AN OLD TIME WRECK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6215, 1 August 1898, Page 4

AN OLD TIME WRECK.

It was thirty-three years on Thursday, says the " Southland News," since Captain Musgrave, of the brigantme Graf ton, accompanied by the mate and a seaman, arrived at the Bluff, after having been cast away on the Auckland Islands for over eighteen months. The vessel, which left Sydney for the islands on a sealing cruise, was wrecked on Jan. 3, 1864, during a fierce gale, but all hands (five) got ashore and managed to save some provisions. For eighteen months the party lived on seals' flesh and water, their habitation being a tent formed of the spars and suils of the wreck. Tiring of the solitude, and at last hopeless of being picked up by a passing vessel, Captain Musgrave, tho mate and a seaman decided to make an effort to reach inhabited land, and, enlarging the ship's dingey, set sail on their perilous mission. After six days' battling with the elements in their frail craft they reached Port Adventure (Stewart Island), where Captain Cross, of the Flying Scud, picked them up, and brought them on to Invercargill. The Flying Scud then went to the Aucklands, and picked up the other two men, and Captain Musgrave left to rejoin liis wife and. family in Sydney, where he had left them over Wo years before. His crew wore : Raynal, mate ; A. M'Leari, seamill>.j_ Henry Brown, cook ; and • Gjeorge Haiii.«7 seaman. ■ '. ■ '