WRECK OF A FRENCH BARQUE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10887, 27 February 1914, Page 8

WRECK OF A FRENCH BARQUE.

DIET OF SHELLFISH AND GDCOANUTS.

Per Press Association

■Wellington, February 27. Eighteen members of the crew o" the French barque La Taar D’Auvergne, which was wrecked at Palmerston Island on October 28rd last, arrived at Wellington tu-day from Tahiti by the steamer Tahiti. The captain and chief officer are travelling home to France by the San Francisco route and three of the seamen joined a vessel at Papute as members of her crew. All her other shipwrecked men cow in Wellington axe en route for France. The barque left Franca with a cargo of briokettes for Tahiti and Noumea, and after discharging a portion at Papute, left for New Caledonia. She struck Palmerston Island during a thick fog at night time. One man got ashore with a line which he made fast, and by that means everyone else was able to laud safely. The natives treated the party hospitably. Jnsu before the wreck occurred the schooner had landed flour for the natives, bat there was only sufficient for the latter’s requirements and the Frenchmen were obliged to subsist, daring an 80 days stay on the Island, on shellfish and oocoannte.

The natives collect rain water in iron tanks and there was ample supply for,the shipwrecked men They were eventually taken to Papeete by the French man-o’-wax, Ztlle. Two months wages was due to them when the vessel struck.