THE CROZET ISLANDS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2949, 21 September 1910, Page 79

THE CROZET ISLANDS.

The Crozet Islands (lat. 46 S., long. 52 E.) are about 1000 miles from the Cape, and 5000 from Melbourne. They are just near enough to the great circle through these places to induce a commander to vary the monotony of the long furrows of ocean by deviating slightly south in order to raise the .iagiged columns of the Twelve Apostles ana the long vertebra of Hog Island. For some succeeding days the passengers will greedily hearken to the tales of shipwreck, death, and disaster associated with tth islands.

The Crozets were discovered by Marion Dufresna, January 24, 1772, and visited in the same year by Captain Cook. The group comprises two large islands and several small ones, all of volcanic origin. Hog Island is 12 miles in circumference. The droves of pigs to which the name is due are descendants of some let loose by Captain Distance, who surveyed the island in 1834. The flesh is most unpalatable, for the animals lively largely on dead penguins. Hog Island has a long ridge across it, rising into a cone 3000 ft high, which is usually enveloped in clouds. Snow lies all the year in its ravines. When northerly winds blow the warmth melts some of the snow, and the water leaps down the precipitous sides of the hills in a series of beautiful cascades.

The largest of tliQ group is Possession Island, some 60 miles from Hog Island. It is 20 miles long and 10 miles broad. This, too, ie mountainous and rocky, and possesses only one strip of beaeh. There are three bays, with anchorage, but not one of them is protected from the violence of the east winds. The islands lie in the track of the Antarctic current, and are cold and bleak at all seasons. Icebergs are common in the vicinity. Neither trees nor busline g row > *• tna * there is no wood for fuel. There is plenty of peat and turf, but the moist climate makes the stuff difficult to dry. The surface in some parts is clothed with coarse igrass and luxuriant moss, and wherever a little soil exists the Kerguelen cabbage sprouts up. This is a plant like a geranium, very unpalatable, but yet fit for human food, and in particular is an efficient antidote to scurvy. The beaches in the season are covered with sea animals that have come here to breed. From a shif's deck one can. watch seals, sea elephants nad sea leopards flopping on the shore, or struggling up a slope miles from the sea, or basking in the sun on the ledges of the rocks. Seabirds also come to breed, each kind at its own season. The albatross builds its nest at the top of a long slope, in order to have space to extend its wings, and get an impetus for flight by a rush downhill. On a flat surface like" the deck of a ship it will flap about helplessly and be unable to ruse. It lays only one egg, which the parents. never leave for an instant until it is hatched. During incubation one bird bustles its partner off the egg at regular intervals, and immediately takes its place. The parents feed the fledgling for a month or two, and it becomes very fat. It is then abandoned for the winter, and lives mainly on its own adipose matter. When the old birds return, they drive the young ones out to sea. The flesh of the albatross is edible, but has a very shy flavour. Myriads of other birds frequent the beach of every sequestered bay, and nest in the green sheltered slopes. Flocks of blue petrels flit over the surface of the oeeaii, and schools of whales spout jets of frothy water and go through their ungainly evolutions round the coasts. Submarine forests of kelp, sometimes 180 ft deep, grow at the bottom of the sea. Storms and icebergs have detached huge masses of the weed, which float round the islands and mitigate the violence of the surf. Heavy rollers break over the rocks, and the eddying winds whirl the spray high into the air, and under the sun's rays give a beautiful and ever-varying display of pris-

matic colours against the background o£ rock.

But it is not only the works of Nature, wonderful as thej are, that render these islands interesting. Thrilling stories attach to them of human disasters bome with patience, and sometimes —alas, only sometimes —overcome by courage and resource:

On the night of July % 1875, the Strathmore, an 1872-ton iron ship, 75 days out, ran on the Twelve Apostles, a line of rocks six miles from Hog Island. Of 88 persons on board 54 were drowned and five died of exhaustion after reaching \ the shore. The 49 survivors lived six months and 21 days on this island. It was a mile and a-half long, half being perfectly bare rock, the rest covered with a rank grass. Tile boats were lest-the first night, because the beach, was not wide enough to draw them out of reach of the waves. Next morning two of them were seen on the other side of the island, where they had floated through a subterranean passage. The Qltf-J salvage from this ship was some casks of wine and spirits, a little firtwood, a case of tinned confectionery—the tins proved very handy, as cooking utensils—and a passenger's chest Hocked with blankets'and cutlery. A shelter was made by building a wall in front of a steep rock, and stretching tar-, paulins across as a roof. Their one bit of great good fortune was the discovery of a fine spring at pure water on top of the rock on which they landed. They had a few matches, and kept a lamp lit, in which they burnt oil squeezed from birds. They ate albatross flesh; the feathers serving as fuel to cook the meat. In a fortnight they had eaten all the albatrosses available, and resorted to greybacks, a very shy bird. Food became scarce. They eked out supplies with Kerguelen cabbage, a handful of whioh, with some raw fat, came to be counted a luxury. But on September 20 penguin* began to arrive by the million, and henceforth there was no scarcity of food. They, ate the eggs and flesh of the birds. The skins were sewn into bags to hold wateH, or lamp oil. Caps, gloves, trousers and screens were made from the integument* Surplus stock was used its fuel. Several times the men saw a ship pass. On September 13 one sailed between Hog Island and their rock. Despite their- frantic signals she disappeared in a snow squall, and was seen no more. They then built a signal tower 18ft high with turf andso ds. On January 21, 1876, the looJir out reported a sail. To their excee«\' ing joy the ship bore down on them. IV was the Young Phoenix, an American trader, and she took them all off in safety. Twenty-six years previous to the wreck of the Strathmore, on June 19, 1849, the" brig Richard Dart, of London, bound fo* Auckland, ran ashore on South Prince .Edward's Island in a fog. Fifty-two were, drowned and 11 scrambled ashore beside an iron bound cliff. They huddled together in a cave, with no protection from the piercing wind and sharp frost except their/ soaked clothes. All were more or least frostbitten before morning. The wind!, veered round, and blew the wreckage out' to sea, so that they got no further sup*plies of food, clothing, or fuel. They haff no means of procuring a light. In thai' wretched state they existed for 42 day« f i eating raw blubber and the flesh of th#. albatross. There were no penguins on? their side of the islard. After five weekJ the captain and two men left the rest to explore. On July 31 they came upon a' camp of sailors who had been left tohunfc seal and sea elephants. After hearing th» story of the wreck the sailors set off t« search for the others, and easily found them. A fire was lit, hot coffee made,' and some food cooked. Ono young man died of frostbite, but nil the rest recovered. These are records of the com* paratively fortunate. No one knows in how many cases every soul has perished with the ship; or, worst fato of ail, after managing to land, the survivor* have' undergone the reveries of cold and hunger for a time, only to succumb in tlie end and die of starvation and hardship. Of such pitiful fate we have evidence. Oal September 18, 1887, an albatross was found dead on the beach at Fremantte, W.A., which is over 3000 miles from the, Crozets. Round its neck a tin plate was riveted. The bi.d had swall'.wed a shel!< fish, and found the morael too large ta pass through the ring, so that it had. virtually choked to death. Rudely-scraped on the surface cf the tin was a message in French:—"Thirteen French sailors wrecked on Hog Island, August 14." The discomfort of its necklace had induced the bird to wander from its usual haunts. It had averaged 80 miles a day between August 14 and September 18. By a mil* lion to one chance it "had died where it* message could be got at. As the name of. tho ship was not given, many believed tha message to be a hoax. After much delay, notice was sent to the French Admiralty. Inquiries led to the despatch of the Meurthe to the Crozets. Under a cairn of stones on Hog Island a letter was found, which explained that the ship Tamaria had been wrecked there on March 11. The castaways had used up the store* of provisions left by H.M.S. Comus in 1880, and were about to cress the sea in a boat to Possession Island, where, they understood there was a further sup- , ply of food. The Meurthe went on to Possession Island, but found no trace of tho seaimen. In January, 1888, Captain' Simpson, of the Aberdeen line, sailed round the islands, sounded his siren and fired g*uns without getting an indication of life. Evidently the boat had foundered between the islands. '.

Thero is no permanent settlement on the Oozet Group, twit sailor* are often camned for months on the larger islands. ; Small trading shins regularly visit the ', c.roni) in search of seal oil and sealskin. / In Durban Harbour last February co«j vessel was about to take a cargo of coalthere and another was fixing machinery toexpress oil from whales a&d use the', residue as manure. Two Canadian boat*

had just come from the islands to tranship their oil and skins to Europe. It was thought in Australia last year, that the ill-fated Waratah might have drifted to the vicinity of the Crozets, but these traders could" hardly have helped' finding traces of so large a vessel. The expeditions of the Sabine and the Wakefield ■were indeed forlornest of forlorn hopes. Would that it had been otherwise!—The Age.