ISLAND NEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 7947, 2 December 1886, Page 2

ISLAND NEWS.

(Per Southern Cross, at Auckland.) (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.) Auckland, December 1. The following items are from Fiji papers:— The Tongaa correspondent of the Suva Times says :—We have been favored with another visit from the U.S.S. Mohican. The United States Commissioner was on board, and remained hero for five days. Whether a treaty was entered into between the United States and Tonga is not generally known, but it is more than probablo that hia business consisted in entering Into a convention to make a treaty within a specified time. The steam yacht Marchesa, Captain Houston, arrived from Samoa with Lord Dudley and party on board. The following is the list of passengers :—Lord Dudley, Messrs Moncrieff and Carnegie and Dr Hull, The Maschesa belongs to the Royal Thames Yacht Club, and is cf 37S tons, builder’s measurement, and 65 horse-power. She is out from England sixteen months, having come by the Straits of Magellan, visiting en route Juan Fernandez. News from Nina Foou, by the Suva, is to the effect that shortly after she left on her previous visit • the Island was deluged with heavy and continuous rains, which lasted with few and slight intermissions for nearly three weeks. It camemoat opportunely. There are many horses on the Island, and as feed had been destroyed by sand thrown out during the eruption the advisablenea had been discussed of killing the poor animals to save them the agonies of starvation. The people will have to be brought away and settled on lands in other groups. Upward of one hundred have alieady reached Tonga in vessels sent from here. After the as Suva left on her last trip, this schooner after leaving Nina Foou, was blown out of her c urse by strong winds and lost ■ eight of ’ land, and did not sight any . again for some ten days, when fortunately * at a distance they saw the Island of Ata, ~ Pyistaart’s Island of the charts. Had they not descried that spot of land they were right away for New Zealand, and would have all perished. As it was they were three weeks and five days with only a little arrowroot mixed with salt water to keep them from starving. They were two days drinking salt sea water before they were able to make Tongatabu. No life, with the exception of that of one very young child, was lost. But a few days longer at sea, and they would have been in a horrible condition.