STARVING AT SEA.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 243, 11 October 1916, Page 6

STARVING AT SEA.

THREE WEEKS WITHOUT FOOD.

About a month ago, the Mission steamer Southern Cross -was in the Reef Islands, and among the few native* there, *hey found two women and two men who had been washed aehore. iaey had left Foutona, near Fiji, in a whaleboat about three weeks before, when there were five natives in the boat. Wnen a short distance Irorn the shore, a severe gale sprung up, and the small craft was -washed out to sea with its burden of terrified natives.. They had no food with them, and -when the gale subsided, they had but to drift to where the tides and wind deemed fit-to take them. For days they -were tossed about, hungry and poorly-dad. The days lengthened into weeks, and it seems hardly creditable that human beings could "exist so long without food. After about 21 days in this deplorable- condition, the whaleboat was washed ashore on one of the small coral islands of the Keef group. One of the five persons who at firet sev sail had died of starvation, and the others were first eeen in the battered craft'with hungry and drawn faces, semiconscious of their condition, and waitin-" for death. They were taken ashore and treated with extreme kindness by the natiTes. It ie evident that they drifted for about 966 miles by tbt, chart ja the 21 days they were at sea. The Southern Cross took the four members left of the crew of the ill-fatefl -frhalefeoat aboard and carried them to, Vila, from whence they hoped to return to Foutona by a French man-o'-wer. Tie natives were Polynesians, and are under French rule.