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Letters
Count Felix von Luckner's early years and some pictures
Hi Mac, Noel, Thank you for the photos, may I add them to my Seeadler page please? Regards,
Everything was fine till he got tangled up with Eva ,the Keepers daughter and was found kissing her, and her father told him he would kill him so Count took off leaving all his belongings behind. But came back after dark and took one of the horses as to the value of his belongings and rode to Port Augusta, seems a long way to ride a horse. He worked in the sawmill there and then gave a Norwegian all the money that he had and his watch for his rifle and went out into the scrub and shot some kangaroo`s there but the solitude nearly sent him off my brain, and he came back to Port Augusta and when on the wharf there a travelling troupe of Indian Fakirs were unloading their gear and they offered him the job of looking after their horses and erecting tents and all the other odd jobs around this magicians show and he travelled all over Australia with them. When the Troupe reached Fremantle, his old friends at the hotel, said no more Salvo`s and gingerbeer for you "by Joe" his favourite saying, while on the beach at Fremantle just after he turned 16, a man approached him and said you would make a great boxer, would you like a fight for money and he said yes and trained him at the gym and paid for his fights and took him to Brisbane but after 3months he tired of this and quietly was hired as an able bodied seaman at the age of 16yrs at a pay of USA$45 a month on the Golden Shore for Honololu and San Francisco and Vancouver where him and his mate Nauke left the ship and went fishing but took one of the native sailboats and they were fired on so took of with fright and sailed out to sea but luckily were able to sail to Seattle and after meeting German sailors there were given money and food and tried to return the boat back to the natives but were caught and hauled before the Vancouver Court and after explaining were put on good behaviour bonds for a few weeks. He then signed on the Pinmore at Vancouver and sailed to San Francisco and then took the longest uninterrupted voyage of his life which took 285 days to sail around Cape Horn to Liverpool and 6 men died of scurvy and beri beri and the rest of the crew were so ill that nobody could climb and after landing he spent 2 weeks in hospital there and after he went to Hamburg and vowed that he would not see his father till he was a Naval Officer,so off to sea for a few more years and broke his leg on a ship at Jamaica and finally after more sailing ships arrived back in Hamburg and joined the Naval Reserve on shore duties and studied hard for the Navy Officers postion he now so desperatly wanted and finally came to pass and visited his parents at Halle and all was forgiven for him running away at 14 yrs of age.
Seeadler on Moopelia Reef 2-8-1917
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