MAROONED LONG AGO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 102, 2 May 1931, Page 7

MAROONED LONG AGO.

! ON MACQUARIE ISLAND. [ ■ \ MIGHTY ANTARCTIC STORMS. ' I I 1 AUCKLAXDEE'S MEMORIES, j 'Tirst we hunted for sea elephants. j ! and laid in great stores of their blubber. : 3 i then we explored the island, first tor | , | fun, and afterward*, as food stocks ran i I \ low, in real earnest. When the weather II charmed, and the -great night" set in we j sat in our huts and played cards. Ana. ; - all the time we waited for the snip to J 3 come." Thus Mr. J. HiscocK, of Birken- j - head, described the way in which he ! e with seven others, spent almost a year , on the lonely Maequarie Island, a dot 1 in the mighty Southern Ocean. They J j were the shore party taken down to the ' s ; island in the Jessie Niccol in the j 5 i 'eighties, with instructions to hunt the | ' < < sea elephant for seven months, and after j. * i that time the vessel would call back for , j 1 | them. -But.' - said' Mr. Hi-cook, "owing j < = | to an unforseeu chain of incidents, the : i ship did not get back for almost a year." j e | After some eight months had passed J i the men rebelled against hunting the j 7 ',! sea. elephants when their employers t seemed to have forgotten _ them. _ To = | break the monotony of doing nothing. I they would take long walks over the j I island, which was about 30 miles long, - ' The shores were strewn with wreckage. [ I for the coast i- treacherous. One ship I I that went ashore must have carried a I j cargo of American cedar, for great logs I were piled high and dry on the rocks | above the reach of the greatest, wave., '■ Mr. Hiscock. in common with others who have followed the sea- and its ways, is expert at carving model ships. The 1 cedar was excellent for such work, and! when he had finished he used to set his ; little craft afloat, and let it go whither J t " it would. Many were the messages" a I which he and ids fellow- sent with them.; ! Perhaps those little boats never got j c j beyond the surf line: but if they did ] it 'would be interesting to know whither j l they did drift. \ In the winter months, when the air j , was full of spume and dark drift, and \ when :rreat storms came down and made j the short day still -hotter, they would J * go to the cliff-tops and watch the seas thunder in. When they got near to the £ ' ciiff edge, so great was the force of the j * gale, that they would have to crawl \ l " forward on their stomachs and make the ' passage inch by inch. Down below, ; i 1000 feet sheer at one spot, the beach 7 1 was fringed with rock pinnacles of vary- ' ing size." and the great combers would roll in and crash onto the needles. The i j sea spouted and writhed and foamed. i j and tilled the day with thunder. FasI cinated they would lie there and just , watch. * Perilous Landings. Then they would visit other beaches 1 to carry out the business for which they 3 were there. They had a whaleboat, and ' 1 Mr. Hiscock was loud in his praises of | ; ! I the little craft. "She was the finest J ; 5 ; sea boat in the Southern Hemisphere," j ( * | he vowed solemnly. He de-scribed the i i £ j trip round the island as commonplace, | , *" i but it was obvious that each journey j x j was an epic in its own way. They ' ; j would go from one beach to another, and I , f ! then lie out just beyond the surf hoping ; e j it would die down, but it never did. ! , f j Then, impatient of waiting, they would j il decide to make the passage. Once in j .J the breakers, there was no getting oat, i I and even if everything went well it was s [ a "touch and go." The job of the steers- ' 2 i man was to keep the boat end-on to the | = i seas, and in his hands rested the lives of , 7 j all the ship's company. "One slip, and | good-night." as Mr. Hiscock tersely put it. J When the helmsman judged that only. | one wave lay between them and the i beach, he would give the order "Bow | oars in." Mr. Hiscock and another were I ] rowing bow. In would go the oars, and j 1 then he and his companion would wait : . for the next order. The last wave would j j ! carry them on. and the moment the■ > e j whaleboat touched the beach, out they j i r i would leap into the surf, taking with I r I them a long rope. They would have to \ \ race up the beach before the undertow !, '" dragged them back, take a couple of! ] J turns round a handy rock and hang on :. 'I like grim death, thus the whaleboat i ( | was able to withstand the draw of the;; I receding wave. Then the next would j ? i come, and the boat would be lifted j ( * further up the beach. Mr. Hiscock and ■ 5 his partner feverishly hauled in the '■ j slack rope, and then, just as the water , ' turned to go back, they would take a I I couple more turns. And so they made j I <?aeh landing. The taking-off was done j I similarly, but each man was up to his j neck in icy-cold water before he could j \ get into the boat. The beaches were I . just breaks in the cliffs, and they were j ' formed of boulders, more or less rounded j . by the action of the water. Cairn days there were none, and storms were sudden. Yet in it all they had not one accident. ' Penguins Like Ninepins. The beaches were literally alive with j, '• penguins, he remembered —penguin- of j 1 all sorts and and descriptions. They ' * had plenty of time to study them, for I i after a while they became a staple diet, j 0 Men whose only food had been reduced j \ to salt and tobacco are thankful of any i change. "They used to lay their eggs a anywhere, and as soon as some of the 1 varieties of the birds were hatched they e would make an uncertain way to the 0 sea—and then their movements were no " longer uncertain. "But the young of the e cjiant penguin" —for so Mr. Hiscock i 11 termed the young of the emperor bird— n "did not take to the water immediately. | 0 It was months before they ventured I s into the sea. They were born with a ! ■ s sort of a wool, which covering was not ! a replaced by feathers until months after- j 1" wards." j 1 The sea was simply alive with the [ birds. They were as thick sometimes ; ' ;* fishermen see sprats and kahawai. Just '" beyond the breaking surf the sealeopards took an enormous toll. "Snap:":: |would go their jaws, a penguin would be,. I tossed high into the air. a little blood.: land that was the finish. \ Beaches Full of Fighting Elephants. -I The sea elephants were a curiosity, j j 6 i Twice a var they would laboriously! ':\ climb from the sea'to the shores of the: *i island and flap their clumsy way up the; H beach to the tussock beyond. One period I ,*!was during the mating season, and the j other was when they changed their : -I coats. "The former was the dangerousa I time.*' he said "particularly among the < e \ bulls. They would rear up at the ■ < 1 : approach of a suspected enemy. and-' s j throw their three tons right at the j , *j object of hate and fear. They would;; t ! fight among themselves. In fact, during j " the mating time the lives of the more i-' I aggressive bulls was one long light. It i ' was a strange sight to see two bulls at!' ! ■ hammer and tongs. They roared and ! : circled and shot their heads forward, j j with their little eye- gleaming hate. '. j They have curious dropping projections I | in front of their heads, like trunks, hence ; f | their name. Though they have no tusks, j - j they do not lack for teeth. Then other! ;1 j tight.- would start, and the beaches! a j would be full of lighting, roaring, tearing | 1 monsters..' 3 j

Listening to Mr. Hiseock one gained j the impression that his stay on the j island had been most varied, but be said j that tempers frayed in long darkness— j it -was dark at 3 o'clock, and not light j until 10 o'clock —and the elephants were J not the only animals that fought. He j was glad when the Jessie Xicol arrived j to take them back to the sun and to j life.