STORIES OF CASTAWAYS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10631, 7 December 1910, Page 6

STORIES OF CASTAWAYS.

THE SECRETS OF LONELY ISLANDS. A landing-party recently made some interesting discoveries at St. Paul Island. Close at hand to the landing-place ' were five huts, each one of which was roofless but for a few cross-beams. In the first hut were three white boats marked "No. 1, Revc, Reunion," "No. 2, Revo, Reunion," and "No. 3, Reve, Reunion," respectively. They also found some empty bottles th.it had a strong odour.of fish oil. The second hut contained six boats, one of which had on her stern "Stella Maris," while the others were unmarked. A wooden box containing provisions was also discovered and, beside it, four small bottles of rum. There were _ also three letters, two of winch were addressed to "Madame We. Felix, Fleurie Street. Reunion," and the'third'to "Monsieur le Commandant de Passage " On. one of the beams of a lint was this inscription: "Salerie Fleurie a fermes Moises sapin condstruite. Nov, Revp, 1904," and close to this a tin containing a piece of canvas on which was printed "S.s. Kent visited this island in search of the crew of the missing dredge "Walrus, from Durban A. G M'Gibbin, captain, J. M'Lean, first mate, H. A. Caustonj second, mate; E. J. Clpke, third mate; C. T. Grantley, fourth mate Jan 18, 1907" Hard by the huts were three graves, close together, and surrounded with ship's cable. Further on were more graves, and scatteicd in all directions were iron holts, blocks, wire, tanks, pots, and small spars, while quite close to, the landingplace was an old marine boiler. —Unwilling Explorers.—

Such tragedies of castaw-ays are all too common. Writing in the "Gentleman's Magazine" some \ears ago, Mr William Alliiigham .points out that'castaways have sometimes "been the pioneeis of geographical discovery. In 1886 a little craft .of some . twenty-one tons di if ted fiom Shetland to Norwaj with one woman'absolutely alone on board. The vessel had been stranded near Lerwick, and the crew of three left the woman passenger to her fate. An easterly wind then set in, driving the Columbine and her. passenger towards Iceland, but, shifting to the west, sent the poor old lady past the reefs of Tigero Fjord on to the shore of Norway, where she was .. rescued' by some fisher-folk in a famished and half-frozen condition. Seven years later Captain Bystrom, of the Finland barque Impi, rescued some castaways from the Dois Amigos, a felucca that he fell in with some six hundred and-fifty miles northwest of Mayo, Cape Yerd Islands. The felucca w r as destitute of a mariner's compass and a navigator, and the castaways, consisting of a. crew of four and six passengers (including two girls), had tasted neither water nor food for a week. Captain Bystrom received them on board his vessel, and landed them, little the worse for their terrible experience, at Martinique a fortnight later. In July, 1895, the British .'learner Bellarden fell in with a- sloop of Four tons four hundred miles north of Bermuda, which had attempted to «ail from one island to another of the "vexed Bermoothes." On board were found Joseph Dioniso, his wife, and his two children, and the whole family had been without food and water for a week.

The master' of the Bellarden ministered to their wants arid gave, them the course to steer for New York, at which citv thev arrived safely a few days later, this castaway family had intruded merely to visit a neighboring inland, but had found its way to a groat citv of which it knew nothing whatever* after a very dangerous voyage of more than a month's duration. "What the old lady who sailed from Shetland to Norway accomplished against her will was. a similar enterprise, and was, after its fashion, equal to the explorations of the Vikings themselves. —Blown Out to Sea.— The vast number of insignificant islands dotted about the Pacific Ocean form natural sanctuaries for those carried out 'in open boats to sea. The Maoris of New Zealand have a tradition that their ancestors came in great canoes from a place known to them as Hawaiki, and which is supposed to be the modern Hawaii of the Sandwich Islands. At the beginning of the last century the renowned Russian navigator Kotzelrie met some, natives of the Caroline Islands, who had been swept out to sea two hundred miles from their homes, in their canoe. In the same way Captain Beechy,. E.N., fell iii with 'a party of weary Tahitians whom a cyclone had driven seaward more than six hundred miles from their

native shore. A Fijian,, quite. b,y.iiiinself, was swept out to sea by a similar cvelone. and managed to reach the Friendly Islands, after a run of some four hundred miles. The American ship Joseph Spinney, while crossing the Pacific, some two hundred miles from the nearest dry land met with an aged chief surrounded by five miserable inhabitants of the Pellew Islands. This little party had set out to pay a visit to some friends on a. neighboring island,

and had been swept out to sea in an open boat. Driven temporarily mad bv seventeen days of starvation, they had arrived at an agreement to kill the chief's son, a youth of sixteen, so that the rest of them might feed upon his body. The Joseph Spinney, however, saved them from cannibalism, but in spite of everything possible being done for them in the : way of good food and good nursing," the chief and one other died. The rest of them were taken on to Japan, whither the Joseph Spinney was bound.

—Pitcairn Island. — When Pitcairn Island was discovered, in 1767, it was uninhabited, but twentytwo years later nine mutineers from the Bounty, reinforced by four men and eleven" women of Otaheite, founded a settlement there. In the meanwhile Captain Bligh • and the few who had been faithful to him during the mutiny made their way in open boats to Timor, a distance of twelve hundred leagues. The descendants of the castaways on Pitcairn Island remained undiscovered for nearlv twenty-five years, but in 1808 Captain Folger paid them a visit in his American whaleship. Expecting to find the inhabitants dangerous savages, possibly cannibals, he was amazed to find himself welcomed by civilised people who spoke English quite easily. The next visit, paid by two British frigates, the Briton and the Tagus, was accidental, but when Sir Thomas Staires (who was in command of the Briton) reported his find to the English Admiralty, he spoke in terms of high praise of the "venerable old man, John i Adams," who was the only surviving Englishman of those who had mutinied a-'ainst Captain Bligh in the Bounty. In 1892 the Compadre, an iron barque, caught fire in mid-ocean, and was purposely- run on shore at Auckland Island to Fave the lives of all on board. Here thev remained for more than a hundred dav's after which they effected their escape: Among their number was an armrentice named E. Roberts, who. on reaching England, was appointed_to a vessel that was run down m the Channel. Only seven were saved, but ■Roberts was one of them. His next v.,yage was made without misadventure, but on his fourth his vessel was lost on Tristan d'Acunha, and the unfortunate Roberts was drowned with two of the crew. In 1898 H.M.S. Thrush took off some castaways from i Tristan d'Acunha, who, after escaping ! from their Wrecked vessel; the Glenhuntly. had received the hospitality of the poor islanders for a period of five months. . ' —Depots for Castaways.— There have been so many shipwrecks on the islands of the Southern Ocean between the meridian of the Gape and Australia that depots of food and clothing have been established on. many of the more important islands On Hog lol.ind Cio/et Group, there is a but nun the l.indnic-place where the French wai-\c<-scl La Meurthe left "a ton of pusi'Mod beef, half a ton of biscuit, time-quarters of a hundred-weight of smdines in oil twenty blankets, fifteen p.ms of and trousers, all carefulh packed, togethei with two spears, two haidiets, and simc cooking utonsil"= " At Possession Isl ind and many., other islands fheie .up similar depots,; and ne.irei New Zealand there are se\eial wieli tuanes for Similar depots have also been estab-, libhed on Vancouver Island, at Cape. Bcale "Lighthouse and Carmanal Lighthouse. and France, indeed," ha w e vied with one another in

recent years in alleviating the misfortunes of castaways on the. desolate islands of the'Soirthern Ocean and other lonely seas.