CASTAWAYS ON THE AUCKLAND ISLAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8453, 2 December 1907, Page 6

CASTAWAYS ON THE AUCKLAND ISLAND.

RESCUED BY THE HINEMOA. A THRILLIING TALE. Per Press Association. / INVERCARGILL, December 1. ~ Tho following details are supplied of ' the; wreck ot the Dundonald : — ivtr Crosby Smith supplied the following particulars, including his notes, of' Chas. Eyre's story:— . OH arrival of the expedition in Port - Ross, at Auckland Islands, early on the * morning of Saturday, the 15th of November, great excitement was caused ' when, on . sighting the Government depot, it was noted that a white flag was fly- • ing at half-mast in token of the pre"so'nce of a shipwrecked crew. As Captain' Bollons in the Jriinemoa's boat approached the depot a cheer went up trom at least a dozen men who were congregated, and was answered from the Hinemoa. After a very short delay Captain Bollons, returned followed by ' five of the strangers'-in the depot boat —the second mate (Mr McLaughlin), third mate (Mr Knudson), Harry Watlers, Chas. Eyre, and another. From the crew ' it was gleaned that the four-masted' barque Dundonald, ot 2000 tons, left Sydney on the 17th of February bound for Falmouth, laden with wheat. She carried, a crew oi 27 : all told, in addition to whom the captain's son, a lad of sixteen, who riot in good health. Contrary winds . were met with all the way, and a great disturbance of the compass had been noticed half-way between Sydney and the Auckland Islands. At 12.30 a.m. on Bth March, the ship struck on a reef on the west side ot Disappointment Island, of the Auckland group. The night was thick, with halt a ..gale blowing, and the reef was not seen until immediately before the ship Struck. An effort was made to wear . ship, but it was too late, > and she was driven stern first right into a crevice in. the cliff, which towered up 300 feet above her. ' In a few minutos the fore part of the ship dropped into tho sea, which caused a nuge to wash along the deck, carrying in one sweep eleven men, who were never seen again. Amongst these were the captain and his son. .. 'l'he rest of the crew hung to various fixtures, .and when tho wave had gone by, rushed up the rigging. Three men gat ashore trom the jigger mast, but one of them slipped back over the cliff and met his death. . , , While the men were on the islands two ships passed them, the first in July and the other later, on, but the castaways could not attract their attention, as the vessels were considerable distance off. Speaking of the actual wreck, Eyre .says: —■ Suddenly, in thick weather, at 12.30 ' a.m. on the Bth, land was seen right ahead. We tried to wear ship shqrt round, but she would mat stay, and went stern first into a crevice in the cliffs. Orders were given to clear the lifeboats, but it was found to be useless, 'as there was a big sea and rocks all round us. The captain ordered us to put on our lifebelts. The stoward gave up ■ all hope of saving himself and said, "It's good-bye, boys, I am to 9 bad to get ashore." He went into his cabin, shut the door, and soon after compressed air blew up tho deck. The mate told us the ship must be dismasted. We were there two or three minutes when she started shipping seas. We went on the foc'sle head. One tremendous sea ' washed clean over us, and although we all manage,d to hang on, the next one washed us all away.. I was whirled round and round. .1 caught hold of the foot of the foc'sle, but was instantly torn away. I then caught hold of one of the shrouds, and climbed up. John Judge followed me to the foretop-gallant yard. As it was canted towards the shore, wo thought it was touching the cliff, but found it to be about 16 feet away. We were 'going to try to swing ashore on the end of a rope, but found the rope was too short. Unfortunately, we had dropped the only knife wo had, and could not cut another rope to lengthen it. We spent the night up there, and heard many distressing cries around us. About an hour before daylight we began to climb down to the foretop, and found about 12 men there, including the first' and second mates. The mate told us to prepare for the worst, as the mast could not stand much longer. _ He thought we had better cut a few lines, as we might help one another ashore. Taking the mate's knife I went up again and cut away some of the running gear. Suddenly I heard a voice from the shore oposite, and found it to ' be Michael " Poole, a Russian-Finn. I cut one of the topsail bunt lines, threw it at him, and we made it fast at both ends. By this means we all managed to get ashore. The cliff was about 300 feet high, and at the point just above the mast was a' r very steep slope, which allowed us to "climb up. with comparative ease. There were 16 of us out of 28 got ashore. The others were washed away when the big sea swept the - ship. We now learned that the first man ashore, Walter Low, called out to pass a rope, but before this could be done, he slipped over the cliff into the sea, and was never seen again. We were all very much exhausted, being very hungry and cold. When in the top-gallant yard, the mate told us there was a depot on the island. Later on we discovered that there , was no depot on the island. This was a great disappointment to the mate, who, along with the second mate, ' had been Seriously ill from exposure. We neveV expected the second mate to recover, but he' gradually got .'better;' : The mate, hoewevr, after 'finding he was not on the main Auckland Island, was disheartened. He sank rapidly and died on the twelfth day after the wreck. He was over 60 years of age. By this , time wo bad discovered that we were on Disappointment Island. After the mate's death we shifted over to the eastern side of the island because the water where we struck was very bad. The first day after getting ashore we ate raw Molly Hawks. The matches amongst us were wet, and it was three days before we could , get them dry. When wo once got a fire .going we banked it up, and kept it alight for seven months. Until May we covered ourselves up with canvas we got from the ship before she disappeared,, but snow and hail came on and we started to dig holes in the ground with our hands. About the holes we built up sticks and put sods on top forming huts about six feet long and four feet wide. Wo managed to scrape through the winter all right by living on seahawks, Molly Hawks, and seals. When we saw the seals first bobbing up on the wator wo thought U'e had got the seaserpent all right. We did not know how to kill them at first, we used to whack them on the back with a stick, but one of the tfello ws happened to hit one of them on the nose, and it polled over, so after that we had no difficulty in despatching them. In the beginning we used to cook everything by putting it on the flames, but afterwards we made a mud oven, ancL cooked food on a spit. We knew the depot was on the other island about six miles so it was decided to build a canvas boat. We 1 -'. had cut up our clothes for sails and blankets, as we had scarcely any clothes on when we got ashore from the ship. In July three men built a boat of. canvas and . sticks. To do this we had to put in pieces of our clothes and blankets ' and sew them together, and the task, was all the harder as tho sailmaker and carpenter were both drowned. Wo sewed with a small bone from_ one of the birds, with a hole bored in it,,and tised 'a little bit of wire wo had. On 31st July a start was made in the boat for the main which was reached all righi}',btit as they could not find the depot they;.:e»ifld bach on the 9th August. They had six matches with them and used four while over there. A second boat was built in September, and another party

started for the main island, but the boat was smashed by the sea before it could get away. We built_ a third one in October and started again—Knudsen, Walters, Gratton and myself. We got over to the large island, but as we reached the shore we struck a rock and the boat was smashed, sending us all into the . water. We scrambled; ashore again, but the mishap put .out a fire which we had carried in the boat on a sod in order- to save our two matches. These got wet, and even after drying them for three days wo could not get them alight. ■ On the fourth morning we started in> ■ search of tho depot, and after walking across the island and» about 15 miles through the bush and scrub we struck right on it. There was ! if'.'good. boat at the depot, but no sails, so we cut up our clothes' to make a'sail, so that we could return to Disappointment Island for the rest. On the next- day we tried to sail round for them, but the weather was too bad and we had some difficulty in returning to the depot. On the following day we made another start and got there about Chfee o'clock. We had found clothes at the depot, and exchanged them for wkat we were wearing, and we had also cut each others hair and beards, which during the seven months had grown so long that we looked like a lot of spring* poets. - As we got nearer our old camp, our mates did not know us in our new toggery, and .thought we were sealers. The next morning we put half the men ashore where we first landed with tho canvas boat, and left them to make their way over to the depot. Then we took the second officer and the others round to the depot. We had been-seven months on Disappointment Island. We saw from a piece of paper in the depot that the Tutanekai had been there on the Ist February and that some other Government boat would call in about six months, so we.wore on the lookout for a boat every day after we got to the depot. You can imagine our delight when we saw the Hinemoa. • After talking with the castaways, Captain Bollons supplied them with some additional stores arid told them he would call for them on his return from the Bounty arid Campbell Islands in 10 or 12 days. At 5.30 in the morning of the 28th Captain Bollons weighed anchor in Port Ross, and steamed for. Disappointment Isla'nd. to land the members of the expedition for a few hours. They saw the frame, cof the canvas boat first built. _ A more rugged structure could not be imagined, It was all elbows and knees. It was built of veronica elliptica, which rarely has two feet of straight wood in it. * The wonder is that the men had sufficient patience and ingenuity to build it at all, and how such a boat reached its destination, propelled by oars made of forked sticks, with canvas tied round them, is a miracle. Four of the castaways went over the hill to their first camp to (jxhume the remains of the mate. This took a <$>uple of hours. About 4.30 two boats put off from the Hinemoa, containing all the passengers and the ships' company, which landed to - attend the funeral. The party numbered about 60. The service was a most impressive one. The captain read the Anglican Church funeral service, and the body, enclosed in a sea-chest, was lowered to its last resting-place by the second and third mates of the Dundonald.