NEWS FROM THE ISLANDS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 4368, 12 October 1916, Page 2

NEWS FROM THE ISLANDS.

ARRIVAL OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS. NATIVES’ PERILOUS ADVENTURE. (Press Association Telegram.) AUCKLAND, Oct. 11. After a five months’ cruise the Melanesian Mission steamer Southern Cross returned from Norfolk Island to-day. Bishop Wood was on board throughout the voyage, and reported a satisfactory state of affairs in connection with the mission.

About a month ago the Southern Cross was in the Reef Islands, and, among the few natives there, they found two men and two women who had been washed adiiore. They had left Foutona, near Fiji, in a whaleboat about three weeks before, when there wore five natives in the boat. When a short distance from shore ‘a severe gale sprang up, and the small craft was washed out to sea with its burden of terrified natives. They had no food with them, and when the gale subsided they had but to drift to where the tides and wind deemed fit to take them. For days they were tossed about, hungry and poorly clad. The days lengthened into weeks, and it seems hardly creditable that human beings could exist so long without food. After about 21 days in this deplorable condition, the whaleboat was washed ashore on one of the small coral islands of the Reef Group. One of the five persons who at first set sail had died of starvation, and tho others were first seen in the battered craft with hungry and drawn faces semiconscious of their condition and waiting for death. They were taken ashore and treated .with “extreme kindness by the natives It is evident that thov drifted for about 960 Hides bv the chart in the 21 days they were at sea. The Southern Cross took the four members leit of the crew of tlio ill-fated whaleboat aboard and carve id them to Vila, whence they hoped to return to Foutona.