28. Becoming a Hit in Cannibal Island
When Carl-Emil Pettersson washed up in Tabar Island in 1906, he was met with a group of hostile cannibals. He convinced them to take him to meet their ruler, King Lamry. Pettersson convinced him that he could make him rich if he would just give him a chance to demonstrate how. The trick was to take advantage of the island’s amenable climate and soil to produce coconuts. As in a whole lot of coconuts, for wholesale trade, by clearing ground for coconut plantations.
King Lamry was game, so he let Pettersson try his hand at transforming Tabar from a cannibal island into a coconut one. The enterprising Pettersson’s revolutionizing of Tabar’s economy not only pleased and impressed King Lamry, but also pleased and impressed his daughter, Princess Singdo-Misse. Soon the Swedish sailor and island princess were madly in love. Her father was eventually talked around into blessing the union, and the duo got married, and settled down to raise a family of nine children.