ISLAND FOOD DEPOTS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9150, 20 May 1908, Page 8

ISLAND FOOD DEPOTS.

replenishing stores. Press Association. Wellington, May 10. The Marine Department has docided'to add tea, sugar, tobacco, and pipes to the stores in the depots on the outlying islands. There are now ten depots, four being on the Auckland Islands, and one each on the Campbell, Bounty, Antipodes, and Three Kings, and two on the Kermadecs. In most of the depots 1200 pounds of biscuit arc kept, in ‘Addition to which there is a good stock of warm clothing, blankets, gnus, and ammunition, etc. iH.M.S. Pegasus, which leaves 7j>i£- e £ton to-morrow, will itake for the depot in the AntiJ Oqf lejs to replace those used by the drew of the wrecked . French ship President Delis Faurc, while the Hinemoa will leave shortly with supplies for the other depots. Dunedin, May 19.

In connection with statements made concerning the life of the crew of the President Felix Faure during their enforced residence on the Antipodes Island, Captain Bolions, of the Hinemoa, who had visited the island frequently during the past 25 years, informed a Times reporter that the depot was provided with tinned bread, meat, a medicine chest, tomahawk, dripping, matches (ordinary boxes of was vestas^ a secure box), fish dioobs and fishing lines, bucket, and boiler. So far as he could remember there was no gun or ammunition, but be believed a spade had been under the shelter of the hut. The latter was quite close to a never-failing supply of splendid water, with a pool large enough to bathe in. If there were no penguins after the first few days, there were tens of thousands of young albatrosses, which would be quite fat and fully as palatable as young mutton birds, and these could be found almost anywhere on their nests. To vary the diet mutton birds’ eggs and young birds could be obtained from almost countless _ burrows in nearly every part of the island. For vegetable the root of the broad-leaved aralia (stillbocarpos polaris) is said to be excellent, whilst the leaves form a good substitute for spinach. The idea of the men running the risk of scurvy was by Captain Bollans, and in support of his contention be referred to the wreck of the Spirit of the Dawn on the island on September 4th, 1890. The crew of this vessel had no bread, no matches, no fire, no house; they lived in a cave, slept on grass beds, and subsisted almost solely upon fresh penguins and eggs, all of which they ate raw, and "when rescned“were in the best of health and quite fat. The only sign of illness was that of a Rangoon coolie boy, who had had his toes frostbitten. There was absolutely no sign of scurvy. “Speaking from my own knowledge of the island, its resources, and the depot supplies,” said the captain, “I cannot understand some of the statements which have appeared in the papers, and I think there must be some mistake somewhere. ”