THE WRECK OF THE MAITAI.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5029, 10 June 1889, Page 3

THE WRECK OF THE MAITAI.

THE SURVIVORS A3HOEB, We have published an account given by the officers who had charge of the second boat to leave the steamer Maitai the other day. A seaman who was iu the other boat (which made for the farther side of Mercury Island) says : —There were nine of us altogether, and we had a rough pull round the island, being about five and a-balf hours at it. Everyone was wet to the skin, and it was pretty cold. The most of the crew had only half their clothes on ; indeed, if we we had all tried to sive anything we reckoned valuable, such as a watch or something of that sort, wo would have never seen the shore for the boats could not have been got ready in time. ON MEECUEY ISLAND. The subsequent adventures of the castaways has been supplied by Mr J. Cook, the owner of the Island: —On Sunday morning, about eleven o’clock, I was at homo on the is’and, and hearing a ‘ coo-eo,’ l:oked out and saw a beat approaching. 1 knew at once that a ship had been wrecked, so I ran down to the beach. AN APPEAL FOE HELP. Those in the boat said : “We have come from the Maitai. There are nine of us in this boat, and there are 17 men and women on the other end of your island in the bush. They have no food, they are wet to the skin, and we don’t know if they have any means of making a fire. Could you do anything to help them ?” A GOOD SAMARITAN. I took these nine to the house, gave them dry clothes, and started some of them to catch and kill a sheep to feed the people, Then Mr Gordon and myself went to the other side of the harbour from where the house is, got two horses, and went off as hard as wo could go to the other end of the island, cantering up the hills and sliding down. We met two men on the ranges, and could see tracks where others had been exploring. I asked these men if there were plenty of hands to pull the boat homo. They said there were ; and I replied that ns the boat was rather overcrowded they had better walk over as that would bo safer for the women- and child. We met three others a few minutes afterwards, and told them also to walk. A PICTURE OF MISERY. We then rode on to the boat. When we got there we found her high and dry on the rocky beach. A short distance away in the bush were the rest of the unfortunates. They wore in shelter of some trees. They had no tent, and the rain was dripping down upon them from the branches. Though there were two fires, they looked the moat woe-be-gono creatures you ever saw. FOOD AND SHELTER. I told them the best thing they could do was to hurry up and get on board the boat and pull round to my house. I went in the boat withem to show the way to the harbour, one of the men riding my horse homo. As soon as they were all gathered together wo pushed the boat off and started in a very heavy sea. to pull for Huruhi harbour. It was a surf boat, with only four oars, and it was heavy work pulling. When we approached the harbour it was blowing so hard that we could not get in an 1 had to land on the beach and walk a quarter of an mile to the house, which we reached about four o’clock in the afternoon. The shipwrecked people had thus been in the wet and cold without food from the grey dawn on Sunday morning till four in the afternoon. When they reached our house they got what food was available, and shifts of clothes. Some of them went to the other side of the harbor, and slept in two unoccupied houses.

TUB HINEMOA TO THE RESCUE. After breakfast next day we took the boat and about a dozen of us went to gather firewood to make a signal beacon for tho lona, and also to look on the beach on the other side of the island to see if there was any wreckage. Wo had hardly landed when wo saw a steamer approaching, evidently making for the shelter of the island from tho gale that was blowing. The sailors (at once pronounced it to be the Hinemoa. We pulled off to her and told the Captain the facts of the the case. Me immediately decided to take the people on board, and return with them to Auckland, and this was done,