WRECKED BARQUE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 28 February 1914, Page 5

WRECKED BARQUE.

CREW'ARRIVE IN WELLINGTON

(3y TeUgravK—Prua Aitociatim.) '''WEtMNGTON, "Last Night.

Eighteen members of the crew oi' the barque La Ftfur' Dauyergne, Which was wrecked at Palmerston Island on October 23rd last, arrived at 'Wellington s yesterday from Tahiti. The captain and chief officer .'aWtravelling home to France via San Francisco, and three of the .seamen have joined the vessel at Papeete as members of her crew. All the. other members of the crew are now in Wellington; en route for France. •The barque left France with a cargo of briquettes for Tahiti and Noumea, and after discharging a portion at Papeete left; for New Caledonia*. She struck on Palmerston Island during a -thick fog g-t night, time. • One man got ashore with a" line, which he made fast, and by that means everyone else was able to land safely. Tlie natives treated the party: hospitably. ■ Just before the wreck occurred, a schooner had. landed flour for the natives, bub there was 1 only sufficient for the 'lathers' and the Frenchmen were obliged to subsist during their 80 days' stay on the' island on shell-fish and cocoanuts. The natives cdflebted rain water in iron tanks; £thd there was an ample supply for the shipwrecked men, who were eventually taken tb Papeete by the French man-o'-war Zelle. • Two months' wages were duo to them when the vessel struck. * '