The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-04-09
A REMARKABLE srowAWAY.
Adventurous Negro From Barbados Who
Can speak ANY Language.

Adventurous Negro From Barbados VINO
Can speak Any Language.
From the New York Times.
NO one at the barge office doubts nat
Joseph would be able 10
scrape together a living in this country.
but as he has no money and no frienos.
and came as a stowaway, he Will have
TO go back to B~arbadoes, whence he
came on the good bark mary Z. Hale.
Joseph's parents were born in Africa,
as one can easily believe who behoids
Joseph, for he is as black as the ace OF
spades. His hair Is crinkly, his lips
as thick as blubber and his chin re-
treating. No one ould take him to
be a linguist and an individual OF va
RED attainments, but he Is. he mas
been a rover for IL years. He thinks
he is now IS years old, but he doesn't
know just when he was born.
He went to sea IL years ago, put ne
has not remained at sea all OF the time
since. When he first signed seaman.s
articles he M a only Spanish. he
rested a while in Germany, and while
| there picked up German and Russian.
Then he went TO Holland n got a
good smattering of Dutch. A soJourn
in Italy made him proficient in the
language of thai sunny land. His
French is Partisan, he having learned
it in the capital. To sea he went again,
and at Singapore he learned to ak
with the Malays in their own language,
and at Madras he caught the language
of the coolies. and he claims a smatter-
ing, too, of Chinese-enough to be UNI
derstood. At Algiers he tudied
Turkish and Arabic, and in japan Jap
anese. He drifted back to
! and found Polish easy. and then in
| Copenhagen he finished of his linguistic
\ education by mastering the Scandina-
Wan languages.
That he really had a smattering of
all these tongues was attested by the
corps of interpreters in the immigra-
ton bureau. He was able, to talk TO
any of them, but they admitted that to
get a really c~reditable o OF him
sell could only be Obtained by the full
corps of interpreters.
OF course, Joseph had to make a liv
ing while studying languages ashore
He secured a job from Hagenbeck In
COPENHAGEN and became an assistant
lion tanner. In Berlin he was exhibited
as a wild man from somewhere, and q
big ring was inserted the nos
trils of his nose, which Is about one ant
a half inches wide. In London, whert
his travels also took him, he got a jot
again as a lion tanner. Some months
ago a vessel he had shipped in at a Eu'
ropean port was wrecked off the coas'
of Brazil. He was thrown up with tn
drift to the beach, and, pursuing ms
drifting habit. he drifted back to his
birthplace i'm Barbardoes.
Barbadoes was dull. He fell in Will
some of the crew of the American BARI
and they thought it would be fun t'
have him aboard. He could | ant
put up a pretty good vaudeville enter
tainment all by himself. the entertain
ment including mimicry OF the noises
made by the various wild beasts Wit
which he had become familiar in cir
Gus shows.
They helped him to hide away be
meath the starboard boat. and after tn
bark was under way one OF the crev
nnounced his feigned surprise b!
calling out that there was a new cool
aboard" He turned In ana worke'
with the crew. -'