The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-03-02
MONTHS ON DESERT ISLAND
Tale of Adventures by Donald Nor
rison of Bark Alexander Oubis.
(Brooklyn Citizen.

/ ADAOOhiSn OittZcliJ
After crowding into little more than
twelve months as remarkable a series
of adventures as it took Robinson CRU
soc half lifetime to experience. Mate
Donald Morrison of the iong-lost Nor
wegian barque Alexandra is home to
see If he can eat at one sitting his
Christmas dinner for 1907 and the one
he lost in 1906
| Alexander Selkirk had no more re-
| markable story to tell after his rescue
| from the island Of San Juan Fernan-
DEE than Morrison brought with him
when he landed from the tramp steam
ship on which he worked his way from
Chile
THE Alexander Oubis sailed from
New South Wales Nov. 26, 1906" he
says, with a crew of twenty English
men. Americans. Germans, Norweglans
and Danes. We were bound for Pan
anna.
For two months everything went
We'll Then we were becalmed. For
weeks we drifted without a breath of
wind. This lasted three months. Then
we sighted land.
''The captain reckoned-correctly, as
we afterwards found-that it was the
Galapagos Archipelago. Sull there was
no wind. Soon we found we were again
drifting toward midocean.
This meant destruction, for our food
and water had run so low that we had
long been on half rations. At the cap
tain's order we launched our two small
boats, loaded all our valuable food and
water into them and, each with a crew
of ten men, set out to reach the ISL
ands.
MANY of the men were too weak to
even speak and we made slow prog
inn Lao I'D t-.-~
of us were kept bailing constantly. FOR
ten days we fought with changing cur
rents
Finally we neared an island. 1t was
small, barren and deserted. To land
there was useless. That night we part
ed company from the other boat. Be
fore morning the plug fell from our
water barrel and before it was dis
covered all the water was gone.
For two days we suffered horribly
from thirst. At last we spied a large
mountainous island and landed through
a heavy surf Our boat was crushed
on the beach, but we saved the air
tight metal tank and afterwards used
it in making turtle soup.
There was no sign of water on the
island, but the captain stripped the
skin from cactus leaves and the juice
refreshed US. The sixteen dry matches
we had among US were the most pre-
cious of our worldly goods
by comparing the contour of the
beach with our chart we found we were
on interchangeable island. On the beach
were several enormous turtles We
killed them and drank the blood and
ate the flesh. 1t was our first meal in
a month.
But for the loss of our boat we
would have tried to reach Chatam ISL
and. which is inhabited. A few days
later We found a small, brackish spring
in cave.
Our slaughter of the turtles had
made the survivors shy and soon we
had fresh trouble to find food. One day
we dubbed a sea lion to death. We
had hard work until we found his nose
to be his vulnerable point
AT last we had 10 make food of the |
lizards, loathsome creatures five feet |
long and a foot in circumference We
tried TO make bread from the powder of |
pounded birds bones.
Thinking we might find more game |
elsewhere on the island we decided to I
change our camp, and swan around a /
cliff, which. with the jungle, prevented I
us from travelling overland.
THE American member of the crew
refused to accompany US. saying we
would surely drown and that he pre- /
ferred, anyway, to die in the old camp. /
We could not dissuade him, so we re-
luctantly left him behind l UNDER
stand a party is still searching for him,
but he is probably dead.
In the new camp the captain lost his
reason from suffering and another of
our number fell into a gully and was
killed. We afterwards found his skele-
ton, picked clean by buZZards.
Our one luxury was a solitary pipe,
in which We smoked by turns dried
leaves and the bark of trees.
I'VE lived thus for five months. On
the morning of Oct. 90 we spied sail
1t proved to be sloop sent out by the
crew of our other boat, which had
reached the mainland