APPEAL COURT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2901, 13 October 1916, Page 9

APPEAL COURT

« Judgments will be delivered in the Court of Appeal this morning in the following cases:—Palmerston NorthKairanga River Hoard v. Frost; Kaye v. Westport Harhour Board; and J. C. Bryant and Co. v. Eales. ADRIFT FOR TWENTY-ONE DAYS . -4 . ISLANDERS' TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE. By Telegraph—Press .Association. . Auokland, October 11. After a--five months' cruise the Melanesian Mission steamer Southern. Cross' returned from Norfolk Island to-day. Bishop Wood was on board through- < out the voyage, and reported a satis-! factory state of affairs in connection: with the mission. About a. month ago the Southern Cross-was in the Reef Islands, and among the few natives there they found two women and two men who had been washed ashore. They had left Foutona, near Fiji, in a whaleboat about three weeks before, when there were five natives in the boat. When a short distance from the shore a severe gale sprang up, and the small craft was driven out to sea with its burden of terrified natives. They had no food with them, and when the gale subsided they had but to drift whero the tides and wind deemed fit to take them. For days they were tossed about, hungry and poorly clad. The diys lengthened into weeks, and it seems hardly creditable that human beings could exist so long without food. After 21 days in this deplorable condition the whaleboat was washed ashore on one of the small'coral islands of the Reef Group. One of tho five persons who at first set sail had died of starvation, and the others were first 6ecn in the battered craft with lmngry_ and drawn faces, semi-conscious of their condition, and waiting.for death. They were taken ashoro and treated with extreme kindness by the natives. It is evident that they drifted for about 960 miles by chart in tho 21 days they were at sea. The Southern Cross took the four members left of tho crew of the illfated whaleboat aboard : and carried them to Vila, from whence they hoped to return to Foutona.