SPECIAL ARTICLE. A SURVEYOR'S DIARY.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20523, 16 April 1932, Page 13

SPECIAL ARTICLE. A SURVEYOR'S DIARY.

THE AUCKLAND ISLANDS. [KStLCSIVJE TO THE I HESS.] }lr John Baker. 111 0 writer of these notes, came to Now Zealand in 1857, and as a culct in tho Canterbury Survey Office helped in the mapping and explaining of many of t ' le t -' ,en ""kno.wn parts of the Province. Me rose to bo. Chief Surveyor of (. untorluir.y, and in 1892 was appointed Assistant Surveyor-General. In JBG2 Mr Rakor joined the Southland Provincial Government's survey staff, ' and the previous article of this series gave some account of his travels in that province. ISGS.-~-In the middle of October 1 received instructions from the Superin- ! tendent to go in the Southland tug (commanded by Captain Grieg) to learch the Auckland Islands for ship, wrecked sailors. The history of this expedition is as follows: An oyster cutter, of which Tom Cross was the skipper, had eomo np to Invereargill with three shipwrecked men on board. One of them, Captain ilusgrave, had stated that they had been sealing at the Auckland Islands and that their schooner, the Grafton, of which he was captain, had been anchored in Carnlcy Harbour when a le»vy gale had arisen and blown her ashore. As they had no means of get-

tinf her off they had lived for over a and a half in a house they had con- ( (tructed on the island, and had existed on the small amount of stores they had Mt io their ship, and on seal flesh and uch ihell fish as they could find. Gettinff tired of this life, they determined to,attempt to reach Stewart Island and ! Jiea the mainland. They had a very mall dinghy which would carry only three out of the five men who had

fonmd the crow of their schooner, so iviotvally- three of theni set forth on ; the. venturesome voyage of three ' hundred miles in this tiny boat, taking

with tbeto such provisions as they had -principally dried seal flesh. Fortune (wound them, and they were picked up off Stewart Island by Cross in his mttor and brought to Invercargill. Money Was collected in order to send .CrtMdown to'tho Islands to bring atvay the other two men. He called first at Gwnley Harbour and picked up the tiro JMiubers of the Grafton's crew, ; aai 8? Je Bailed along the coast he thought he saw a fire on one of the headlands, but could not be certain of thii. On the return journey he called lijoitßoss, ft desolate harbour in tho I jorthera part of the main island, and laving landed there discovered a hut ' and In it the skeleton of a man, but | iolMng.t# show how it came there, or who the Wan had been. He buried tho hody sad then made for Stewart Island tid'MTMS the Straits to New River Estuary and Invercargill. There he reported WhM he had done and seen. It ' wu theft quite apparent that there had hen uiother wreck on the island, and that WMr B * oro survivors were still there, Government decided to despatch thither the Southland, a paddle r. steam tng which was usually employed , ,Ja bringing Vessels up the New River "! 'tkwf'Ao Invercargill jetty. I was Mflttld to tako charge of tho exW&MB- and to soarch the 1 Islands were occupied fitting up ttt:|{(asiier for the journey, but on fchfe'l4th, 1805, we left InvorcargM .lilttile most southern land in British • Besides myself, the party ttMillOd of Dr. Monckton, whojwent , *Jfl| H» >8 surgeon, Mr G. F. Kiehrtrd- . BH (some years afterwards Minister of I«4s-for tho Colony), who went ns reiwtwiorth# ''Southland Times," and CNl»t -the skipper, who had rescued ' ftF9 remaining members of the 9ftftto's Crew. "■ Vt encountered a heavy sea crossing ' Hi' Straits', and put into Port AdvenStewart Islnad to repair eome dose to the steamer's paddle- . and we did not leave there till ' ftl ljth. On the evening of the 20th. *8 lighted the Auckland Islands and ,' Jyly nest morning, passing Enderby ■ WWif we steamed into Port Ross and . to the, head of the harbour, , luffls irt anchored in an inlet named , ' Uljrfe Cove. Before leaving the New ''''i " E<taar y vo had shipped a whale \ n > Mt, -in sane we had to land at any J ! ft heavy surf was running, h-ifter breakfast the whale boat was r ®fered, in charge of the mate, and ?nU*d down the harbour, to the bay Which Cross had found the hut conskeleton. At this point ■ BW# had at one time a settleIt?! frtod Enderby Settlement, and " *r Zj was a relic of this. * k er# l u °to from my official 4 ?Wto the Government, published in ■> t»L southland Gazette" in November. ® : The Auckland Islands were dis- , fcy Captain Bristow in the year ; v fwnally taken possession of ' name the King, when ■ i»I ? a year later. They were : »«? '« t,d b y Admiral D'Urville's 1« igS?®® o^o *® Wilkes's expeditions. The vessels of the Antarctic ' kjfj (m also •ailed at them in 1840. ]OMk ® their stay Dr. Lyall and Dr. Jiffw 11 large collection of the ■ tnti."v.Pkats and shrubs indigenous . i fcn n^s > "which they published &•» -in the first volume of AntaretieFlora. f ' this timo the Auckland i Wirt •J'xll 1 ftve been the favourite * i i South Sea whalers, and in • tarkiA se-i5 e -i^ a l"ig establishment was < %boL\, t ® OBS ' * n Rendezvous < j The number of houses now i 5? WarVn. a y» an d the large amount : \ lewi. as been done in clearing *°«' d indicate that at some ' j-Hvi v m two hundred people mir>t ieWtl»»'*i, a t this spot, and at ' <ettlement must have been o/ii° Ua as a surgeon ! .fltOQai „i • whalers, in giving an «. B cru ' so * n the South Seas. < %t W a ?ttlement, and remarks J course °' time It would i* ? ec ß settlement of con- ! .???l! ta ® <s ?; b ut in 1852 the 'Smiii broken up kta group consists of two ■ ft. SBVeral SI "allo r islands— Mm!"' ® eean Islands formC?"*«rth « i ßtern ' Qreen Island *■" iai-hT*' entrance to Rendez- ■ at the oxtreme - 50 - 32 harbour is of « and « 81z<! an d would afford IjLthe !u . re .-anchorage o vessels ri P tion - is u' no ■fS Eml J£_ rom the entrance, a# **®?". ail d Green Islands, to frft* ovo i which is only '■ We st coast by a t®*ES»K?' n i ia 8 BnddJe of con * g*.si T . ho sight'of the.old "K%fee on a Jow penin--'wSs Jnogt il 80 , 06 t° Laurie Cove. It »«M«W n Ve ]v Spot 0,1 the who,e ISife*! J hls can hardly be t eon sists of irregular ftom which the dense I

scrub with which it. was originally covered has been cleared away. 'J'lie last vestiges of the old settlement have nearly disappeared, and in a few years it will be difficult for a stranger to find fie site of Port Boss." When we approached the hut we ound, to our great astonishment, that someone had been there recently, aud on looking around we discovered a large funk of a tree which had been smoothed to admit the following inscription being cut on it—"II.M.C.S. .ictoria in search of shipwrecked People, October JBth, 1805," and in the l,o| low Of the tree was a sailed bottle enclosing a letter stating that H.M.C.S. ii'toria had visited the island three c 'O s before our arrival, searching the surrounding bays for traces of ship\«locked people and had landed som? goats and rabbits which might serve u« ood in case other people were stranded there The news of the discovery of the skeleton and of the sighting of the > r o had been published through the • less, and the Australian Government 'id at once sent a cruiser to investigate.

' round at the remains ot the wooden houses, we decided to go '-"■ li V? t,lo . steamc r and discuss matters < u ■" C' l ptain Grieg, but when we rouined to tho beach we saw that (ur boat was having a cruise by "self, no one having taken the 'precaution to make Ihe painter fast to )e shore. As yet she was not very tar away, so I proposed to Cross that we should strip and swim out to her, but the oLhers thought this was too nsky, and suggested that we should nsu ,is a raft the wooden side of one of the fallen houses, and should paddle on this alter the boat. It took some time to make tho paddles and launch the J aft, such as it was, and before this was done, the boat was considerably further away. Cross and I got on to tho rickety craft, but as the timber was old, rotten and water-sodden, it would not carry us both, and so 1 set out to sea by myself on tho side of a house and paddled for all I was worth. However, no sooner had I left the shelter of the little bay aud gained the main harbour than I* found that the whale boat, which was broadside .on to the wind, was making ten feet to every one that. I could mako with my paddle, so I slipped off the raft and, regardless of the supposed risks, swam to tho nearest point of land. In tho meantime, Richardson, who had a rifle, had climbed a small hill from which ho could see tho steamer, and kept firing his gun at minute intervals. The captain hearing the firing and knowing that it was meant as a signal, immediately sent another boat, and directly this arrived we set off after our whale boat, which we did not overtake until it had almost reached the entrance of the harbour. Fortunately for its, it had there' drifted on to a bpacli, and we wero able to! recover it. Wo 'then had to pull the two boats up the whole length of the harbour against a head ■wind, and it was nearly nightfall before we got back to the steamer, by which time wo were both tired and hungry. During the next few days I ascended several hills in tho neighbourhood of Port* Ross in order to soo if there were any signs of-habitation, but I found nothing but complete desolation, bleak and rugged mountains) without even much vegetation to cover their gaunt sides, and the only traces we discovered of castaways were at Ocean Point, near the entrance to tho harbour, where we came across tho remains of a hut made of branches, and the wreck of a small boat made of sticlca interlaced like wicker-work and fastened with strips of seal hide. The weather considerably hampered our explorations, for it blew hard tho whole time, with snow and hail squalls. Before leaving tho place we planted about a hundredweight of potatoes and Bowed some carrot and turnip seed in ground which we dug for that purpose, and at another place landed a dozen domestic, fowls. We left a memorandum of our visit cut out on a board which we nailed to a tree near the "Victoria's" and deposited a bottle enclosing a letter stating tho object of our visit, by whom it had been ordered, and the manner we intended to prosecute further our search.

Tlio captain had a coffin constructed j and' then the skeleton was exhumed, enclosed in it and reburied in the cemetery, which had been used when tho Endbrby Settlement existed. Dr. Monckton was of the bpinion that tlie man had been dead for ait least twelve months, and his clothes showed he was not nn ordinary seaman. More than this wo could'not gather; there were no marks of nnv description, no writing in tho hut. nothing to suggest how the man had come thero, how long he had lived in this deserted spot, what he had done while there or how he had met his end. The mystery remained unsolved. Our steamer left Port Ross on the 26th, after a stay of five days, and then put into an inlet which we named Long Inlet, where we stayed for two days. Here I and with much difficulty made my way through the belt of scrub which appears to Hue the whole coast, and is almost impenetrable. In some places the wind had cut the top of it as closely as if it had been cut with a pair of shears and the undergrowth was so matted and intertwined that it was almost impossible to creep through it; I remember in one place I tried to roll over the top. Behind tlio scrub is open country, or rather rocky and ground, on which grows a coarse kind of snow grass., I again climbed to the top'of a hill, but neither found nor saw anything that indicated the presence of human beings. After leaving Long Inlet we entered and explored every bay and inlet all round the east side of the main island, landing wherever we though there might be a chance of finding any trace of the man or men who had made the signal fire, but without result. We then steamed up Carnley Harbour, which is at the South end of the island, and the captain had tho steamer anchored in Camp Cove, Carnley Harbour is very large and deeply indented. It has three main arms, and these- are again subdivided. Near the Sout-h head of the middle arm there is a deep T)ay, which, from the peculiar appearance of the mountain behind it, we called "Amphitheatre Cove." The view of this bay from the harbour is strikingly beautiful. From about half way up the hill, which is nearly two. thousand feot high, basaltic columns rise in regular order (with a smull intervening space), one over the other, ito the top of the hill, which is one colossal mass of basaltic rock. Those columns extend, in regular order and with few breaks, entirely rounj the bay, and the lowest columns are at least one hundred feet in height. They decrease in size towards the top of tho mountain, or the elevation gives them the appearance of doing so. Camp Cove is at the north head of the Western Arm. It is almost landlocked, and form? a miniature harbour within C.'arnloy Harbour, and it should afford 'safe anchorage to vessols of any size, as the depth of water ranges from four to twenty fathoms. We visited tho Northern Arm, where the Grafton was blown ashore, and tho hut where Captain Musgrave and his men had spent the eighteen months that they remai- ed on the islan'd. In tho hut we found a letter in a bottle saying that tho Victoria had been before us, and Captain Grieg wrote on the back of the letter a notice of our visit and stated that wo had planted potatoes, sowed carrot and turnip seed and landed goats, also that we had lauded

domestic fowls at Camp Cove. Notwithstanding this, wo explored many of the bays, and arms of the harbour in our whale boat, and at different places killed many seals, or sea lions,

as they are called. The largest are about eight feet long, and when on land they move about on their hind flippers with a surprising agility, ami if attacked advance with a roar. Each of us carried a stout club, ami one blow from this, given directly on the nose, would stun the seals and bring them down and wo could then cut their throats or stab them in the heart. They have powerful jaws, and a bite from them would be a serious matter. Captain Cross told me that when he was at the island before, lie attacked a large seal, but, having missed it, turned quickly to get out of the way. A huge Newfoundland dog that was with him then flew at the sea Hon, which, made a grab at the dog, caught him by the back, gave him one shake, and flung him aside absolutely dead. (To be continued.)