ONE OF THE ELINGAMITE'S RAFTS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 939, 5 October 1910, Page 11

ONE OF THE ELINGAMITE'S RAFTS.

viV^M; ; sT^NGi^|r^i^Ts^j; ■:■ rlfc ; will be.remembered (says' our ;Auck-' •land..'.''rorresnphdent)'■;;,■that,' <,. when f.'the. .Elitigamite was wrecked, one of the rafts, 1 ' after drifting thousands of miles, . was picked up by a warship. . One ,ol the occupants of the raft .was starved to death,' and the other became insane, and jumped overboard. ..Recently, a Mr..Mitchell, in overhauling the raft, . discovered';, proyi-. sions which, had been stored'away.'f or use. in case.. of,-' .shipwreck. .-.■'' Displacing . a board, a. cavity' in the; decking 'was disclosed, and in it'was a large soldered tin about 18in. long ,by 18in.• deep.' Half the .tin. was."Hired with ship (biscuits, soaked in rum, .and the other half contained three tins'of raisins.- Both bisouits and raisins were in an excellent . state ■of preservation, notwithstanding the number of years since ,the ■ vessel. was. wrecked. The "find" has since been forwarded- to Sydney; . . ' '.' 1 "It is"a sad reflection" (comments ' an Australian paper),. "that while the shipwrecked people starved to death,' they were unconsciously standing on provisions sufficient to have kept, them alive for at least another week, by. which time they would have been, saved by the, rescuing warship.'•■•. Evidently ,they.ivere unaware of the. fact' that : the raft carried provi-. sions stored away, as the'decking had all been painted alike. Had the builders of the raft, had the forethought to-have had some indicative word- painted above the provision cavity,. there would have been a different tale to tell, and man}', valuable lives would hot have been sacrificed. The raft, is at present '.located round Green Point, and is worth inspecting as a relic of the sad past." ■'■'• "An impossible story," was Mr. Wetherilt's comment, on reading tlie above reprint. "Mr. Wetherilt is one of the survivors of. the,Elingamite's raft, and; as he. is also.Government Inspector of Ships at Auckland, he is in a position to speak authoritatively on the matter. "1 would stako my life on it," continued Mr. Wetberilt ? "that there were no provisions of. any kind whatsoever on the raft. The practice of provisioning rafts did not come about until after tho Elingamite wreck; which was the direct cause of the precaution being enforced by legislation, and it is only fair to state; the New Zealand Government were tlie first to move in tho matter. Moreover, the Elingamite's raft was of an ; antiquated type,, oven then, when the provisioning of rafts was not thought of." "',)■.