LATEST NEWS BY CABLE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 7441, 12 August 1895, Page 3

LATEST NEWS BY CABLE.

WEECK OF THE CATTERTHUN

LATEST PARTICULARS

[PER PEKS3 ASSOCIATION. — OOPTBIQHT.]

(Received August 12, 11 a m.)

Eydhet, This day

Vessels arriving report a strong ourreut setting north in the vicinity of Seal Books. '-''hie is contrary to tho general trend of the current. All the wreckage) was found drifting north. Another boat, the captain's gig, has been picked up at Cape Hawko. Captain Fawkes states the land could be seen occasionally. He oould not understand how the wreck occurred, as it was only an ordinary pieoe of navigation. The rocks were well known, and vessels were naturally on the look-out for them. The wind, instead of blowing the vessel on the rooks, wae in the opposite dirsotion. Dr Oopeman etioks to the statement that the captain was waehed off the bridge. He says: —"The skipper went on the bridge, and left me in the chart room ; that was the last I saw of him. Whenolimbing the bridge he called out to the third officer, ' Look to the lady paeiengere !' The next thing I noticed was that the port lifeboat, whioh I had mad* up my mind to jump into, was washed away. I then began to look to my lifebelt, but I could net fix the shoulder straps properly, and consequently it slipped ofi By this time the ihip had a heavy li»t to eUrboard. Seeing the starboard lifeboat full of people, I sprang into her, in order to keep her balance. Seeing that I was on my feet, and the boat was swinging about a good deal, I got hold of a span between the davits and kept a firm grip of it. The officer was still standing up apparently awaiting orders. I said to him 'Go on ; lower away,' but hardly had the words esoaped my lips when a great wave came clean over the ihip and tho boat was carried away from under me, leaving me with one of the Chinese orew clinging to the span. This was the aea that swept the captiin and his officers from the bridge, for the next time I looked at the bridge they had gone. The quarter-master, who was steering at the time the vessel struck, was a South Sea Islander, and not a Chinaman as at first stated. He was seen at the wheel up to the very last, and went down witk the vessel still holding ou to the wheel. This man was on the steamer Quetta when ehe was wreoked, and was rescued after having floated for many hours on some wreckage. The man who was found dead in the boat died at hie post, having stuck by her while she was being launched. The others of the Ohinese crew who had to attend to the launching of the boats also perished at their come being dashed to death by the floating wreckage. They stood unflinching throughout.