THE PERUVIAN BARQUE.

New Zealander, Volume XIX, Issue 1844, 14 April 1863, Page 3

THE PERUVIAN BARQUE.

This vessel has been ailuded to latterly, in consequence of one of her survivors being alive and existing among the savages at Palm Island for the last seventeen years ; he lias at length been recovered, and taken in the Murray (s.), to Rockhampton, where she arrived on the 4th instant. He is stated to be a powerful man of about forty years of age, a native of Maiden, in Essex, and was carpenter of the ship at the time of her loss. On the passage from Port Denison, the Murray being wind bound, he went ashore in one of her boats at a place called Hell Island, one of the most dangerous to white men, bat he having spent a number of years in the vicinity of Edgecombe Islands, acquired a full knowledge of their language, and at once subdued the native wish to quarrel. When first discovered, he had apparently lost all use of his native tongue, but has now recovered a greater portion of it. He states that iie was frequently idiot at, and many times saved himself by creeping through the grass, which grows tliere to a gredt height. At one time he had an encounter with a marauding party of white men, and was threatened, when fortunately lie exclamed in broken English, "What ship mate?"by which means he again escaped. We are informed that he leaves on a visit to Sir George Bowen in the course of a few days. By the arrival of the Eagle (s.), from Rockhampton, we learn that the name of the man saved from the wreck of the abovenamed ship is Morrel. The Peruvian, barque, 30l< tons, Captain Pit , kethly, left Sydney on the 26th February, 184-G, bound to Lima, with the following passengers—Mrs. Pitkethly, Mr. and Mrs. Wilmott, Mr. J. B. Quarry and M iss Quarry. She was wrecked on one of the outlying patches off the Great Harrier. Morrel states that in endeavouring to get the longboat out the first and second officers and some of the crew were drowned. The remaining portion then constructed a raft on which the captain with his wife, passengers, and crew started for the main land. They were 40 days on the raft, the principal part of the time subsisting on sharks and sea-fowl, casually caught. I'heir sufferings were dreadful, and one by one the shipwrecked people died, and when they made the land, somewhere about Cape Upstart, Captain Pitkethly, with his wife, three men, and a boy, were the sole survivors. On landing the natives treated them with great kindness, supplying them with food. Their sufferings had, however, completely prostrated them, and two of the men and the boy shortly after died. The captain and his wife, with Morrel, remained with the coast tribe for two years, when Captain Pitkethly died, and his poor wife followed him in about four days. Morrel, now left by himself, followed the tribe in their wanderings for years, all hope of release being gone, for although he saw many vessels in the offing during that time, he had no means of emmunicating with them. In the course of time he got into the interior, and was ultimately informed by some of the female natives of a sheep track having been seen; the hope of release from his wretched state, urged him to diligently seek for the track mentioned, which he fortunately found, and on promising to return he was allowed by the natives to run it down, which he did successfully, and came on a shepherd's hut on one of Mr. Antill's stations. Morrel states that the natives with whom he j has been so long associated are cannibals, always eating any enemies who may fall in battle, and also many of their children, more particularly on the occasion of any great ceremony, but that they invariably treated him with great kindness. His principal object in wishing to see Sir George Bowen is to represent the unscrupulous manner in which the natives are shot down by Europeans, and their really harmless nature when properly treated. Morrel lus quite recovered his native tongue, and doubtless his narrative, when published, will prove highly interesting.— Sydney Herald.