The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1907-12-03
THE LOST ONES.


soc was shipwrecked on a cannibal
island in the Pacific Ocean off the
coast of South America And at this
moment the captain and crew of big
United States collier are either sur
rounded by the descendants Of these
Robinson Crusoe cannibals or have
already been captured and eaten by
them
1t was on one of the islands in the
Terra del Fuego archipelago that the
great steel bark Arthur Sewall was
wrecked with a load of coal for the
battleship squadron. The savages VINO
live there wander up and down the
coast of South America in the same
rude war canoes which their great
grandfathers padded in the days OF
Crusoe. Their habits and customs
and barbarous feasts are the same to-
day as they were when Crusoe rescued
Friday from their cannibal jaws.
The only news of the fate of the
crew of forty men who sailed from
Philadelphia on April comes from
the steam sealing ship the Fridjof,
which makes business of cruising
in those cold and dangerous waters
about Cape Horn in pursuit of seals.
The Fridjof was slowly steaming
past Noir Island of the cannibal-in-
| tested archipelago named on the map
as Terra de! FuegO, or TERRA del Fue-
go, meaning the land of fires" The
lookout, from his perch at the steam
er's masthead, watching for seals and
reefs in those unchartered waters,
sang out, wreck ahead
Steaming closer, the officers of the
Fridjof found the topmasts of a great
four-masted ship, evidently a bark,
projecting from the water The roy
ais were set and still Tapping from
their. yards.
! From this the captain of the Frid
jof concluded, firstly, that the bark
| had run on the rocks during a fog;
secondly, that there was not much
wind blowing at the time thirdly
that the crew had escaped to the
shore, and that it had all happened
within few days.
His reasoning was that if there had
been a storm the ship would not have
carried her royals. If no storm there
was little excuse for her being so
close to the shore unless a fog hid
Noir Island from her skipper. The
crew had evidently escaped, because
/ the shore was en- c1Oca oDd +baro NO 6
no sign of any men having dashed
themselves to the topmast, as they
would otherwise have done. The fact
that the sails had not been torn from
the yards by the action of waves and
wind bespoke the recentness of the
accident
There was little doubt in the cap
tain's mind that the wreck was the
big steel collier Arthur Sewall, out of
Philadelphia, which he knew was due
in those ATTITUDES with a cargo of coal
for the battleship fleet. In this he was
right, and in his guess that there were
about forty men, all told, aboard her
when she struck.
! The captain of the sealer and his
crew, all Norwegians, were of one
mind that an attempt ought to be
made to rescue those forty men il
they had not already been killed and
eaten by the descendants of those can
nibals whom Crusoe fought.
1t was too late to go ashore that af-
ternoon, so the Fridjof anchored and
waited for daylight During the night
faint CLEANS of light appeared from
| different parts of the heavily wooded
and forbidding shore. These lights
gave the name of land of fires" to
the island, and come from the little
fires which the naked natives carry
about with them instead of clothes to
protect them from their semi-arctic
! climate.
In the morning twenty-six volun-
teers put off in two boats for the
shore, armed with rifles, reviewers
axes and provisions. Six men were
left in charge Of the boats, which
landed at the mouth OF a small creek.
The captain and the rest of the party
| examined the beach and soon found
abundant traces that the crew of the
sunken bark had landed. There were
signs Of a fire, and footprints, still
fresh, which led to the creek showing
that the crew had gone inland. per-
haps in search Of food or in hopes of
reaching better location to signal
passing ships. Around the marks OF
the white mems shoes, obliterating
them in many places, were numerous
footprints of the calloused, native teet
of the natives.
Whether this meant that the natives
had followed the white men or led
them inland or what, the sturdy Nor
wegians proposed to find out. What
puzzled and worried them most was
the absence of any sign Of the boats
or RATS which took the shipwreclled
men ashore.
Following the creek they shouldered