ISLAND NEWS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4490, 1 February 1886, Page 2

ISLAND NEWS.

MURDER -OUTR AGE— HURRIC AN KS.

Sydney, to-day. A vessel which has just arrived from the South Sea Islands brings information of the murder of two more white men by the natives of New Ireland. The Arawata, which has arrived at Auckland from Fiji, brings news of a storm having broke over the group on the 4th mat. Suva and Levuka escaped almost scot free, but the western part of Viti Levu and the island of Kadavu were not so fortunate. These felt the force of the gale. At Nadroga a native cutter which put to sea to escape going on shore foundered, and four men were drowned, the captain alone escaping after being thirty hours in the water. The village of Namuka, containing fifty native houses, was levelled. A number of houses of the natives were also blown down at Kadiva, and considerable damage was done to the native plantations. The loss of several small craft owned by Fijians is also reported. On the night of the sth inst. a gale swept over Tonga, and about 5 o'clock the following morning theschooner Saucy Lass, of Fiji, parted from her three anchors and went on shore ; so also did the Catherine, a vessel belonging to a Tongan chief. As the tide rose the vessels went in well over the reef. About 6 a.m. the three-masted schooner Agnes Edgill parted her chains and went on stern first, and in less than an hour she foundered in about three and a-half fathoms of water, and now lies a complete wreck. The captain and some of the crew had a very narrow escape. Very little damage was done on shore. Scarcely a house was blown down, and only a banana tree levelled. The storm was the same which visited Fiji. It is also reported from Tonga that two more marine volcanoes have broken out to the north of Nukualofa, but no particulars are to hand. A deposit of pummico, several feet deep, was left ashore here from the last outbreak. The Saucy Lass has since been floated almost uninjured.