The Volunteer Robinsons

In our hours of revolt against the injustices of this world, of disgust, of weariness or of misanthropy, who is there who has not, following the example of Alceste, declared that he was going to "search on earth for a place removed or to be a man of honor one has freedom”?

The quote is so well known that, quite naturally, it rises to the lips. As for realizing this wish, that's another matter. Sometimes we would like to break with our past, to go somewhere else, to start a new life free from all worries, from all boredom. But how can we break these thousand bonds that bind us, bonds of affection, bonds of interest or, most powerful of all, bonds of habit? We sigh and think of something else.

If all those who, once in their lives, dreamed of imitating Alceste really acted like him, “the outcast place” would have become, long ago, the most populated on earth. Fortunately, it remains deserted. Don't play anyone who wants to Robinson.

However, a real Robinson has just been reported to us, and not far away, on the coast of France, in the harbor of Brest. The story is worth telling.

Among the ships which formed part of the state fleet during the war, there was one, the "Neidenfels", which, sold after the armistice by the liquidation service, passed successively into the hands of various owners. and finally was purchased by a Greek, Mr. Adiakakis. The latter, for a reason known only to him, did not use the steamer and left it anchored in the harbor.

Two guards were placed on board to maintain the cargo ship and defend it against incursions by marauders. But soon these two men were tired of their solitude on a floating island. They probably didn't have the vocation. The owner replaced them with one of his compatriots, a sailor named Alonpi, aged around sixty.

He took his post on the Neidenfels. Everything is fine first. But, one fine day, the monthly pension allocated to the recluse ceases to be paid. Alonpi does not therefore abandon the ship entrusted to his care. He first wants to receive what is due to him and, in the meantime, he continues to live, where he is, as a Robinson of the sea. Unable to buy anything to feed himself, he stretches lines, catches fish from which he smokes a glass. left to stock up on supplies and hunted rats, an abundant game on old ships. As for his clothes, worn out for a long time, he had to replace them by cutting out of blankets or sailcloth costumes of a motley shape.

This strange existence has lasted for fourteen months, but the hermit does not complain about it. Ragged, hairy, bearded like a prophet, he has the illusion of being alone in the world. On the other hand, he seems quite satisfied to chat a little with the sailors who, as they pass, brush against the old hull of his ship. It's his only distraction. He declares, to anyone who will listen, that she is enough for him.

This very modern adventure invincibly evokes the memory of Robinson, the first of his name, made famous throughout the world by Daniel de Foë's novel.

But it should be noted in this connection that Robinson Crusoe, the hero of the book, as well as Alexander Selkirk, the sailor whose real story gave the novelist the idea for his work, did not voluntarily retire to a desert island. It was chance that wanted it that way. Selkirk, foreman on board the Cinque-Ports, was abandoned at Juan-Fernandez by his captain, with whom he had had serious disagreements. All the other Robinsons of legend or history were involuntary recluses, most of the time shipwrecked. There is one, however, who wanted, like Alceste, to find “a remote place” and coldly carried out his plan. It is perhaps the least known of all.

He was an American named Harry Merhover. After having done all the possible jobs in the United States, in turn miner, cowboy, carpenter, mechanic, cook, he felt one day, some forty years ago, the need to see new horizons. He reached San Francisco and embarked for Oceania.

For five years, he visited the islands of Polynesia, practicing, here and there, the various trades learned during his adventurous youth. Then, tired of his wandering life, he decided to settle down. He then served as a sailor on board a sailboat and this ship, to collect water, had just released on the Cococ Islands, two desert islets, but covered with luxuriant vegetation and watered by clear streams. Merhover judged the place quite secluded and comfortable enough for his taste. In secret, he took weapons, tools, wheat, provisions of all kinds from the ship and brought them ashore. Then, when the ship weighed anchor, it slipped into the sea and swam to shore.

Merhover immediately sat down. He began by felling trees to build himself a house, Then he built himself a boat. Around his home, he cleared land, plowed, sowed wheat, built a mill on the banks of a stream, and built an oven. From the second year, he had bread to eat with the products of his hunting and fishing. In short, he was the happiest of men, I mean men living in a primitive way.

But, and this is where the story becomes even more romantic, Merhover realized, one day, that man is not made to remain alone. He remembered that there lived in Honolulu a young girl to whom he had promised marriage a few years earlier. And, as a ship had just stopped in front of his island, he passed through, reached the capital of the Hawaiian Islands, found his distant princess, married her and convinced her to follow him. They returned to the Cocos Islands, taking with them a negro servant (sic), a type, in short, in the style of faithful Friday.

Since then, the three volunteer Robinsons have led the most peaceful, happy existence in the world and perhaps no one would know their story if a sailor, Captain Jeder, had not passed by, seen them and, interested as well as surprised, had recounted this strange adventure in an American magazine.

Claude FRANCUEIL