A HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Gisborne Times, Volume LXI, Issue 9854, 6 November 1924, Page 7

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO

STORY OF A CANNIBAL FEAST

LONDON, Sept. 24. A hundred years ago on Saturday there appeared in the Observer a paragraph taken from the Boston Advertiser. It- relates.to one of the early voyages to New Zealand and to cannibal feasts at “'Sandy Bay.” The story is reprinted in the current number of the Sunday Observer.

“lii the brig Sultana, which arrived at this port yesterday from London, came Mr Joseph Price, of Wilmington, Delaware, who was one of the crew of the brig General Gates, of Boston, and was taken prisoner by the Natives of New Zealand. The General Gates sailed from Boston in 1821 on a sailing voyage, and on the 1 ('.of August following, Price was landed with five ethers on the coast of New Zealand to catch seals. “After remaining there six weeks, having procured 3503 skins, they were taken by a party of Natives or New Zealand at 10'or 11 o'clock at night. The Natives set fire to their huts, burnt them sk'ns, and destroyed their provisions, not knowing toe use of them. They then tied tneir hands behind them.' marched them to Looking Glass Bay. a distance of —tTinn a hundred and fifty miles. They had nothing to cat hut roasted fish. Thev were then marched 200 miles to Sandy Bay. whore they found a collection of savages, who carried them before their King and Queen. As soon as they arrived, one of their number, John Bawter, or London, was ordered to be killed, lie was tied to a- tree and struck on the bond bv two savages armed with clubs. 'His bead was cut off. and the rest of tho body they roasted in a kind of oven under ground, and offered to the survivors to eat; and haying nothing else, they were ioircd hv hunger to_ partake or it.Thcv tied the remaining five to a tree, with 50 men to guard them. The next dav James Webster «- killed and roasted; the. day after IVi’liam Dawson, of New Loudon, and the day after William Smith, ot New York, shared the same fate. “The next day, from what they could learn from the chief, James West, of New York, was to die; hut the night previous a heavy squall rose from the east, wdh thui.dei and rain, which so frightened the Natives that they all ran away to the west with a hideous noise, leaving the men tied under the-tree. They succeeded in untying themselves, and escaped to' the shore, found their boat, in which they put to sea without any provisions. Ihev were not tier tv yards from the shoie when they saw 700 savages coming in search of them. They had been three days in the boat when they were nicked up by the brig Maigeiy. Captain White, of . Sydney, KenSouth Wales, at which .place they were landed on the 10th of November.” ■