An Antipodes Island Episode

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 9, 2 June 1894, Page 7

An Antipodes Island Episode

During’ the recent trip of the s.s. jHinemoa to the “ Far South ” she called at the Antipodes Islands, scene of the wreck of the Spirit of the ©awn last year. The occurrence and the subsequent experience of the ship’s compmy are recalled by a on the Hinernoa, who ,®ajs; “ To have made the circuit of the islands without visiting the scene of the wreck of the “ Spirit of the ©awn ” would have been to miss a sight than which none more conclusive of the power of human endurance —and must it be said the extent of human stupid : ty —could well be conceived. For eighty-eight days the eleven survivors existed here, scarcely moving more than a couple of. hundred yards from their place of Sanding, huddled together for tbe anost part of the day and night under sin overhanging rock in a kind of ■burrow or fair barely large enough to allow of each man stretching himself at full length. Without the means of making a fire they ate their food, consisting of sea birds’ eggs, flesh, and roots, raw. Fortunately for them they had landed IX A PENGUIN KOOKEKT at the height of the laying season, and could collect eggs by the thousand. And all the time they were within two miles of a depot containing ample store of bedding, clothing, and food ! One naturally wondei-s how they could have been so utterly supine, so spiritless as to subject themselves to an imprisonment as rigorous as if they had been confined within four walls. The explanation is simple,although so strange,as to be, in this era of universal education and -enlightenment, almost incredible. They lived in mortal fear of WIED BEASTS AND GOBLINS, chiefly the latter. It was their firm belief that on the night of their landing, and afterwards, ghostly forms flitted about on the edge of the cliff, some 30 or 40 feet overhead, lying in -wait, they persuaded themselves, to clutch one or other of their number in their -fleshless claws. And they lieard strange noises—these were no doubt real enough, the cries of sea birds, or the roar of sea lions —and fancied themselves, as darkness fell, in imminent danger of being set npon Sind devoured by . SOM K GRISLY MONSTER lurking among the rocks and tall grass. So they narrowed the entrance of their den to an opening jjust large enough to allow a man to enter on his hands and knees, and, crawling iu at sundown drew, after them a big bundle of tussae grass, thus closing the aperture and excluding, as they hoped, both natural -and supernatural enemies. It is difficultjto realise that grown men could Jiave reached such a stage of abject and unreasoning terror,but there can he no doubt from the first statements Ifchey made that the facts were as here described. Looking at the “ghosts’ walk” in broad daylight a solution of the mystery readily suggests itself. Long jo-rass and “ Maori heads ” fringe the edge of the cliff overhead and looked at from below, at dusk, might, as the former waved with the wind,be easily Jashioned by excited imaginations into weird and appalling shapes. Allowance must of course be made for men so circumstanced,with bodies weakened and nerves shaken by fear of death, exposure, and hunger, hut even then one would expect two or three days of rest to restore them to a normal condition of mind and body. Oddly enough,if they had searched the island round they could not have found a better landing place than the one they struck. The line of lofty ®andstone cliffs, so regularly stratified iaa places as to resemble courses of masonry, is here broken by a grassy Jiollow reaching almost down to the water’s edge. This hollow is at the

head of a little bay running some 50 yards or so into the land through a sea-worn tunnel and in stormy weather constituting what is known as a “ blow hole.” The black honeycombed volcanic rock of the beach, between high and low water mark, is fringed with kelp of fantastic shapes. Here is a mass that may be fully likened to thousands of serpents, intertwined, ever writhing, coiling and uncoiling as they rise or sink with the perpetual surge ; there is a cluster of gigantic leaves, the tops of a submarine forest. At night," with the waves rolling in and booming through the tunnel, within a stone’s throw, it must have been an “ eerie ” time for the cave dwellers. But it must have been far worse for the POOR INDIAN BOY withh is feet ganghened from cold and exposure, for he had not the solace of companionship. The fetor made it so excessively unpleasant in the confined air as to render it insupportable. So they built him a kind of kennel outside, just high enough and wide enough for him to lie at full length upon some dry grass, closing the entrance at night with just sufficient breathing space left. Here, for those eighty-eight days, lay the poor’fellow Thanks to the nutritious nature of t}ie food with which he was supplied, he lived, and was, with careful nursing on the Hinernoa, conveyed to the hospital at Dunedin, where medical skill did the rest and restored him to health, MINUS SOME OP HIS TOES. Charity was invoked, and he was sent to his home in the East Indies, to Rangoon, it is stated, expressing his intention, however, after seeing his mother and relatives, to return again at the first opportunity to the colonies, or at all events to resume his career as a seaman.