ISLAND CASTAWAY MAY BE A NATIVE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 169, 18 July 1936, Page 9

ISLAND CASTAWAY MAY BE A NATIVE.

TAHITI MYSTERY. Motu Iti Is Said to be Inhabited. I SEARCH AT END OP JULY. United Press Association.—Copyright. I • (Received 11.30 a.m.) CANBERRA, this clay. A cablegram was received by the Prime Minister's Department from the Australian Consul-General at ; ! Papeete, Tahiti, in reply to a message I sent by Mi*. J. A. Lyons asking for news of attempts to rescue the man reported to have been seen on Motu Iti Island, 300 miles from Tahiti. The cable states that a wireless message from the captain of the Port Darwin, who sighted the castaway, was communicated to the French authorities 011 June 27. The island was inhabited by a group of Tahitians and would be visited by a concessionaire at the end of this month. It would appear, therefore, that the island is not uninhabited as was thought when news of the castaway was received. From Melbourne comes a report that the officers and seamen of the Port Darwin do not believe the person they saw was the lost Australian airman, C. T. P. Ulm, whom it was first thought to have been. They think the man was probably a native who had been cast adrift from one of the adjacent islands.