the years have gone ou—a [fertile soil, all useful animals, but none wild except remnant of the goats which Crusoe knew ; and such an abundance of fish that fishing is its chief industry, lobsters being exported in exchange fo’ the tinned salmon and meats and ha' ec beaus of America. And what of its inhabitantsP Where Crusoe once reigned alone are now somewhat fewer than 300 people, Spnn-isli-speakers 'from the South American coast, with some French and German families, several of whom were ship wrecked there, and are. content to stay. A simple, hospitable people they arc. All live on the eastern, rainy and lor .tile side, of the island. The island extremely healthy and has no doctor, hut a wireless call can he made to tho mainland in an emergency. It has a church to which a priest comes once n year for a service, and to conduct baptismal and wedding ceremonies. Twice a month a vessel calls wi' 1 supplies from Chile, and occasionally '■ passing vessel puts in tor watei. But. in strangest contrast with the silon-e and loneliness o'f Crusoe, a daily pro gramme is broadcast to the isl md liom The city of Valparaiso. If an aiinles.life of ease were all that, man nerds J icoiild beafotindin. this island!ol romaire.