THE VOYAGE OF THE DUNEDIN.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1045, 11 June 1883, Page 2

THE VOYAGE OF THE DUNEDIN.

The liohdon correspondent of a contemporary writes as follows ; —• “ The good ship Dunedin, Captain Whiteson, with a large consignment of frozen meat, fish, game, milk, and butter from Otago, arrived in the Thames after a smart passage on April 7. She is discharging her cargo-in admirable condition 1 . The ] Dunedin left Port Chalmers on Jan. 13, ! and made a capital run of only 23 days to Cape Horn, which she rounded on Feb. 3. Up to < this .time. the ..voyage, hah been pleasantly uneventful, 1 ttie; winds being fair, andj the temperature! low. Three; days later, however, a somewhat unusual incident; delayed the ship 24 hours. On Fob. 7, just o£ Diego Ranwarz, a large sailing vessel, dismasted, and apparently derelict, was mbseryed bn; the port bow, The captain despatched a boat in charge of Mr M’Caulay, the'mate, to her, when the hulk wak found to be the Durham, barque, bound with a cargo. of. nitrate of , soda from'the coast of Peru to London. I This information the mate of the Dunedin gathered from the log slate, which Imd been left aboard,; though the clean'sweep made-oral];(personal effects, ; . &c.,, proved that the crew could, not have abandoned their ship in any great hurry. The pumps were smashed, and soundings showed four feet of water in the hold. Captain Whiteson thought it best to scuttle the Durham, and the hatches being opened she soon disappeared beneath the waves. The last entry on the log slate was on December 31, off Diego . Ranwarz, which would probably be the time the crew abandoned her. , The Dunedin entered the tropics l on Feb.: 23, and crossed the equator on March 8. Owing to the contrary winds experienced, and a considerable amount of hot weather .the thermometer averaged 80 deg in the shade at noon for nearly three weeks, the. exact time the ship wa< in the tropics being 21 days. She sighted the English coast on i April 3, and arrived at Gravesend on April 7. The freezing apparatus aboard the Dunedin consists of .two engines, BellColeman’s, and the chambers . occupy the whole of the forehold. The whole were in charge of Messrs M‘Alisterand Murray, engineers. , The temperature, of the hold throughout the tropical run averaged 12 degrees centngrade, in some parts it was absolutely below zero. The engineers fixed up five thermometers in different parts of the chambers, which were carefully read every watch. The engines consumed 220 tons of coal, fuel having to be transferred to them from the after-hold daily. This process necessarily occasioned more or less mess, arid great credit is due to the mate (M’Cauley) who, coals- notwithstanding, brought the Dunedin into dock as neat, arid clean as a hew pin. The greater part of the Dunedin’s cargo consists ; qf ..frozen mutton. In fact, there were 8000 carcases, all prime-meat.h;At midnight on April 9' the hold was opened, and 250 carcases were sent to Smithfield. These realised 7d per lb wholesale, the low price being occasioned through the temporary .glut of American, meat, which seems iriucl| inferior. At ordinary times' Australian meat realises about ’ the same as prime New Zealand (from 7d to 7fd wholesale), but when the thrifty ; housewife: can get the latter she naturally, prefers it. Butchers are begin ning to find this out, and; to meet the: emergency several have adopted the following guileless expedient :,-rrrlnstead of , labelling! theirjoints, “ New Zealand mutton, ex ;Duiiedjn,” and Australian mutton, ex Olumborazo,’’ thus drawing special -attention to : . the./difference in quality, they simply, lump thejlot, good, bad and indifferent,., together, calling it. prime Colonial' mutton. A judicious 1 mixture of meat is allr that is necessary to .make .this little .plan quite .successful '; - but .theidihadvantagies ofdt to New.Zealand generally, and to shippers in- particular, is of course obvious.:; Already nineibutebers out of ten sell ,Otago mutton, as “ prime Scotch,” and if the few who consent to acknowledge Colonial specialties-? are going to shuffle up New- Zealand fat carcases with ft he dean..»kine from Australia-, I don’t exactly see how you will .ever get.any credit.at all for your shipments. Depend" upon it /the,proper plan, is-; to. open shops in populous) districts for the sale of New Zealand mutton, and nothing else. Shippers can’t hope to recoup themselves really satisfactorily, .till: then. • .The meat .has to make a name, and this, of course, can never ,be whilst it is being sold .as. - something else. The Dunedin has not transhipped her meat' aboard the hulk Sea Witch as the Sorrento did, but is keeping her freezing chambers in work arid sending the meat 1 to market as required. The ; experimental \ shipment. of butter, hams, and game has turned hut most satisfactorily, but as none, of: the articles are to be sold,.;or even priced (which would surely be ifiqsirable), -the commercial value’ in this country cannot be exactly, determined. The butter was used freely on the voyage, Home, and is said to have, tasted as fresh, and sweet as .when first frozen. The fish difficulty,' too, seems' now to have been got over. I cannot discover that any woolly taste or dryness was perceptible in the schnapper brought by the Dunedin, though Colonial articles naturally compare unfavourably, in general ways, with ’ English. In conclusion, it may . be : worth pointing, out that a considerable savingin fuel for freezjing purposes maybe made by keeping a. ship as far south as possible whilst making Cape Horn, and using every available , means to run her rapidly through the tropics. This was clearly demonstrated* on the Dunedin’s passage/for whereas from New Zealand to Falkland - Island the work of the engineer averaged only 6 hours in 24, during the time the ship was in the tropics they - were -going 16 hours. _________. I