A WILD GOOSE' CHASE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 10158, 11 July 1924, Page 8

A WILD GOOSE' CHASE

SEARCH FOR AN EL DORADO:

A little band of engineering students from Loughborough College, who 18 months .ago set out in a little fishing •boat, which they named the Wild Goose, to found an ideal home' on an island in the South Seas, have beer, disillusioned, states the "Daily . Chronicle." Of the 13 who set out in, quest of a new Garden of Eden—with-: out an Eve or a serpent—only threeremain on the island. The leader, Commander David, has returned in illhealth to liis home at Merthyr. It is he who discloses the fact that the' ' party failed to find the expected El Dorado. Leaving Milford Haven in September, 1922, the Wild Goose encountered bad weather, and was blown into the Tagus. There the email craft was abandoned for a more suitable vessel, which eventually anchored off Tahiti, where the adventurers proceeded to develop a plantation. But the experiment was not a success. The Wild Goose, whose name seems to have cast an evil spell over the venture—the fates dislike ridicule and have little sense of fun—was once a steam herring drifter, of Aberdeen. Mr David Laurence David, loader of the little band of questing students, is a young naval officer of 26, who had a distinguished career in the war. He be^an as a middy on one of the cruisers at™Scnpa Flow. Later he enjoyed -several thrills in the course of duty with the Dover patrol, and was navigating officer of one of the destroyers which" took part in the Zeebrugge operations. Besides his qualifications as a man of action, he is a novelist, and it was hoped that he would be ■added to the list of writers for whom the South Seas have such charm. Exactly where the adventurers meant to make for was never made clear. It was stated before they left that thoy proposed to become explorers, dealers in copra and other products, shipowners, merchants, and all sorts of other jolly things. They were to work their own sliips, right down to the remain bachelors till they made good—which appears to inflict a life-Ion ~ vow of celibacv on them, if the project has really failed—and there was some talk -of a'pnrtv of girl students joining them ( in. their island paradise when all wnsfc ready. But the Wild Goose has proved I to be the most prophetic words used vn J ; ggaaeetioa -with the expedition. I