MESSAGE FROM THE SEA

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13690, 5 March 1908, Page 6

MESSAGE FROM THE SEA

FROM FIJI TO PORT ELIZABETH. I'm: following, dated Port Elizabeth, De cember 30, 1907. is published in Lloyd's Shipping Gazette (London) of January 24 —"A bottle has been picked up in Jeffreys Bay, containing the following message:-— 'On a coral island, between 10 and 15 degrees smith ,md 160 and 165 degrees east. If by the working <>!' a Divine Providence this message is found, J pray that a vessel may be sent to search the" island in the neighbourhood aforesaid, for there, on a little island, but scantily supplied with food, I, Jabez Jenkins, late second mate of sailing ship Argyle Mary (Captain George Monmouth, together with Robert Monmouth, six years of age, son of the captain, were cast away on or about January 15, 1907, while cruising off the Fiji Island in a terrific hurricane which beset us, and being badly damaged by its fury we were blown for two days before the wind. On the morning of the third day the ship struck a- coral ref, and almost instantly filled and went down. Out of a crew of 17, I and the boy alone, by clinging to a broken mast, were cast on this "island. We beseech anyone into whose hands this shall fall to take .steps to rescue us, and that speedily.—Jabez Jenkins.' "