“ROBINSON CRUSOE ISLANDER.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 455, 1 May 1909, Page 4

“ROBINSON CRUSOE ISLANDER.”

MACQUARIE ISUAND EPISODE. In olden times it was 'no uncommon thing to stumble across a “Robinson Crusoe’’ islander —a recluse shut out from the world and wedged in between trackless seas and storm-tossed islands. The rude forefathers took him on a sanctified basis and propitiated him for calm weather and fair winds (writes the Bluff correspondent of the Otago Daily Times). Their more practical descendants, however, had recourse to him tor fresh food supplies-—pork and potatoes being the charm these latter-day saints dispensed. Now, however, they have all but disappeared. Floating palaces and freezing chambers have elbowed them out of existence. Just one of the fraternity remains amongst us, I unearthed him at the low down Macquaire Islands, and this is the story as I gleaned it:

He was a man-of-war’s man. His age might be anything beyond 50 years. He is every inch a hard-shell back. He turned up in the Bluff in November last, just in time to join the oil men at the opening of the penguin season. The season lasts to the middle of March, after which the island is deserted, so far as mankind is concerned, until the early part of August. What is kuowu as the elephant oil season then opens, and keeps open until November, when, as we have seen, the penguin makes the running. The four or five and a-half mouths between April and August may, with perfect assurance, be termed a dead season, A more doleful period could not be imagined. Not only does the animal life disappear, but, to a large extent, daylight goes along with it. For weeks the calendars do not profess to say there are more than four hours’ daylight, and if, as is most frequently the fact, the weather proves dull or hazy, it cannot be called daylight at even that. Our man-of-war’s man, with whom we are more particularly concerned, was, of course, under the immediate observation of his mates th ough the penguin season. He proves a rough, reticent, hardworking fellow. He did his work and said nothing preserved dogged silence about his own affairs and the affairs of others. He took no interest in books or book-lore, the inference being he had never been taught to read. Still, he always kept himself busy —working out small mechanical contrivances. When the schooner arrived to take the party away, and on the eve of departure his mates were astonished to be told his determination to remain behind. He gave no reason and when remonstrated with, he listened to what they had to say, making no reply. He had a few pounds coming to him for the season’s work, the value whereof he took out in .surplus stores. When last seen from the dock of the receding craft, he and his two dogs—sole sharers of his lonely vigil were pacing the beach meditatively, but not giving the slightest indication of renouncing their self-imposed isolation.