THE ANTIPODES WRECK.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10214, 7 December 1893, Page 6

THE ANTIPODES WRECK.

FPer Press Association. I DUNEDIN. Dec. 6. The survivors of the shipwrecked crew of the Spirit of the Dawn left to-day by the Hinemoa for Wellington, where a nautical inquiry will be held into the circumstances connected with the wreck. (Otago Daily Times.) Several of the survivors from the Spirit of the Dawn gave a member of our stiff eome information, which may be ot interest, respecting their mode of life on ths island on which they were cast. Mr Morrissey, the second officer, who acted as spokesman for the most part, gave the following account After we got all the things out of the boat, we found a lob of limpets on the beach and soma of our men knew them and took them and ate them; and finally we all had a pretty good feed of them. After wo thought we had quite sufficient—we were afraid to eat too many, lest they should be poisonous, though we were very hungry and tired—we came to the conclusion that we had better go further up to look for a place of rest. We scrambled over rooks and tussocks and one thing and another till we came to a little overhanging bluff, where we decided to camp for the night, intending to look about nest day for a better place, but it seemed tons at the time that the place we had struck was as good a place as we could find; bo we turned to and cut hay and straw from the tussocks and cleared a space big enough to hold the eleven of us. We spread the straw on the ground, and lay down there with a sail over us. Some of the men were very wet. We went at daybreak in the morning down to the beach for more limpets, and we found that our boat was gone. There was nothing but rooks at the beach, and we were unable to draw the boat up—it was too steep —so we made it fast to a rock by the painter.' We went ashore at low tide, and the rising tide must have carried away the boat. We came to the conclusion WE WEBS FIXED THEBE till a vessel came. We made a tour then to the place where the ship went ashore, thinking that something might have been washed ashore from the vessel, but there was nothing to be soen. By the time we had got there we were tired, as there was Buch a nasty toad to travel—over rooks and tussocks—and we had a further feed of limpets. We also killed a penguin, the only one there was to be seen. Nobody oared about eating it raw—for we had no matches and no means of lighting a fire or of cooking the bird—but I ate the heart. I tasted , it aud nibbled at it like a fish at bait, and found it did not tasto very bad. We then went back to the camp and held a consultation, at which it was agreed that we should walk round and see if there was nothing to be seen. So the mate aud I started with two seamen to walk round the island. We started on the Sunday morning, and wo walked about half the distance round the inland by that evening. We killed an albatross there, and skinned and ate part of it. We did not eat it all—we could not quite stomach that at the time. We out eome straw, and the mate and 1 lay down together. The other two men slept below us in a place where they escaped wotting from ram, which fell that night. When we got up in the morning—it was very foggy—wo had another little bit of a FEED FROM THE ALBATROSS, which we had stowed away in the tussocks. From the height that wo were on we looked round but could see nothing, and the.mate said, ‘ I do not think there is anything to be seen on tho island; we had hotter go back.’ I said, * Why not kosp it up aud go round tho island, and thoa we'll bo satisfied whether there is nothing on it ?'

it would be better to return to the others, and accordingly the four of ua started back again. Wo did nob go back by the way we had come, but we cut right across thehille in as straight a line as wo could, and slid down the rocks to the camp at dusk on the Sunday night—wet, hungry, weary. We told the rest of the fellows that wa could see nothing, and that we had come to the conclusion that there was nothing on the island, barring birds and so forth. Then we started to kill ‘nellies’— big black birds that are found on the coast of New Zealand. Ihoy were sitting at the time and were easily caught. We killed ithem and skinned and ate the legs—wo could eat nothing else of them. Then tho penguins began to come to the island in great quantities, and we thought that probably they would eat pretty well, so we tried a penguin for a second time. There was any amount of fat on rhom and wo got it scraped off their skins, and then we used to put it in loaves to keep. There w-as a root wo found on the island—l do not know its name—and we used to cut it in two pieces and put the penguin fat between, and in that way we MADE A REGULAR SANDWICH. On Oct. 2 we found penguin eggs, but previous to that we saw as wa killed the penguins that the eggs were getting bigger inside them, and wo knew from that there were eggs to be had sometime. One of the fellows killed a penguin one morning and found a full-grown egg, covered with a shell, inside tho bird. Oh ! wa were overjoyed then, as wo know there were eggs to be had pretty soon. On the next morning two of the men went to kill a penguin end they found eggs. They shouted and hallooed to us, and we could not make out what was the matter, hut presently they came hack with their hats and caps full of eggs, and said there were plenty more. The mate and I started over, but there were a great many penguins, and they were ao VICIOUS AND SAVAGE that wa only gathered about thirty-six eggs. I raid* to tho mate, “I’ll not have any more eggs; they’ll eat me up,” and he said he was of my opinion. Wo walked to the place where the ship went ashore, and there we found more penguins, which were far quieter than the others. Wa gathered eight or nine dozen eggs between us, and we sat on the beach and had eggs in great quantity. We packed the rest in oilskin leggings, and brought them to the camp, and terribly proud we were about them. Anyhow, wa got plenty of eggs after that for, I should say, fourteen days, but then they began to get addled. Still, we had gathered in a great quantity. The mate undone of the apprentices and I together hid away, I suppose, over one hundred dozen in holes for a rainy day. A month after that a smaller race of pangnina came to the island and started to lay eggs. We thought that they would cutely not keep coming, or .else wo wonld be able to livo like kings. If we bad only had a fire and a frying-pan we might have had omelets and scrambled eggs and so on, but sa we had no fire we had to

DBINK THE EGGS EAW. Between the eggs and the penguins wo fared pretty well. We used to skin the penguins and then take them to the beach and keep them ia salt water for some time, and afterwards put them in the sun to dry ; on the nest day we would dislocate the birds and cut them in slices so that the sun might have mote effect. That is the way we used to dry oar meat, and finally wa got to he as good as French cooks in regard to the penguin. The worst of our trouble was in mending the scanty clothes we were able to escape from the ship in. Wo had no clothes worth speaking of, but when wo shifted (about three weeks before we were found) to a place beneath an overhanging bluff, aud we built a wall in front of it so that we had a sort of cave to live in, wo had the boat’s anil to spare, which we had previously need for a covering. We * e whacked ” tho canvas out between us so that wo might mend our clothes, but we had no -needles and no thread. I had a pair of mittens, and I unravelled the wool to use as thread, and ws made needles out of albatross bones. In that way

XVS HADE A I’XIAG out of a piece of canvas, a red singlet that was washed ashore, and a piece of an old flag. Besides that singlet, there wore a few empty gunny baga and a few small pieces of wood washed ashore, from the wreck, hut nothing of any consequence. On the seventeenth day after our landing on the island we saw a barque, and on tho eighteenth we saw a full-rigged ship, and if we had had our boat we should certainly have been able to pull out and cut the ship off. Both of them passed not over three miles from the shore, and the barque waajsloser in than the ship. We started and hallooed enough to raise the dead when we saw these vessels. I was hoarse for nearly two weeks afterwards. Eggs would not cure it.

THANK GOI>, IT IS OVER now, ' We can make fun of it now, but wo didn't then. Wa had only a piece of canvas then for a flag, and it was down on the low part, close to the beach, and there was a background to it, bo: that I do not suppose the,flag.cqultS be seen, but when we got the red ainglet we shifted the flagpole to a high hill, so that any vessel coming within three or four miles of the island could not help seeing the flag on a clear day, and as it. happened it was a nice, clear day when the Hinemoa came. They saw the flagpole . before the flag was hoisted, and the moment ths flag was hoisted the Hinemoa showed herenaign. We did not know what island we were on at the time, though ao far as latitude and longitude are concerned we- were pretty well correct, The island is about twelve miles round, bub it is so mountainous that you cannot expect a man to climb the hills on nothing. You walk about two yards and then you fall down between a couple of tussocks, and are out of sight. The

TUSSOCKS GROW HIGHER than I am, and I am sft lOin. They grow 6ffc br7ft high, and you have to tread fromone to another; and just as you got up you fall down again. A fellow living on raw penguin, and with no clothing to shift ‘with, does not like doing that, besides which, if he got wet and got rheumatism, there was no medicine as well aa no clothing. Our health was good, excepting that of a half-casto Indian boy. When he first came aboard the chip ha was laid up with a bad finger; and when we got clear of the wreck he had no shoes on, and Ms feet were in water all the time. Ho could not stand the cold the same as wa could, who were us d to it, and his feet got frost-bitten, and became very bad. We did all wo could for him, but hq lost four toeo off one foot and two and a half off the other. They mortified that much that we cut them off with limpet sheila. Wa had fine weather for tha'firot month—as nice as wo could wish to have at the time of year—and it was pretty fair all along till a couple of weeks before wo were taken-off. It lainednow and again, but so long as wa were under the rook wo never got wet, excepting tho man on thelook-outat the flat; staff, who had nothing to protect him but the tuaeocks. The only trouble we had when it was raining was that we could not dry our meat. It was never particularly warm, but we had been so long in cold weather running our easterlies down that we were pretty well used to it. We felt pretty cold now and again, especially if we got wet, as we had no dry clothing to shift with. At night wo closed the opening of our cave up with tussocks, aud when the hole was shut it was as dark as a dungeon; but wa were all right inside our castle, and we used to lie as"close together as we could in order to keep warm.” “ I wish,” Mr Morrissey . added, “ that you would put in something very good about Captain Fairchild, his officers, his crew, and his passengers. They treated ua more like brothers and relatives than liko strangers. They received us with the greatest kindness. Nothing was too good tor us—in fact, wo got too much." _ “Ho ia a thorough gentleman,” chimed in Mr Davies, tho third officer, ailudiog to Captain Fairchild; “there was never a man treated better than we were on hoard that ship.” */1 cannot express how I feel,” continued Mr Morrissey, “towards the captain and everybody on board the Hinemoa.

there was tha Premier’s daughter on board and she treated ua as an equal. They den’t do that in England. Tney do it in America, for one man la equal to another there. So I like this country, and I intend to cay so when I get home.” (Dunedin Star.) With the view of getting the best possible information about the island, our representative saw Captain Fairchild and was courteously supplied with answers to all questions asked. Captain Fairchild knows the locality better than any othar man in the world. He does not say so, but such is the fact. It ia from his survey that the charts now in use by the Admiralty were printed. It was on tho south-west of the island that she struck, said Captain Fairchild. There is only one outlying danger round tho island—a reef running out about half b mile with a rock Szt high on the end, and the barque hit it right by the shore end. She was heading N.E., with tho wind at E.S.B. The vessel has entirely disappeared; not a veatiga of her ia left; not even a splinter of wood on the little patches of beach, She went down ia deep water. We got soundings in fifty-five fathoms just outside whero she struck, and I should say as a guess that thera would ba forty fathoms where she sank. Their camp was by the place where they landed, and the flag pole waa erected about a quarter of a mile off. Thera is ao anchorage there or anywhere about the island—none that ordinary vessels can use. Wo poke about everywhere, and can get a bit of holding, but you want to know the place pretty well. Tho depot is on the north-east side of the island. Thera is no boat harbour there—merely a sort o£ gulch that we taka tho boat into. There is nothing to ground on., We take her in, steady her, and jump. The island is

ABOUT SEVEN MILES BOUND, and say three miles long. The highest point on it is Mount Galloway, 1320 ft high. I named it after tha engineer we had with us at the time. The depot ia painted white. It can be seen for miles cut at sea, that is from the northward; The top of the mountain is only a reasonable walk from the depot. A man could do it in half an hour. When we got to the island and saw the signal I thought the people, whoever they were, would be at the dep6b, and that they had seat perhaps one man to the signal polo. I therefore steamed round to the depdt and blew the whistle, but no one came, and I couldn’t make it out. The idea then struck.mo that there was only one mau on the island. I sent the second mate ashoro at the depot, and told him to walk through the island. He did so, and found the party at the camp. I could hardly, say how long it would take a man to walk from the camp to the depot, because it would all depend on how ha chose hia ground - but, taking the worst walking there .is, I should say that the distance* could be dona ia a couple of hours. The island ia fairly flat, without any bush as thick as your thumb, and tussocks up to the knees. There are soft places here and thera, which are heavy walking. The dipot ia fully provided. , .When the Compadre’a party ate out the stock at the Auckland?) I inquired as to how the stock met requirements, and was told that the assortment of articles was complete but .for a few needles and a bit of thread. Since then we have added these things and scissors and so forth to what is kept at each depot; and tbe only thing I can now see to improve tho chances of castaways is to have '

,310 KB, FIKGES-BOAED3. la most places, we have several, marked “ Provision depot, four miles,” and so on, •with, a hand on each pointing out the direction. The words are painted in black letters on a white ground, and. when we cat them up wa carve out the figure for the number of miles. Thera is only one finger-board at the Antipodes, on the fiat between Mount Galloway and a smaller mountain 500 ft high. This finger-bosrd is net mora than half a mile from where the men"were. I shall ask for more fingerboards to take down there. We taw the cattle and the sheep on the island on this trip. We saw five sheep together and then four mora, a cow with a.ca’f, a big bull and a spotted heifer. How do I account for the party not seeing tho marks of the live , etocic P Well, that ra easy to understand. The travelling is bad for cattle. They sink pretty deep in same places. And the faed ia so plentiful that they do not, need to travel far. The first lot I put ashore camped year after year in the identical spot We left them on. We drove them up between the two hills about a year ago and crossed some soft ground in doing so, and they have kept there, and never wander round to the western aide of Mount Galloway. There are no dangerous tracks about the island, but it belongs to a group that ace right ia the track of vessals bound from the Colonies to the Horn, and yon may depend upon it that vessels have been lost hereabouts of which we have HEVSB EBAED ANYTHING. There is tho mast of an American ship at the Auckland* now—it has been there ever so long. Some say it belonged to the General Grant, but that is ail my eye. That mesb belongs to & vessel twenty years, later than the General Grant affair. And there were pieces of a Scotch elm vessel picked up on tho western side of the Auckianda tea years ago. Nobody knows what she was. Thera ia also the figure-head of a vessel there now perhaps another that was never heard of, though tho finding of a figurehead does not always mean that there has been a wreck. In this latest case, at the Antipodes, the boat was caught by the mizzeu stay as the vessel rolled over, and the hands shoved her off. Then the main brace come across her, and they cub it like a fiddlestring with tho tomahawk, which, thank goodness, the Board of Trade compels a vessel to carry in her boat. If that stay had fairly entangled the boat, or if the tomahawk had not been bandy, what would have become of the Spirit of the Dawn's crew? We should very likely have never heard a word, and the missing vessel would ha supposed to have struck an icsbsrg or caught fire. The only thing to be done is for captains to give these islands as wide a berth ns possible.