SHIPWRECK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8994, 2 December 1907, Page 5

SHIPWRECK.

BARCjUE DUNDONAU3 STRANDED. TWELVE PERSONS DBOW2O. TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS OF ' THE CREW iEIGHT MONTHS ON AUCKLAND ISLANDS. BY TKIiEOUAWI —I'KKSS ASSOCIATION. INVERCAT.GILL, December 1. A sensation was caused here when •the news spread that the Hinemoa had returned with a number of castaways from the Auckland Islands. The following story obtained irom Mr Crossley Smith on his arrival,at Invercargill, on Saturday, was taken from notes written by Mr Smith during the voyage home. On arrival of the expedition in Port Ross ;at Auckland Islands early on the morning of Saturday, November 16th, :great excitement was caused wheri on sighting the Government depot it was noted that a white flag was flying at half-mast in token of the pres,enoe of.a shipwrecked crew. The captain lost no time in launching a boat, andatfecting a land'ng, and as he approached he saw at least a dozen men who were congregated there. WRECKED. "From the men it was learned that the four-masted barque Dundonald, of 2,,000 tons, left Sydney on February l,7tb, bound for Falmouth, laden with wheat. She carried a crew of 27 all told, in addition to whom was the captain's son, a lad of sixteen, who was not in good health. Contrary winds were met with all the way, and a great disturbance of the compass ill ad .bee;: noticed half-way between .Sydney and the Auckland Islands. At 12.30 o'clock on the morning of March 7th the ship struck on a reef on the west side of Disappointment Island, an outlying island of the Auckland Group. The night was thick, with half a gale blowing. The land was not seen until immediately before the ship struck. An effort was made to wear the ship, but it was too late, and she was driven stern first right into a crevice in the cliff, which towered up 300 feet high. In a few minutes the forepart of the ship dropped into the sea, and caused a huge wave to wash along the deck, sweeping the crew before it, and carrying away in one sweep eleven men, who were never seen again. Amongst these were the captain and his son. The rest of the crew hung to various fixtures, and when the wave had gone by they rushed up the rigging. Three men got ashore from the jigger mast, but one of them slipped back over the cliff and met his death. While the men were on the islands two ships passed them; the first in July and the other later on, but the castaways could not attract their attention, as the vessels were a considerable distance oft* the shore. A SURVIVOR'S STORY. The following is the statement given by Chas. Eyre, A.8., of London, to Mr Crossby Smith, while he was acting as cook to the expe-dition party on Campbell Islands—"At 12.30 a.m. on March 7ch land wa3 seen right ahead. We tried to wear the ship, but she would not stay and went stern first into a crevice in the cliffs. Orders were given to clear the lifeboats but it was found to be useless, as there was a big sea and rocks all round us. The capbain ordered us to put on our lifebelts. The steward gave up all hope of saving himself, and said "Good-bve boys, I'm too old to get ashore." He went into his cabin, shut the door, and soon after compressed air in the hold BLEW UP THE DECK. The mate told us to get under the forecastle head, as the ship might be dismasted. We were there two or three minutes when she started shipping seas. When we saw the seas coming we went on to the fo'castle head, but were not there more than a coup'e of minutes when water began to come right over the ship. ONE TREMENDOUS SEA washed clean over us, and although we all managed to hang on, the nexc one washed us all away. "1 caught hold of the foot of the fo'castle, but was instantly torn away by the sea. I then caught hold of one of the shrouds and climbed up. As 1 did so I heard someone following me, and looking back saw it was an Irishman, named John Judge. We went to the fore top gallant yard. We spent the night up there, and heard many distressing cries around us. About an hour before daylight we began to climb down to the foretop, and found about twelve men in there, including the first and second mates. The first mate thought we had better cut a few lines as we might be abie to help one another ashore. I went up again and cut away some of the running gear. "Suddenly I heard a voice from the shore opposite, and found it to be Michael Pool, a Russian Finn. I cut one of the top sail buntlines, and threw it to him, and we made fast at both ends. "By this means we all managed to get ashore. There were 16 ot us, out of 28, who got ashore, which left 12 to be accounted for as drowned. They were washed away when the big sea swept the ship. I now learned that the first man ashore, Walter Low, called out to us to pass a rope, but before this could be done he , SLIPPED OVER THE CLIFF into the sea, and was never seen again. When we got ashore we went in search of a depot the mate told us was there. The weather was so thick that we could not tell where we were going so we turned back. Later on we discovered that there was no depot on that island. This was a great diasppointment to the mate, who along with the second mate had been seriously ill "from exposure. The mate, however, after finding he was not on the main Auckland Island, was disheartened. He sank rapidly, and died on the twelfth day after the wreck. He was over sixty years of age. By this time we had discovered that we were on Disappointment Island. After the mate's death we shifted over to the eastern side of the island. The first day after getting ashore we subsisted on raw molly

iiawks. The few matches amongst us f were wet, and itwas three days before we could dry them. When we once got a fire going-we banked it up ;nnd kept it , ALIGHT FOR SEVEN MONTHS. "Until May we only cuvered ourselves up with canvas we got from ihe ship. We beoran to see that we were going to have oome cold weather, and we decided to dig holes in the ground, which we did'with our hands. Above the holes we built up sticks and put on a top forming huts. "We managed to scrape through the winter all right by living on sea hawks, molly hawks and seals. - We knew a depot was on the other island which was about six miles distant. It was decided to build a canvas boat. This we did, and on July 31st a start was made in the boat for the main island, which was reached all right, but as the men could notjfind the depot they came back on August 9th. Then a second boat was built in September, and on one fine morning the partv started for the main island. The boat was SMASHED BY THE SEA i before it could get away. We built a third one in October, and started again with a party of four, namely, Knudsen, Walters, Gratton and myself. We got over to large island, but as we reached the "shore we struck a rock and the boat was smashed, sending us all into the water. We scrambled ashore again. . "On the fourth morning after landing we started in search of the depot, and after walking across the island and about 15 miles through bush and scrub we struck right on it. There was a good boat at the depot, but no sails, so we cut up our clothes to make a sail so that we could return to Disappointment Island for the rest of the crew. On the next day we tried to sail round for them, hut the weather was too bad, and we had some difficulty in returning to the depot. On the following day we made another start, and got there. We then went over to the island. We had sever months on Disappointment Island. We saw from a piece of paper in the'depot that the Tutanekai had been there on February Ist, and that some other Government boat would call in about six months, so we were on the look-out for a boat every day. The Hinemoa put in an appearance on Saturday m.irning, 16th inst, eight months after the day of our shipwreck." MR SMITH'S NARRATIVE. Mr Crossly Smith states that at 5.30 a.m. in the morning of the 28th, the captain of the Hinemoa weighed anchor in Port Ross, and steamed for Disappointment Island, where he had to land the members of the scientific expedition for a few hours. It had a special interest in that 'no one of scientific standing had been known to land f.here previously to examine the flora and fauna. Apart from this there was the extraordinary interest that; it was here that the Dundonald had been, so recently wrecked. Here als-o were to be seen the novel huts and other relics of the shipwrecked crew. There was also an unpleasant task to be performed on this visit, viz., the removal of the remains of the mate of the Dundonald, who had died there of exposure, to the little cemetery at Port Ross. "Disappointment Island is from point to point about 13.} miles long bv one mile wide. The coast consists of HIGH RUGGED CLIFFS. We had a good view of the place where the ship struck, and it was certainly a very difficult and dangerous piece of coast. There is only one possible landing place, which was discovered only after considerable search by the Dundonald castaways. This spot the captain steered for, piloted by the second mate of the Dundonald, whom we had picked up from the depot at Port Ross for the purpose. We then went ashore. Over the brow of the hill we came in sight of the huts, which had been built by the shipwrecked crew. On a nearer view they were seen to be very much of the shape of a Zulu kraal. A hole about two feet long was first scooped out of the ground with a piece of wood and the hands, and some branches and twigs from a small tree were placed over the top. The whole when finished looked like a miniature hay stack. Inside the hut seemed most comfortable and warm, . and must have been a great improvement on the first arrangement of sleeping under a piece of sail from the ship. Altogether there were 14 of these huts, but one or two did duty as cook shops and another as a store house, j Lying about the huts was to be seen , ample evidence ofthe food the men had subsisted on, Heaps of bird skins, feathers, bones, pieces of sealskin and seal bones were lying about eveywhere. .Great must have been the slaughter of birds, for the men declared that it required from three to four birds per man per day to satisfy them. Seals they did not eat until all the birds were scared away. As we landed on the island a MOST INTERESTING OBJECT was seen resting on the cliff side; this was the frame of a canvas boat, which had first been built to carry the party to the main island in search of the depot. _ A more rugged structure could not be imagined. It was all elbows and knees. . How such a boat reached its destination propelled by oars mnde of forked sticks with canvas tied round them is a miracle. While #e were examining and photographing the huts and examining the island for plants and rocks a party of four of the castaways had gone over the hill to their first camp to perform the sad work of exhuming the remains of the mate of the ship. This took a couple of hours, and while this was being done the captain spent the time in searching more of the shore line for traces of castaways. About 4.30 two boats put off from the Hinemoa containing all the pas-, sengers and the ship's company, who landed to attend the funeral. The party numbered about 60. The service was a most impressive one. The captain read the Anglican church funeral service, and the' body, which had been enclosed in a sea chest, was lowered to its lasting resting place by the second and third mates of the Dundonald. NAMES OF THE SURVIVORS. The names of the survivors are — McLaughlin, second mate; Knudsen, Harry Walters, Alf Finlow, Jno. Judge, Santiago Marine, Jno. Pu-

hohe, Herri man Querfeld t, Chas.Eyre, A.Bs.; Robert Ellis (Adelaide). Jack Stewart <,Watkato), Jno. Gratton, Michael Pool, Arthur Ivimey, ordinary seamen; "Ja'bez Roberts, cabin boy. THE DROWNED. The drownod were—Captain Thornburn, his son, James Wm. Smith, steward; Thos. Crawford, sailmaker; Ed.vard Lee, carpenter; Walter Low, Sam Watson, Carl Anderson, Holdersen, Immanuel Naveti, Jas. Cromarty and H. Largeubolcom. Jabez Peters, the mat", was saved from the wreck, but died some twelve days afterwards from exposure.