An Auckland Island Episode.

Manawatu Herald, 1 June 1895, Page 2

An Auckland Island Episode.

Apparently all hope of recovering the £140,000 in gold known to have gone down in the hull of the General Grant, wrecked on the west coast of the Auckland Islands on the 16th May, 1866, has not been abandoned (says the Southland News), as the company that has leased the islands contemplates making an effort to find it. The General Grant from Melbourne, had a total of 83 paßsengers and crew. Sixty-eight were lost at the time of the wreck, one died afterwards! death being accelerated by starvation, four Were drowned, and the remaining ten were rescued on the 21st November, 1867, after a detention of one year six months and eight days. The author of " New Zealand Lone Lands " wrifcea of the disaster : — " Many of the passengers were lucky diggers ea route for the Home country to spend a well-earned holiday. It was a fine Sunday afternoon, and everything on board appeared happy and prosperous. Alas, alack, for human purpose and its aspirations I It was simply the calm before the storm— the illusive prospect which lures man to his doom. Being the laßt land they expected to sight for a length of time, it obtained all the more interest in their eyes. Little did they reckon the melancholy interest it . was about to assume, and that many of them were hastening on to find a watery grave within its gloomy recesses. Others deemed more fortunate, were rescued only to endure the more protracted sufferings of a living tomb on its inhospitable shores. Night setting in, the ship, as we are told, was kept on the larboard tack for nearly two hours, during which they were disquieted by finding themselves continually drawing towards the land. The night was pitch dark, but not particularly stormy. After crippling herself along the coast she was driven straight on to the land, and at length plunged headlong into a cave 250 yards deep. In that situation the top of her masts bumped against the roof, bringing down huge lumps of rock, which deal death and destruction to all around. Fourteen men and one woman escaped, and with difficulty effected a landing on the coast. After six months' detention, four of the men left in the pinnace to make for New Zealand, but having neither compass .„ nor chart, they wore never again heard of. The remainder— lo in number, including the female, one man having died in the interim— were, 'los months later, rescued by a sealer and conveyed to the Bluff Harbour,"