Reigned as a King

By the death of Joseph Roberts, a California pioneer, Santa Cruz lost a genuine Robinson Crusoe, for Mr. Roberts had passed through in early manhood all the thrilling adventures and exciting life which endear Defoe’s hero to the reading boy and girl. Sixty-seven years ago, on St. Valentine’s Day, Joseph Roberts was born in Falkirk. His family for years had been seafaring people, so that as he grew up he took to the sea naturally, and while only 14 years of age, while his playmates were still cabin boys, he was made second mate of a sailing vessel. Before he was 15 he made his first long voyage from home, and followed the sea until he reached manhood. He visited many foreign countries and the islands which dot the ocean, but never landed in the United States until he sailed through the Golden Gate in 1851.

There was one of the many stories of adventure which Roberts told which never grew stale to young or old. It was the story of the months he spent on a cannibal island in the Pacific. Mr. Roberts was on a cruise among the South Sea islands on an English merchantman, and when land was sighted he went ashore, knowing that although the island was inhabited by cannibals, they were peaceable. But in his absence the captain ordered the anchor up and all sails set, and for eight months he was left alone among a lot of South Sea islanders.

The natives worshipped him as a deity, and the king shared his own palm hut with him. The natives on that island believe in feeding their god, so Mr. Roberts lived on the fat of the island. The daintiest fish, the rarest game, and the earliest and sweetest fruits were laid as offerings at his door. Five dusky girls waited on him, served him with food and wove garlands of flowers with which they crowned him. Whenever he went to the seashore he was followed by an admiring host of natives. He was the first man on the island, the divinity of the natives, the king of their king. Mr. Roberts used to say that he liked the adoration of the South Sea islanders, but as the months passed he grew homesick and longed for the sight of white faces. Civilization seemed a very desirable thing, but he accepted the situation.

At the end of eight months’ stay on the island, upon awakening one morning, he saw a ship lying at anchor in the bay. Pretending to the natives that he wished to board the vessel to trade with the sailors, they took him out to her in a canoe and he climbed up the side of an American ship. The captain and sailors were more than astonished to see a white man, and Roberts begged to be accepted as a sailor, a passenger, or anything, so he could once more reach civilization. On this ship he entered the United States for the first time, for the sailing vessel was bound for San Francisco. When the natives learned that their white god was going to leave them they put out to sea in all their boats, following the sailing vessel for miles, screaming, crying and beseeching him to jump overboard and return to them.