WILD GOOSE CHASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 238, 5 October 1923, Page 6

WILD GOOSE CHASE.

FOR UTOPIAN SOUTH SEA ISLE STUDENTS TIRE OF RESTRAINT. SIMPLE LIFE SCHEME FAILS. Jn August of last year a cable message from London intimated that a small party of students had set sail from a Scottish port for some South Sea island, j They were going to escape taxation and ; create a modern Utopia, but they came a "crasher." The story of the failure v.'i_ told to the Wellington "Dominion" by Mr. X. de Courcy Parry, who arrived the other day by the French steamer I Antinous from Tahiti. ! "The idea of a self-governing life | found birth in the Loughborough | Engineering College, in Leicester," said Mr. dc Parry. "Some fourteen or fifteen students, evidently tired of the rigid con- j ditions of civilisation, banded together, and bought a Scotch fishing steamer. | She was not very big, and not suited for j . deep-sea travel. Sheets, beds, seeds, Kankcts, guns, in fact everything that they would need for a new settlement were stored on board. Their venture became known, and the}' had a right royal send-off. The bands were playing, flags were flying, and the people were excited when the Wild Goose, for that : is what they named their craft, sailed out | of the Scottish port of Buckie on August 27, 1922. They were heroes. Starts Leaking. "Hut the expedition was ill-fated and hopelessly organised. Only two of the liftcen students had ever been to sea before. The captain was an excellent j navigation officer, but an inexperienced ' seaman. Bully beef and biscuits was the only kind of food on board. They l>elieved that other food would not keep. | Bad weather was encountered, and to make matters worse the galley caught tire. The little vessel was driven to Che Bay of Biscay, but the crew of students thought they were far out in the ( Atlantic until they picked up their bearings off Corunna. Here the Wild Goose began to leak badly, and the water was gaining, as the bilge pumps would not work. It was then a case of reaching Lisbon or foundering. Luckily, the ship reached the Portuguese port, and anchored a few miles up the River Tagus. There she was to be repaired. "'I w-as working at Lisbon at the time, but when I saw the captain he i asked mc if I would care to come with him to the South Sea Islands. I jumped at the idea. Meanwhile, the students had scattered about. Some went to Africa i to do some wild game shooting, while | others frittered away their time and ' money in the romantic and dreamy, 1 environment of Lisbon. It is a delightI fill place. ! They Fail Out. "After about six weeks most of them had lost the vision of their conceived Utopia, and after a heated quarrel all , but three rettired to England. The Wild i Goose was sold to a Portuguese fishing ' l company, and the captain returned to j England to attend to the affairs of the Pacific Settlement Company, for that is j what it was called. j "The captain returned to Lisbon again I during March of this year, and bought | a two-masted sailing schooner, which we named the Wild Goose 11. With a crew of five wo set sail from Lisbon in April 1 for Tahiti. After many adventures in j this boat we eventually reached the French island. Here the expedition dis- I banded, and Wild Goose 11. was sold. ! I did not remain long iv Tahiti, for no j concessions are granted to Englishmen i there. Since then I have roamed around, the Pacific, and returning to Tahiti I I again, embarked aboard the Antinous for Wellington." j •Mr. de Parry is a Welshman, and has had the wanderlust since boyhood. He docs a good deal of writing, chiefly on his travels. From Wellington he goes to the New Hebrides and Solomon Islands.