WRECK AT FIJI.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 3988, 2 March 1900, Page 3

WRECK AT FIJI.

L ESPEAGLE RUNS ON A REEF. SEVERAL LIVES LOST. FIJI, February 8. News still comes to hand of the effects of the hurricane of the 30th December. The cutter Espeagle, thirty-two tons, owned by Mr Krause, of Nukualofa, Tonga, was wrecked, with a cargo of copra, and eleven persons on board, including the master, Captain John Castles. Unfortunately, there is no doubt of his sad fate, as only two people a Tongan man and woman. — managed to reach the According to their account, the Espeagle, ’whilst running before the wind, was cast ashore on the most eastern portion of the Fijian group. As far as can be learned she appears to have got safely through the Oneata Passage (the entrance of the group), and some fifteen miles further on to have struck on the reef of the island Olorua, which is uninhabited. Another report from Windward states that there were twelve Tongaus, including one woman, and Captain Castles, all of whom were drowned, one woman only reaching the shore after a swim of twenty-five miles. This informant gives the woman’s version that the cutter was on her way from Niufou to Tonga loaded with copra, when she fell in with- the hurricane. The captain, who battened all his passengers under the hatches, remained on deck with two of the crew. Ho had just - informed them that they wore in the Fiji Group, and not to be afraid, when the vessel struck and immediately went to pieces. The passengers, who were below, escaped through the side of tne cutter. The woman Kasa and a man got hold of a piece of Heating timber, to which they both held on, until the man died through exposure. The woman then left him and started upon her long swim, and, needless to say, was in a very exhausted condition when she reached shore. Not a vestige of the cutter remains, only a broken dingy and some copra being washed on shore.