Mysterious Affair at Lake Wakatip.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 199, 2 September 1873, Page 6

Mysterious Affair at Lake Wakatip.

Last week there occurred yet another to he added to the already long list of fatal accidents which have taken place on Lake Wakatip. The followingparticulars are all that can be learned of the melancholy affair : Two men, named James Reid and James Rennie, employed by White Bros., Mount Nicholas station, Lake Wakatip, started at nearly three o’clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, 19th inst., from Queenstown in a small boat, to return to the station, about fifteen miles distant. Both were considerably the worse for drink, and also carried with them in the boat two bottles of brandy. After getting to the 7-Mile Creek, they were noticed to be very far gone in drink, and pulling the boat in all directions, apparently without aim or object—one evidently wishing to go one way, the other the opposite, and wrangling between themselves. After this had gone on for nearly two hours, they pulled in under land, and the man who had been noticing them lost sight of them. In a very short time, a voice, as if in distress, was heard on the shore, a short distance from the Lake, and immediately after a man, believed to be Rennie, was seen by a Chinaman coming from the direction in which the cries were heard, and going towards Queenstown. The man Rennie came into towm the next morning, (20th,) purchased a pair of trousers, and proceeded to the station in the Antrim steamer without seeing his employer, Mr White, whom he knew to be in town. This 1 was made known to Mr White on the san / evening, when he informed the police, wh at once started on Thursday for the scene of the accident, and after three or four days’ enquiries and much trouble, elicited the above information. Rennie’s statement is, that when they started they were both drunk, and by the time they got to the 7-Mile the boat was leaking badly. Reid wished to go to Kirkpatrick’s, while Rennie wanted to go home to the station. Reid attempted to bail the boat out with a bucket, lost his balance, and fell overboard, the bucket sinking. Rennie succeeded in pulling Reid in over the stern of the boat, and as they had no means of bailing her, + hey made for land for the purpose of capsizing her to get the water out. As they got ashore, Rennie jumped out, when Reid immediately shoved the boat off, and pulled away round the point towards Kirk--1 patrick’s, distant little over a mile. Rennie never saw him after that, nor the boat; and lie further states that he thinks the mast of the boat was not up at the time. On Thurs- j day the mast and sail were found just outside the beacon, floating in the Lake, and the boat was seen by another person with the mast standing on Wednesday morning, also near the beacon. The boat was afterwards found by the police near Boyes’ wool-shed, on Saturday. She had evidently been upset) j as there were neither oars, rollocks, nor any- , j thing else in her, but when found she had j righted. An oar and washing-tub were found in the vicinity. The police have since dragged near the spot where no doubt the, unfortunate man was drowned, but owing to| the depth of the water and the large snag* | at the bottom, it was impossible to carry oiL the operation with any chance of success! Reid only arrived in the colony last Decembef| by the Christian M‘Ausland ; he was a singly man, and is said to have been a native Dumfries, Scotland.— Mail.