The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1889-07-11
KING CARL BENJAMIN.
The Picnic Which a Young German from
Massachusetts Is Having.

George Wright, who arrived in San
Francisco on the steamer Australia
day or two ago from the Caroline
Islands, tells a story of the sudden rise
of sailor to distinction in one of the
largest islands of an archipelago, sew
enty-five miles west of Haweis, where
Mr.. Wright has trading store.
1.-The sailor" said Mr. Wright to an
Examiner reporter, sis Carl Benjamin,
and he has not less than twenty odd
native wives and fifty copper-colored
children. He was wrecked in the
schooner Bombazine off the Ladrone
Islands nine years ago, and tloated at
sea on raft for couple of weeks be-
fore he struck land.
If you will look at map you will
find lying midway between the tropic
of cancer and the equator thirteen
dots. On some maps they appear
marked Thirteen islands, we'll inhab-
tied Well, it was on the biggest one
of these, called by the sailor Benja-
| min Island, in honor of himself, that
he has taken up his home. 1t seems odd
that an island as big as this has not
been got down finer by the geogra.
pliers, bnt it remains practically terra
incognitia, although it is ten by twen-
ty odd miles in extent.
".Well inhabited means that there
is quite sprinkling of dark-skinned
native residents there, as well as many
men who move to and fro in their light
native boats. They eat breadfruit,
bananas, cocoanuts and cat fish, and
that's the end. of it. They don't work
at all.
benjamin has got to be king in his
faraway home. There the white
capped waves beat against the coral
shores, and Benjamin has g"' notbino.
at all to 40 but g" swimming in tie
surf, talk tie native gibberish, which
no has learned, or loIl under palm
| tree. Sometimes he has his wives fan
nm While he smokes the kaziba leaf,
which grows so plentifully there, and
which after you get to using it YOU
like better than tobacco. Maybe YOU
think he hasn't Il soft thing of it.
However. Benjamin is doing some
good work there, despite the hot eli
mate. He carried three or four books
with him on his raft-the last thing
you would expect, and he has con-
tinued to instruct the natives in the
English language. Benjamin is an
American OF German or Jewish de-
scent and is a lover of books. The
first thing he did was to select an in
tellgent native and teach him the
alphabet. He learned rapidly and
soon began to teach it to others, and
a number of them can now speak Eng
lish, while the rising generation i'm
mediately around are gradually pick
ing up primitive knowledge of
the language. Benjamin is looked up
on as sage. All the chiefs come to
him for points, and of their own ac-
cord they have made him their reign
ing potentate. The chiefs, of whom
there are three, are his cabinet.
Benjamin has picked out the hand
soonest women Yer wives. They es-
TEEN it an honor, and readily acknowl-
edge him their lord and master. He
lives in struggling bamboo village,
the village of ki, on coral reef. His
children are a sprightly, lively lot.
Nobody bothers much with clothes
away down there in the South Pacific.
Still he wears little something, as do
some of the natives, thanks to his
teachings, for he has instructed them
that there is no civilization without
some clothes.
'He is about thirty years old and
came from Newburvport, Mass, but
says that he no longer has any desire
to return to this country, and that he
is perfectly contented to end his DAYS
there. He is the only white man, with
one exception, for hundreds of miles
around.
"He has taken to wearing a string
of shells around his neck like the ma
tives, and he sometimes initiates their
example and puts dots of blue paint,
got from native shrub, on his face.
This is oul Y on state occasions, how
ever, when there is discussion of I'M
portant questions on hand with his
subordinates.
The permanent population of the
island is perhaps not over 600 or 700.
1t is very pretty and picturesque
place, and the soil is very rich. 1t is
indented with beautiful bays, whose
shores are dotted with trees and shrubs
of a tropical growth that arc often
times covered with fragrant flowers.
The island is about six hundred miles
west of the Marshall group"