EXPERIENCES OF A WRECK

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 50, 28 February 1914, Page 2

EXPERIENCES OF A WRECK

SAILORS RETURNING HOME. [Pkb Preps Association.! Wellington, February 27. Eighteen members of the crew of the French barque Latour d’ Auvergne, wrecked at Palmerston Island on October 23rd last, arrived in Wellington to-day from Tahiti by the steamer Tahiti. The captain and the chief officer are travelling home to France by San Francisco, and 'three of the seamen have joined the vessel at Papeete as members of her crew. All the other shipwrecked men are now in Wellington eii route tor France. The barque left France with a cargo of hrickettes for Tahiti and Noumea, and after discharging a portion at Papeete left for New Caledonia. She struck Palmerston Island during a thick fog at night time. One man got ashore with a line, which he made fast, and by that means everyone else was alue to land safely. The natives treated the party hospitably. .lust before the wreck occurred a schooner had landed flour for the natives, but there was only sufficient for the latter’s requirements and the Frenchmen were obliged to subsist during their SO days’ stay on the island on shellfish and cocoanuts. The natives collect rain water in iron tanks, and there was an ample supply for the shipwrecked men. They were eventually taken to Papeete by the French man-o’-war Zelle. Two months’ wages were due to them when the vessel.struck,