Transport: Coffin Island Castaways

A favorite pastime among pirates of the Spanish Main was to set men adrift in small boats or maroon them on desert islands. Caja de Muertos (Coffin) Island, a few miles off the southern shore of Puerto Rico, is supposed to be the original of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, on which, as every schoolboy knows, pirates marooned Ben Gunn. Last week, out of the ocean near Coffin Island came reports of an amazing revival of such piratical practice.

The freighter West Mahwah of the Pacific Argentine Brazil Line has lately been held in...

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