The Real Tarzan?
Mildin’s ship ended up getting wrecked after a three-day storm, but the young adventurer survived by hanging on to a piece of driftwood that eventually took him to shore, somewhere between Pointe Noire and Libreville in the French region of Africa. Now, if you’re wondering if this really happened, Llewellan wrote in his 1959 article that official insurance documents verified that ship’s destruction in 1868.
Mildin wrote in his memoirs that after being shipwrecked, he met a group of kind apes who offered him food and shelter. The boy joined his new neighbors, providing weapons, and creating fire. By the time Mildin became a teenager, he had left the apes as he was accepted by a tribe of natives.