WRECK OF THE PATIENCE AND KOROTUBU.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7593, 24 March 1886, Page 6

WRECK OF THE PATIENCE AND KOROTUBU.

A SWIM FOR LIFE.

Wβ take the following thrilling narrative from the Fiji Times of March 13 :—Yesterday afternoon definite news of the fate of the ketch Patience and the cutter Korotubu was received from Jas. Bourne, master of the latter, who arrived in the Maria from Mokogai. The tale of extraordinary exposure, end*uranoe, and escape which he tells can be best given in his own language. He says : —At nine o'clock on Thursday morning I dragged from my anchorage at Nai Korokoro, but got hold again. 1. was behind the Patience. At half-past nino she broke away and came down on me broadside and carried me away. Jones (master of the Patience) said :- " This is a cane for you and me." i said:—" Hoiat your staysail and get clear, and I will hoist mine. , ' We did, and got clear. I ran for Nasova and could have beached her. But I thought it was a pity to go in and smash np, so I thought 1 would try and save her, and I went right down the coaet. The Patience tried to follow, but she went right out of the passage, the Levuka passage, the south passage, and struck on the lee jide, ami that was the last I saw of her. 1 hoisted my jib as the staysail had been blown away, but it was no sooner up than it too was blown away. So we drifted and drifted till the wind came round to the west, and swept us on to the reef near Lawaki, near Voma. Iα trying to keep her off, the tiller broke short up. I got two axes, and drove them into the rudder head, but just then a heavy sea from the reef broke over the vessel, and knocked me and a Tonga man, named Tauli, into the sea. I sung out to the other two boys to stick to the vessel, but they got frightened and jumped over. They had an oar. We had nothing. I saw the cutter knocked off the reef ami go down in deep water. Wβ swam with the current and once were within a hundred yards off the shore at Cape Horn). Then the current swept us out, and we swam on, and swam on. In the evening, just before sunset, I think, I saw a kind of light colour before me. I could not see the aun, the drift was so thick, but I knew it was breakers. I told Tauli, "Look-out, there's a reef, lot tho swell carry you on top; if you get under you will be done for." I was carried on to the reef by the swell, but I never saw Tauli again, though I called for him a good while. We got knocked over at about ten o'clock, and I think it was about six when 1 made the reef. I took a good rest, and then swam off again, and a shark swam against me and hit me. I turned round and saw the shark and kicked him, and he went right away, and I didn't see him again. I swam on and swam on till about four o'clock, 1 think, and then I saw the dark loom of land. There were heavy breakers on it, but I said, " Die or live, I must chance it," and I let the swell take me. It washed me up into a fine place. I scrambled a bit further up, and there I slept till eight o'clock. When I awoke I thought it was Vatu, but I looked round and saw a house, and I knew it was Mr. Henninga', and found I was on Mokodraga. I got some buehee round me, and went to the house, and I stopped there till the Maria came. I think the Patience must have gone down outside the reef. There are parts of her hatch and stern on Mokogai. I don't think either of my boys or of the Patience's people were saved. The Patience never was before me running down the coast.

The man who tolls this tale is a halfcaste Samoan, of very powerful build. He is famous even among his own people for his skill and endurance in the water. They all stoutly maintained that he was not drowned, bat the fearful ordeal through which he has passed is evident in his careworn, agedlooking face and enfeebled frame. His insistenoe as to where the Patience went out and to his own position in front of her is due to question put in consequence of many saying, and still stoutly maintaining, that the ketch was seen in front of the cutter, running down the coast under square sail.