CASTAWAYS ON PITCAIRN

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 37, 14 February 1919, Page 4

CASTAWAYS ON PITCAIRN

(FROM OUR 6wf» CfIRRESPONDBNI.)

SYDNEY, Bth February. The Pacific Isles have taken further toll of the sailing ships lyhich, in these days, cross in .large ndhibers betfreeii the Americas ahd Australasia

The three-masted barquentine St. James, of 1600 tons, and bound in this case from Vancouver to Durban with lumber, went ashore on the island of Oneo (horth of Pitcairn) in the dawn of 16th December. The ship climbed on a reef and stayed .there. Oneo is. a low-lying and almost barren place, and the captain, after a look at it, decide? to try to reach Piteairri, ltd miles away to the south. So captain ahd crew—l 4in allr-set out in the lifeboat and dinghy There was .practioally 110 wind This gave them i. smooth sea, but they hid to fjull nearly all the way. After two days they arrived in Bounty Bay—named after the ship from which came the mutineers who give Pitcairn its romantic history. There are 172 perso_6 ott this lonely but beautiful Pacific Island, mostly descendants of the mutineers ahd their Tahitian wives, and of a most kindly and hospitable nature. They treated tbe castaways in the kindest possible way, and the latter declare that the month they spent on Pitcairn was the happiest period of their lives. "They w«re among- tho happiest days I have ever spent in.my life, ' said the steward of the St. James. It Was like a little world to itself— and a better world than we know. Pitcairn is the only place in all my travels where T have really tasted the milk of human kindness."

The islanders failed to signal one passing ship, but later they caught the attention of the Port Augusta, from New York to Sydney, and this big steamer landed the castaways in Sydney on 6th February v . N

The Pitcairn islanders, with the limited resources at their command, have built a small schooner, the Messenger, and in her some of the castaways and tbe islanders sailed to Oneo nrid had a look at the straiiged St. James. She was found to be practically a wreck, 69. they salved whatever they could and lMt hej there.