AN ANCIENT WRECK.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 481, 18 June 1890, Page 3

AN ANCIENT WRECK.

SPANISH GALLEON AT WARRNAMBOOL. An effort is to be made (states the Melbourne “ Age”) to test the truth of a tradition amongst the residents of Warrnambool (Victoria) that a Spanish galleon lies submerged under the sands of the foreshore to the east of the entrance to the Hopkins River, and also, if possible, to discover the remains of the schooner Enterprise, the vessel that brought the pioneer settler, Mr John Fawkner, from Tasmania to Melbourne. The vessel was driven on shore opposite the township of Warrnambool, and became a total wreck thirty years ago. Evidence as to the existence of both vessels has been collected on behalf of the authorities of the Melbourne and Warrnambool museums, who are anxious to obtain some relics for those institutions. Mr Thomas Farly, of Warrnambool, who commanded the Enterprise in the early part of 1851 —she was wrecked the voyage after he left her—states that she went ashore about 450 yards to the east of the jetty. Part of her deck and stern were removed by Mr John Young, of Warrnambool, in 1854. The tradition regarding the Spanish galleon has been handed down by the blacks, of whom a large tribe lived on the shores of I-ake Pertobe in the early days of the settlement of Warrnambool. The late Capt. J. B. Mills said that two men coming from the Hopkins River chanced, to find her during their work. Captain Mills subsequently visited the locality and. experienced no difficulty, from the bearings given, in finding the vessel. He tried to cut a splinter from her timbers, but his clasped knife glanced off it as off a bar of iron. Between 1843 and 1847 he twice stood upon her deck. There was a tradition amongst the younger blacks of yellow men coming among them, and when questioned as to when the vessel got there, they replied, “ She all along there ’’—meaning Rhe had always been there. It was believed by Captain Mills that the so.-called yellow men were either Spanish or Portuguese. The attention of the Commissioner of Public Works has been directed to the facts collected with regard to both wrecks, and on the advice of Mr Davidson, InspectorGeneral of Public Works, he has sanctioned an expenditure of £2O to endeavour to find the Spanish galleon by means of light sounding-rods passed through thesand ridges underneath which she is believed to be lying.