SCHOONER WRECK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 283, 30 November 1933, Page 8

SCHOONER WRECK.

AMERICAN AUTHOR'S ESCAPE. LAST OF THE PRO PATRIA. Tt is reported from Papeete (Tahiti) that the trading schooner Pro Patria, upon which the noted American author, Captain James Norman Hail, was voyaging to Pitcairn Island, was recently totally wrecked on an outlying island of the Gambier group, w'th the loss of one Tahitian sailor and the narrow escape of Captain Hall and the other passengers and crew.

Captain Hall is the co author, with another American living in Tahiti, Charles Nordoff, of the recently-pub-lishert "Mutiny on tho Bounty," a graphic resume in story form of the most famous of all mutinies. Both these authors have lived in Tahiti for many years, and written a number of books in collaboration. So successful has "Mutiny on the Bounty been that a sequel was decided upon, and Captain Hall was going to Pitcairn Island to gather material and absorb "atmosphere." The Pro Patria is an Island schooner of very ancient origin, so ancient, indeed, as to have been associated with "Bully" Hayes, and she | probably broke up at once upon striking a coral reef. The isle upon which she was wrecked is very remote, and had not another schooner chanced along the suryivors might have remained on it for a long time.