ISLAND HERMITS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 192, 7 April 1932, Page 3

ISLAND HERMITS

BARRIER REEF' HOMES QUEER LIYES OF PEOPLE I MAROONED FROM CIYILISATION. WOMAN AS RULER. The death Some years ago of Harry Evoldt, on Deliverance Island, in Torres Strait, removed the best known and most discussed island hermit in the northern waters of Australia, writes F. Reid in the Melbourne Argus Supplement. There were all sorts of legends — most of them wrong — concerning his reasons for living a solitary life 011 this isolated coral speck. At one time it was alleged he was the Archduke Johann, of Austria, and various other eminent persons, but he . did not look it. As a fact, Harry Eroldt was a Danish sailor who made his home on Deliverance Island some forty years ago. At that time the pearling industry in Torres' Strait was at the height of its prosperity. Luggers use^ to pay regular visits to the shell-laden grounds near the island. It was not then the isolated speck which it became afterward. I met him on several occasions,. but he was somewhat silent and moody, and as the years passed he became peculiar in his ways. He was but one of the many "hatters" who have made their homes on the coastal isles of the Commonwealth. All the world knew through his books the late E. J. Banfield, who lived with only his wife and a dog on Dunk Island, but the story of the hermit of Rattlesnake Island is far more, pathetic. It is not known whence he came before he drifted to the barren shores of this rocky isle, which lies betweem Townsville and Cairns, but he once revealed some facts concerning his past to a visitor to his isolated home. It had something to do with a girl who jilted him. The hermit was> then a successful business man in Melbourne, and he was engaged to marry a charming girl of good family. A relative died in England, and - he was called Home to claim portion of a large fortune. On his return to Australia he found that the girl he had left behind had transferred her affections to another, and he began to live a reckless life. When his money, had gone he drifted to Rattlesnake Island, on the North Queensland coast, and there he lived a hermit's existence for several years. Not many years ago his skeleton was found lying in a crude flat-bottomed punt in a mangrove-fringed coastal creek. At the time it was believed that he had run short of food on the island, and had made a sorry craft in which he attempted to reach the mainland. Probably the boat was swamped at the mouth of the creek, and the hermit was too exhausted and feeble to reach dry land.

Crusoe-Like Existence. Another eccentric character who lived a Crusoe-like existence on a northern island was Edward Mosby, perhaps better known as "Yankee Ned." Mosby landed on Yorke Islands, in Torres Strait, about forty years ago, and before that he had been one of the leaders of a mutiny on ari American whaling schooner roaming in southern Australian waters. For this offence he was marooned on a small coral speck for three years. He was then picked up by a trading vessel, and was taken to Thursday Island, where he resided for a time, but eventually he found his way to Yorke Island. There he lived the life of a hermit, but he soon mixed with the natives, who were a fairly intelligent race, and he eventually married a finelooking aboriginal woman. She bore him four sons, all of whom are well known and highly respected at Thursday llsland . Mosby came into promience several years ago when he found an old telescope on Yorke Island. "Shellbaeks" who examined it declared that the relic had once belonged to La Perouse. The death of George Lawson, better known as "Yorkie, the hermit of Green Island," occurred only a few years ago, but he was another eccentric person, whose adventurous career would fill a large hook, I first met him when he was hunting trepang at Hook Island, one of the Whitsunday group, but later he removed to Green Island, on which he lived the life of a recluse until his death. For a time Yorkie had a mate — a Jamaican native — who possessed the name of John the Bapt'st, but during most of the twentyfive years he lived on Green Island he was the only inhabitant of this coastal paradise. He never discussed his early life, but from hints which he dropped when his tongue was loosened with rum it is believed that he once had a great deal to do with blackbirding in the South Seas. He had a nodding acquaintance with that romantic larrikin Captain "Bully" Hayes.

Hriuale Hermit. When I first heard the story of the female hermit of Border Island, on the northern end of the Barrier Reef, it endowed that wind-swept coral speck with a gleam of romance and pathos. I have listened to several versions of how the woman came to live there for five years. The one most commonly told by the natives is that a schooner anchored off the island one day, and the crew landed on the beach. Among them was a woman with a child. When the vessel was about to sail the woman began to cry, saying that she had left her baby ashore. The natives say that she was rowed ashore, and that when she went to search for the child the dinghy pulled back to the schooner. The skipper then sailed without her. At first the woman became nearly crazed at having been deserted. For a time the natives avoided her. but she found food in fish traps, and ate the shellfish eaten by the natives. She built herself a home by standing palm branches in the sand and eovering the top with grass. Later she acquired skill in catching birds, and became hardened to the life. Knowing the value of pearls, she began to colleet them, and when she bacame friendly with the natives she assisted in diving for the lapi shells. When she had been living on the island for two years her child died. Then the hitherfo peaceful nature of the woman changed. She began to bully the natives. On one occasion, when she had been insulted by a burly male, she picked

up a spear and buried the pbint of it in his heart. After this the natives treated her with greater reverence, and she became practically the ruler of the island. One morning a French whaler anchored off the island, and she was taken aboard. When she left she carried with her a fine collection of pearls, When sold they must have returned her a fortune.