A FIORDLAND FABLE

Hokitika Guardian, 28 April 1928, Page 4

A FIORDLAND FABLE

(Auckland Star). Give a I it- a day’s start, said someone. and you can never overtake it. A 1 utli the .same can he said ot llie numerous legends that masquerade as popular history. ’I he lairy talc* about the alleged Oriental ship .submerged in Dusky Sound, on our liordland coast, has once more popped up its venerable head, and no amount <d contradiction seems lo daunt it. Ibis time it is a Sydney weekly which has discovered, per medium ol a contributor. a tradition that the Chinese were among the earliest visitors t’> New Zealand. “Deep down in Ihe limpid waters of Dusky Sound.” the chronicler writes, “lie the remains <’! what is believed to be an ancient Chinese ship, and yearly crowds <d tourists hang over tlie rail ol the excursion steamer and strain their eyes 1.0 see this relic of prehistoric navigation lying on the sea floor. ’ further. it is alleged that, this relic icings to a period of antiquity prior lo the .Maori voyages ol discovery ol New Zealand.

It would t.nlu» some mighty tyestruining 1° discover tluit C liinoso junk in liordhmd wntors. Lust i/uno it was ;i Jiipancso vessel. The hmle was given mrreney many years ago in a little school history written by AIH Burke (afterwards Airs Galop), who wrote that in Dusky Sound helical It tin- dear water there could lie seen the form of tti large ship of foreign build of whose origin nothing definite was known. “She is of no English or modern make.” she was mad” of teak, “a wood much used hv the Japanese and Chinese.” An apocryphal .Maori legend about her sinking is 11 noted. Thousands of New Zealand -school children absorbed this story, hence its periodical revival. Aliss Burke was quite correct in saying the ship was of teak, hut an Historian should have been aware of the vessel’s origin. Another story just as frequently revived declares that -his mysterious craft is Captain Cook s famous exploring ship, the Endeavour.

Tlie facts about the remains of a ship on the bottom of Dusky Sound have boon printed often enough, one imagines, to have killed the fable, hut the original misinformation has had a long start. The vessel was a teak built East India man, a. British ship of about 800 tons, called the Endeavour. In 1790 she sailed from Sydney for India, sprang a leak in gales, was driven down to the New Zealand coast and put into Dusky Sound, where she was abandoned as unseaworthy. The crew found a small vessel in the sound, which had been constructed by a scaling party lauded at Facile Harbour, on Resolution Island, by (lie ship Brittannia, of Sydney. In 1792. This was the first seal-hunting gang in New Zealand waters. The crew ol the Endeavour finished this roughlybuilt craft, which was named the Providence, and some of them sailed in her for Norfolk Island, the nearest point of civilisation. Others of Ihe Endeavour's party were taken away by a vessel called the Fancy. ami some of the rest decked the ship's longboat and daringly navigated the Tasman Sen. Some of the men in Hie Endeavour were time-expired convicts who had escaped from Botany Bay and stowed away. They were landed at Norfolk Island alter being taken away from Dusky. It is clear from this brief summary of the Endeavour’s history that the sunken ship in Dusky has i: » association with Captain Cook's ship except the name, and that the yarn about tbe mysterious Chinese or -Jat)a.'iese slop i- still wider of the truth. Alany years ago Captain Fail child, i believe, fished up some timbers I'r nt.

the sunken ship, but I should inpig ino all remains of tbe vessel have now disappeared. As for the tourists v, ho lean over the rail and peer into lbdepths, they are few and far between: tlie regular summer excursions round the sounds came to an end when the Red Funnel steamer AYaikare v.a; wrecked in liordland waters some years ago. —J.C.