THE WRECK OF H.M.S. ORPHEUS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1543, 12 September 1912, Page 4

THE WRECK OF H.M.S. ORPHEUS.

DEATH OF I, AST SURVIVING OFFICER. The death (says the "London Times") has just occulted, at the ago of G7, of Mr. Charles George Brooke-Hunt, the last surviving officer of H.JE.S. Orpheus, which was wrecked on the west coast of New Zealand, in February, 18G3. The Orpheus was a steam corvette of 21 guns and 1706 tons. She was making a round of the stations under Commander Burnett When she ran. on tho bar of the harbour at Manukau, and became a total wreck, with the loss of her commander, 23 officers, and 166 sailors, Royal Marines, and boys. Seventy members of the crew were rescued, the majority by the men of the Wouga-Wonga, a small steamer, whose captain on arrival found heavy seas breaking clear over tho Orpheus half-way up the rigging. All the officers and men had climbed on to the rigging, the commander, with his young officers, being in the mizzen-top. As tho flood-tide rose the mnsts fell one by one. Those who 60ught refuge in tho tops were heard cheering and encouraging each other as they fell. Fragments of spars arid large masses of wreck were carried inshore by the tide, with some members of the crew, clinging" to them in the last state of exhaustion.