Wichita eagle., 1889-05-08
100 pieces 33-inch
SateenS, more than so
different patterns,
worth 20 cents, for
IL 1-2 cents.
Boston Store
KING CARL BENJAMIN.
An American Sailor. Washed Ashore on q
Pacific Island, Becomes q Chief.

An American Sailor. Washed Ashore on q
Pacific Island, Becomes q Chief.
George Wright, who arrived at San Fran
cisco on the steamer Australia short time
ago from the Caroline Islands, brings tbs
queer story OF the sudden rise OF sailor
to distinction in the largest island Of an
archipelago, seventy-fiye miles west of
Haweis, where MIR. Wright has trading
store
'The sailor,' said Mr.. Wright, "is Carl
Benjamin, and he has 40 less than nineteen
wives and fifty odd copper-colored children.
He was wrecked in the schooner Bombazine
of the Ladrone Islands nine years ago, and
foated at sea on raft couple Of weeks
before he struck land. If you will look at
map of the Pacific you will find lying mid
way between the tropic of Cancer and the
equator, six hundred miles west of ,the
Marshall group, thirteen dots. On some
maps they are marked Thirteen islands,
well Inhabited That is all there is to point
out their significance. It is on the biggest
OF these, called by the sailor Benjamin
Island, after himself, that he has taken up
his home. It is about ten by twenty miles
in extent Well inhabited means that
there Is quite sprinkling of dark-skinned
natives there, as well as many more who
move to and fro in the archipelago with
boats. They eat bread fruit bananas,
cocoanuts and fish. They don't work at all.
Benjamin has got to be King. He has
nothing at all to do but go swimming in
the surf. talk the native gibberish, which
he has learned, or loll under palm tree.
Sometimes he has his wives fan him while
he lazily smokes the kaseba leaf, which
grows plentifully there, and which, after
~ -
tobacco.
"Benj jamin 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 English. Benjamin is
an American of German or Jewish descent,
and is 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 a number of them can now speak
English, while the rising generation i'm
mediately around are gradually picking up
knowledge of the language. Benjamin is
looked upon as sage. The chiefs, of whom
there are four, come to him for points, and
of their own accord they have made him
their ruler, the chiefs being a sort of cab
met.
benjamin has picked out the handsomest
women for wives, and they esteem it quite
an honor. The King lives in the biggest
bamboo house in the village of Ri, strag-
Cling aggregation of native houses on
coral reef. His children are of all ages, and
are sprightly, lively lot. Nobody bothers
much with clothes in the South Pacific, still
Benjamin wears little something, and IS
gradually prevailing on the natives to do so,
too. He keeps telling them that there Is no
civilization without some clothes. Benjamin
is about thirty years old. He was formerly
from Newburyport, Mass, but says that he
no longer has any desire to return to Amer
ica. He is the only white man with one ex.
ception for hundreds Of miles around. He
has taken to wearing a string of shells
around his neck like the natives, and he
sometimes initiates them and puts dots of
blue paint, got from a native shrub, on his
face. This is only on state occasions, how
ever, when there is to be discussion of i'm
portant questions with his chiefs. The per-
manent population of his island is about 600
or 700. The island is indented with beauti-
ful bays and is dotted with trees and shrubs
Of a tropical growth, which are for most of
the year covered with fragrant flowers
Benjamin Island is about 600 miles west of
the Marshall group"