THE MISSING S.S. KAKANUI.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 5989, 9 February 1891, Page 3

THE MISSING S.S. KAKANUI.

»'■■ — •• By the mails to hand yesterday We are in receipt of further information regarding the missing steamer. On the 24th of December the steamer Kakanui, chartered by the Government, left to relieve Hatch's penguin oil party at the Macquaries, who were thought to be starving. On the 17th January Mr Hatch sent the ketch Gratitude to the islands, and on the 23rd, alarm being felt re the Kakanui, the HUiemoa was despatched. •She returned to the Bluff, Captain Fairchild reporting that on leaving the Bluff she went first to Port Pegasus, from thence to Wilson's Bay and Stewart Island, from there to the Snares, and thence to the Auckland Islands. A thorough search for the "Kakanui was made, with no result. At Stewart Island parties -were questioned as to whether they iwfc 'seen or heard anything of the mieeing Steatti6r, but no one had anything to communicate. At Auckland Islands the depots were found intact and in good order, showing that; no distressed seaman had had occasion to touch them. Mr Mellish and his wife refused to leave the island by the Kakanui, and informed Captain Fairchild thatthey had endeavored to persuade the eight men also to await the arrival of the Gratitude, of the early departure of which from Invercargill they had information from Mr Hatch sent by the Kakanui. They had plenty of flour, i rice, and biscuits, and wer© quite comfor- j table and happy. They had no occasion to fear starvation, and besides the provisions already mentioned, there were plenty of eggs and penguins to be got and certain portions of the latter were capital eating. Mr Mellish had no anxiety in die matter of remaining on the island, where he had been for over a year, and was determined to await the arrival of the Gratitude. Two days after the Kakanui sailed a terrific westerly gale had been experienced and was the most severe Mr Hellish had witnessed. There is evidence of the force of the wind. Some large casks of oil lying on the beach awaiting shipment were blown from their position and rolled along the ground. Captain Fairchild says that at the Macquames the barometer frequently falls nine-tenths below the lowest reading at Bluff, and that gales in those latitudes are correspondingly heavy. Shortly after leaving the island on this voyage the Hinemoa encountered one of great violence, the most severe Captain Fairchild has had to contend with even in these seas during the pust 13 years. He Js of opinion that the Kakanui should never have been sent on such a mission, as although he says she was one of the finest little vessels of her kind in the colony, yet, at the same time, she was too small to make a voyage into midocean, and to latitudes where gales of great violence are always occurring. He had remarked to the authorities of the Marine Department when he knew that the Kakanui had gone to the Macquaries " This is another job for the Hinemoa," meaning, of course, that she would have to go after her. He also expressed the opinion that if the Kakanui is knocking about in mid-ocean under sail she would not make for the Bluff, but for one of the Northern ports, such as Dunedin or Lyttelton, as if she had tried to come to the Bluff she would have too many currents and variable winds to contend with. The Kakanui was commanded by Captain Best, one of the best known shipping masters on the coaßt, and was owned by the Dunedin and Invercargill S.S. Company, of which Keith Ramsay, of Dunedin, and. A. B. Campbell, of Invercargill, are the principal shareholders and managers. She was insured for LIBOO, of which LISOO is in English offices. She was built 12 years ago by Sparrow, of Dunedin, and ever since has been engaged in the coasting trade. She was practically flat-bot-tomed to give light draught. The hope that the Kakanui is safe under sail, is dispelled by the fact that the prevailing winds last month were westerly, ■which would have brought her to New Zealand. There is now the only chance, therefore, and it is a slender one, that a passing ship might have picked the crew up. The Auckland Star, in a leader on the subject, says :— The scare about these oil hunters was Jike a good many other idle, mischief-prpducing cries. There could , never have been any real danger of the men perishing from lack of food upon Macquarie Island. The island is eighteen miles long by five or six broad, and in the early days sealing parties have been left there for years and managed to subsist. When the island was first discovered, in 1811, its shores were literally alive with seals. The first sealer captured no fewer than 80,000 skins, but the news of his success attracted other adventurers, who slaughtered the animals at all ages indiscriminately, and completed the mischief they had wrought by leaving dogs on tho island, which hunted the native birds and devoured their eggs and young, thus destroying a source of food supply which would have been most valuable to shipwrecked mariners or abandoned sealers. The records of those early sealing expeditions furnish some of the most wonderful stories of endurance by the pioneers of Anglo-Saxon enterprise in these islands. The vessels engaged in the trade wore fitted out at Sydney. In the earlier years, their visits to the sealing grounds took place at long intervals, and the landing parties could never feel certain that tho small craft which brought them, navigating almost unknown seas, would over return to take them back to their homes. In 1813 a brig removed from Solander Island five men, some of whom had been there for 4£ years, and others nearly three years. They were clothed in j sealskins, and had subsisted upon the flesh of seals, a few fish, which were difficult to catch, and seabirds. Tho latter i ■were salted down for winter use. A schooner called the Betsy, in February, 1815, landed thirteen Europeans at Macquarie Island for sealing purposes. The vessel was.afterwards lost, and the party were not rescued until the 28th of May following, when they were taken off with another castaway party, who, since the October previous, had maintained themselves upon the food supplied by the animal life of the island and the surrounding seas. The Southland Daily News last week says ; — " Almost the last shred of hope for the safety of the s,s. Kakanui has been torn away by the news brought by tho Government steamer Hinemoa. There remains now tho bare possibility of her having reached the Auckland Islands, and there being at anchor in ono of the numerous inlets or harbors, having escaped the necessarily hurried search made by Captain Fairchild-, but as the depot's provisions were found intact, and as it must be supposed that Captain Best would be aware from official sources of their whereabouts, there is but little probability of this being I he' case. There is the further hypothesis of the steamer having been driven far out of her course during the storm that raged shortly after she left tho Macqaaries, in which event her stock of csals would have been expended some three weeks ago, while with the eight sealers in- addition to the crew the water and provisions must, if she be afloat, have long ere this have run short. Under the circumstances the least that can be done by the Marine Department is immediately to equip and despatch the Hinemoa on a further search expedition. It is suggested by some that Captain Fairchild should have had a much longer stay among the Islands, but his commission <■ was specific, and left no v option bufc to ■return with unavoidable delay. Tho bl ufi expression " the least that can be done by thi Marine Department" requires only ■-sii brief explanation. But for the blunderfrig of somebody or other in that branch

of the public service, the Kalmnui wouh never have been sent on a voyage fo: which her size, build, and deck arrange merits were entirely unsuitable, At th< very time of her charter the Hinemoa. was under sailing orders for the Snares, bul she immediately afterwards took a party oJ intercolonial representatives whose object it was to fix upon the most suitable site for a lighthouse. Nothing could have been easier than to have extended her cruise two days further to the southward, and thus have avoided the contingency which there is too much reason to fear has eventuated. Of the origin of the expedition of which tho fato is in doubt, more yet will be heard. In the meantime it only can bo said that those responsible for getting up the ''scare" on behalf of the Macquarie Island party must bitterly regret their meddlesome interference with an enterprise, as events have shown, was being conducted with good care for the Avelfare of those engaged in it. On this point the testimony of Mr and Mrs Melish as conveyed by Captain Fairchild speaks for itself "They had plenty of flour, rice, and biscuits, and were quite comfortable and happy." That under such circumstances the men of the party were so eagerly determined to leave by the Kakanui is explicable only on the assumption of their being so heartily tired of the monotony of the life they were leading as to be ready to do anything to avoid it. There is the further conjecture that the ' take ' of oil had not realised anticipations, and that the men knowiusf their respective ' lays ' were worth little or nothing, concluded to throw up their claims. Be this as it may, the fact remains—and it is one for which there is occasion to be deeply thankful — that there was none of the inhuman neglect so freely imputed prior to the departure of the Kakanui. More might be said on this point, but at the present juncture a certain amount of reserve is indicated as proper. When the Court of Enquiry which it is understood will be shortly sot up holds its session, the facts and surroundings of tho whole affair will be, perhaps, brought lo light ; meanwhile, however, we take leave to reiterate most emphatically that the Government is in duty bound to make further search, and here we are reminded that the Kakanui took with her a large whale boat, ono quite capable of carrying the nineteen men on board. If she sprang a leak, or shipped heavy seas and foundered, the crew and passengers would be strong enough to launch her over the steamer's side, and be perhaps able to hold their own until the weather abated, when tlioy would almost to a certainty make for the Aucklands, the weather side of which would be their land fall. As tho Hinemoa did not make tho circuit, of the Islands, but merely visited the established depots on their sheltered aspect, the Kakanui people may have been on one or other of tho Islands at the time of her visit. That such may prove to be the case is to be fervently hoped, but whether or not no rcasonabl outlay should be spared to clear away the uncertainty that now attaches to the fate of the men whose wives and families have meanwhile to endure the torture of suspense of hoping against hope."