The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-11-10
FAMOUS ISLAND OF FICTION
ROBINSON USoE's AND OTHERS.

Monte Cristo Has Been Brought by thu Italian King Juan Fernandez Was
 Penal Colony.
 Announcement is made in the cable
 dispatches that the island of Monte
 Cristo has been purchased by the young king of Italy, Victor Emanuel H. who
 intends to erect there a hunting lodge,
 to which he and his wife can retire
 when tired of court life on the maln-
 land. This dot on the Mediterranean
 sea is doubtless among the most tam-
 ous bits of land on the globe. 1t Is
 practically uninhabited and not or the
 slightest importance, either historlcally
 or stIategicaly, yet the genius Of Alex
 ander Dumas has made it famous
 wherever books are read or plays acted
 in any tongue. The island is part Of
 Italy, and it lies twenty-seven miles
 south of Elba, where Napoleon was
 king and prisoner for less than year
 in 1914.
 Little as it is, mountain peak 2O90
 feet high rises sheer from the sea upon
 it's narrow base, and the waves beat
 and boil against it so that only in fair
 weather can a landing be made from
 small boats. There is no wharf or har-
 bor. There is not an acre which can be cultivated upon the whole island, but wild goats have for generations earned a living among the crags, and part ridge breed undisturbed, while there is luxurious shade of olive trees. There are grottoes on the island, but hardly such q one as Dumas described-the one in which the marvellous treasure was found.
 It was there that Edmond Dantes es- tablished his marvellous underground retreat, the description of which has dazzled readers for two generations. There may have been hidden treasures on the island, in very fact for it used to be a favorite hiding place of dare devil smugglers and pirates in the days when pirates were real and bloody, and when smuggers were armed men with their lives in their hands and not sleek clerks with silks and diamonds hid in their trunks.
 Tradition tells us that many a jovial banquet was held there by Italian Rob- in Hoods, many from Corsica and Sar- dinia, when Lorenzo and Magnificent was playing his daring role in Florence, and there Is more than one legend which tells how Moorish bandits fre- quantly found the island a sure place for refuge For within the present cen- tury the fierce pirates from the north ern coast of Africa ravaged all the in- lets of the Mediterranean and even car ried off Christian captives from the Italian towns. It took the smart men of the American navy, like Preble and Decature, to put down these people, and let seamen and coast dwellers sleep sound Q nights
 The island of Monte Cristo came to Italy along with the rest of It's new domains in 1871, when Louis Napol- cons empire went to pieces. Once there was talk of putting prisoners there, but that plan has now been abandoned. It wouldn't do for men In striped suits to be nextdoor nelghbors of king and queen.
 The new queen of Italy is one of the finest shots in Europe, and uses rifle and shotgun with equal skill. Last year she went to Spitzbergen, away in the frozen north, and was successful In down many reindeer, as well as a large number of cider duck and other game, which abound in it's barren waste of ice and snow A shooting box i.N IN h,,tt4 I,.sl lz1r, be well stocked with birds and game, solely for the amusement of this fortu- nate young huntress.
 Perhaps more dear to the youthful heart than even Mnte Cristo is Juan a speck of land on the sur face of the Pacific ocean. It's fame has come from work of fiction which since it's first appearance has been more widely read than any similar book ever published. From the passing of Fernandez and his Ppanish colonists
 he island was seldom visited, save by some ship which was pressed for water ind fresh food, in which case 1t furn- shed both in ample quantities, the goats supplying fresh meat, the fruit rees set by Fernandez giving their products, while several kinds of wild grew in abundance on differ mt parts of the island History, how ever records but few of these visits up 70 the beginning of the eighteenth cen ury. From rough survey of the is- and it was set down as being about Welve miles Ing by four miles in it's widest portion, curving in northwest md suthwest direction, with It's high 'st peak at the bend of the curve, This peak was named by Fernandez "El funque' (The AnviD, from it's closest esembance to that mechanical imple- nent.
 For considerably over a hundred 'ears the solitude of the island was 'roken only by the coming and going | if few visitors, until in 17O0 a galley | named the Cinoue Ports, called under | ommand of Captain Straddling. This | British captain was unpopular with his | nen forty of whom deserted and fled l o the interior of the island. All but | i've returned to the ship, which sailed l way, but came back four years later. I y that time only two of Captain | 'tradlins's deserters were inert, the thers having been carried away by a |