Omaha daily bee., 1889-04-25
A SOUTH SEA POTENTATE.
A Castaway Sailor Now n Chief With
Score OF Pretty Wives.

Score OF Pretty Wives.
George Wright, who arrived at San
Francisco on the steamer Australia a
day or two ago from the Caroline islands,
brings a queer story of the sudden rise
OF u sailor to distinction IN the
largest island OF an archipelago
seventy-fve miles west of Haweis,
where Mr.. Wright has trading store.
says a San Francisco special.
THE sailor" said Mr.. Wright, sis
Carl Benjamin, and he has no less than
nineteen wives and fifty odd copper
colored children. He was wrecked in
the schooner Bombazine off the Ladrone
islands nine years ago, and iioated ut
sea on a raft "a couple of weeks before
he struck land. If you will look at II
map of the Pacific you will find lying
midway between the tropic of cancer
and the equator, 600 miles west OF the
some maps they are marked Thirteen
islands, well inhabited That
is all there is to point out their
significance. 1t is ON the biggest of
these, called by the sailor Benjamin
Island after himself, that he has taken
up his home. 1t is about ten by twenty
miles in extent. We'll inhabited
| means that there is quite sprinkling
of derk-siinned natives there, as well
us IlldUy HlOEe NllO IlONc w tllu lIO III
the archipelago with boats. They eat
bread-eruit, bananas, cocoanuts and
fish, They don't work at all. Benjamin
had got to be king. He has nothing at
all to do but go swimming in the SURF
talk the ative gibberish, which he has
learned, or loll under palm tree.
Sometimes he has his wives fan him
while he lazily smokes his ''kaseba"
leaf, which grows plentifully there, and
which, after one becomes used to it, is
liked better than tobacco.
Benjamin is doing some good work
there, however. He carried three or
four books with him on his raft, the last
thing you would have expected, and he
has contrived to teach the natives Eng
lish. Benjamin is an American of Ger
| man or Jewish descent, and is a lover of
| books. The first thing he did WAS to
select an intelligent native and teach
him the alphabet. The fellow learned
rapidly and soon began to teach it to
others, and number of them can now
speak English, ,.while the rising genera
tion Immediately around are gradually
picking up n knowledge of the Ian
guage. Benz jamin is looked upon as n
sage. The chiefs, of whom there are
four, come to him for points, and of
their own accord they have made him
their ruler, tho chiefs being sort of
cabinet.
''Ben iamln has picked out the hand
soonest women for wives, and they es-
TEEN it quite an honor. The king lives
in the biggest bamboo house III the vii
lage of XII, II struggling aggregation OF
native houses on a coral reef. His
children arc OF all ages, and are II
sprightly, lively lot. Nobody bothers
much about clothes in the South Paciiic
still Benjamin wears II little something,
and is gradually prevailing on the ma
tives to do 50 tco. He Keeps telling
them that there is no civilization with
out some clothes. Benjamin is about
thirty years old. He was formerly from
NewburyDort, Mass, but says that he
no longer has any desire TO return to
America. He is the only white man.
with one exception, for hundreds OF
miles around. lie has taken to wearing
n string of shells around his neck like
the natives. and he sometimes initiates
them and puts dots of blue paint got
from native shrub on his face. This
is only on state occasions, however,
when there is to he "A discussion of i'm
portant questions with the chiefs. The
permanent population OF his island Is
about six or seven hundred. This isl-
| and is indented with beautiful bays,
and Is dotted with trees and shrubs OF II
tropical growth, which are for the most
OF the year covered with fragrant flow
crs. BENJAMIN island is about six hun
dred miles west of the Marshal group"
Has Not spoken For Twelve Years.
During a family row, twelve o" fifteen
wears ago. Mrs. Abner Purcell, living