THE RABBIT ISLAND SKELETONS

Colonist, Volume XLVI, Issue 9385, 23 January 1899, Page 2

THE RABBIT ISLAND SKELETONS

lo the Editor of The Colonist.

I Sib, — A short note from Mr Eingiley inserted in the Colokist of January 14th referring to the finding of some human remains on the Babbit Island more than a half century ago, and yoqr subsequent mention in the Colonist of Monday lasi of some information supplied by Mr Burn oh that subject, have induced me to refer to my diary of that very distant date. I there find that I resided on the Babbit Island from the 21st September to the 12th October, 1843, under an engagement with the New Zealand Company to make a survey of that and the adjacent islands. On the 25th September of that year I found the mangled and headless remains of a human being — evidently of a Woman from the character of the clothing which lay near and about it. The bones were mostly fleshless, but the inner portion' of the body still remained. The skull was found afterwards a short distance away, lying, like the body itself, on the highwater mark of the sea beach of the Babbit Island. On the 29th September I found a human leg bone and an arm bone, both bare of flesh, not far off, on the same beach. On the 2nd of October, I found an arm bone, bare of flesh, and near it a leg bone, also fleshless, except where covered by the boots. These, and I believe some other remains, were all carefully collected arid buried together on the Rabbit Island, above highwater mark and out of the reach of any tides. At the date of these occurrences, we (myself and survey party) were told, and it was currently reported that a young woman and her father and mother had been wrecked, and lost on the Rabbit Island, about two months previous, and that the party was on the way from Massacre Bay to Nelson, where the young woman was being taken by her parents to be married — a story corroborated by the bride-like character of some of the adjacent dress.— Yours, &c,

J. W. Babnicoat.