THE KERMADEC ISLANDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 279, 26 November 1890, Page 8

THE KERMADEC ISLANDS.

SUNDAY ISLAND SETTLEMENT.

ARRIVAL OF THE HINEMOA.

RETURN OF' THE SETTLERS.

A DISMAL FAILURE.

As we long ago anticipated, the latelyformed project of settlement on the Kermadec Islands, New Zealand's rocky "dependencies," has proved to be a lamentable failure. After a long and bitter experience of hardship and semi-star-vation, the unfortunate people who left NewZealand a year or so ago for Sunday Island to '*' carve out " homes for themselves have at last found out that it is useless to think of making a living there, and have returned here, poorer in all but experience. The Colonial Government steamer Hinemoa, Captain Faircluld, arrived in port this forenoon from her periodical trip up the Kermadec Group, lying 670 miles north of Auckland, which were annexed to this colony some three years ago. On her arrival at the Railway Wharf it was found that nhe had on board all save one family of the original body of settlers who eft Auckland for Sunday Island iv the schooner Dunedin last year, all returning from the Denham Bay settlement thoroughly disgusted with their experience, and impoverished into the bargain. The party who have returned are, Mr and Mrs Ho well, Mr and Mrs Bacon and son, Messrs J. Carver, H.H. Lord, A.Rasmussen, and J. Avenfc. The two Misses Bell, daughters of Mr John Bell, the woll-known Sunday Island pioneer, also came down to Auckland in the Hinemoa. Captain Fairchild reports leaving Wellington ten days ago for the Kermadecs on hia six-monthly trip, landing stores ab Portland Island lighthouse and arriving at the Kermadecs on Thursday last. He visited L'Esperance Rock, Curtis Island and Macaulay Island and found all the Government provision depots in good order, and their contents intact. There was no sign of any wreckage, and it was evident that no shipwrecked mariners had been on the islets. The steamer came to an anchorage off Sunday Island on Friday morning, and Captain Fairchild on going ashore found the settlers all alive and safe, but with a dismal story to tell. They were, in brief, sick of Sunday Island, and wished to leave ab once, and get back to New Zealand. Everything had gone against them since they landed afc Donham Bay last year. Captain Fairchild received them on board with their belongings, all excepting Mr and Mrs Carver and their daughter and son-in-law (Mr and Mrs Robson), who eaid that they wished to leave the place, but were utterly without means to do so, and would therefore wait until another opportunity offered, trusting to grow enough to keep them in the meantime. Mr Hovell, the promoter of the Kermadec Islands Fruitgrowing Association, left by the Hinemoa with hia wife and infant child. Mrs Howell, a delicatelynurtured lady, had suffered greatly on the island since her arrival there. Soon after the departure of the Hinemoa on her last call there, six months ago, she gave birth to a child, and both have suffered through the unexpected privations undergone. LIFE ON THE ISLAND. Since the Hinemoa's visit in May last, nob another vessel had called at Sunday Island, and the settlers were as completely cut off from connection with the ouside world as if they had been located at the South Pole. Ab last visit' of the Government steamer they were reported to have a very dark prospect for the winter, and the six months proved to be months of great hardship. Almosb all their crops failed them. What vegetables did grow were blown out of the ground by the galea, and they had little available to sustain life for the winter for a community of twenty persons. Fortunately a great number of mutton-birds had been killed and preeeryed in their own fat, and this article of food formed the staple of consumption for the prototypes of Robinson Crusoe through the winter. Some frightful weather was experienced, gales of hurricane force almost sweeping over the island at times, and the none too substantial dwellings of the settlers felt the effects of the weather severely. Life on the island would have been monotonous but for the unfortunate dissensions and quarrels which frequently arose*between the settlers. More than dnce disputes came to blows,andthings generally were in a very unhappy state. Naturally, every person on the islet was immensely relieved when the Hinemoa showed up off Denham Bay that Friday morning. The cultivations of the settlers were all in Denham Bay and its immediate vicinity. The Hinemoa lay off Fleetwood Bluff, Denham Bay and the "Fishing Rocks," and em barked the people. Capt. Fairchild says the island looked truly desolate. There was very little fruit to be seen anywhere, far less than in former years. THE BELL FAMILY. Captain Fairchild tells us thab ib is very probable thab Mr John Bell, the original settler on Sunday Island, will before long ♦•clear out" to New Zealand, and give up life in the Kermedeca for good. After his twelve years' experience he heartily wishes he had never eeen Sunday Island. All his life there with bis family has been a band-to-mouth fight for bare existence. Not long ago Mr Bell wrote thab settlement on Sunday Island had been "a mistake from first) to last; and everyone who has ever tried settlement here has found, sooner _ or later, that it was a very great mistake and baa left accordingly." The simple fact appears to be, Sunday Island is a proper " desolate apofci' , nob fitted for human inhabitants. Galee and drought are two (£ the curses of the place, and there ia not a really safe landing-place on the island. Mr Bell complains of a mysterious disease which haa carried off almosb all hia sheep. Three years ago he had three hundred, now he has about eighty. He believes it to be some ailment of the liver. Hardly a day passes now, he told Capfc. Fairchild, without) his family discovering another sheep dead. Mr Bell's food resources are giving out, and he says he cannot stay much longer on the island. So before very long ib is likely, that Sunday Island may again be an uninhabited waste.. Mr Stratford, one of the original Denham Bay settlers, who had returned to Auckland, went back to Sunday Island by the Hinemoa, for what) reason Captain Fairchild cannob say. Ho at first wished a passage back again to New Zealand when he found tbe other settlers leaving, bub when Captain Fairchild offered him ib he refused it, and said he would remain on the island with the Carver? for a time. Moat of the returned settlors belong to bbc Hawke's Bay district. The Hinemoa'called ab Cuvier Island yesterday. She leaves at noon to-morrow for Northern^ lighthouse stations, the Manukau and Wellington.