RESCUE OF CASTAWAYS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 2 December 1907, Page 2

RESCUE OF CASTAWAYS.

InvcrcargiU, last night. A sensation was caused l«*o °n Saturday when the news spread tnat tl c Stacmon had returned with castaways from the Auckland Islands, and as irag ments of information reached town from the llluff during the evening, the TRAGEDY AND RESCUE were the sole topics of conym-itton. The following story was, obtwned from Mr. Crosby Smith on his amval at Ureargill 'on Saturday and taken from notes written by Mr. Smith rlnrin" the voyage home. On the arrival of the expedition ra Port Ross at Auckland Islands, early on he morning of Saturday, November Ml »reat excitement was caused when, on sighting the Government to not, it was noted that a white flap w flying nt half-mast, in token of the presence of ~,„™7 A SHIPWRECKED CREW. The captain lost no time in launching a boat and effecting a binding, and as°he approached the depot

A CHEER went up from at least a dozen men who | were congregated there. It was recognised as a true British cheer, and was answered with a three limes three from the Hiuenioa. After a very short delay, Captain Bollons returned, followed by live of the stranded crew, in the depot boat, lie boat contained the second mate (llr. McLaughlin), third mate (Mr. Knudsen) Harry Walters, Charles Eyre, and another. Th. second mate was wearing a skull cap made of sealskin, and one or two wore a kind of slipper made out of untanned .cowhide, while all were wearing clothes from the depot supplies. STORY OF THE WRECK.

From the crew it was learned that the four-masted barque Dundonald, WW tons, left Sydney on February ITtli, bound for Falmouth, laden witn wheat. She carried a crew of 27 alt told, in addition to whom was the captain's son, a lad of sixteen, who was not in good health. Contrary winds were met with all the way, and a great DISTURBANCE OF THE COMPASS had been noticed half-way between Sydney and the Aueklands. . At 12.30 on the morning of -March 7th the ship STRUCK ON A REEF on the west side of Disappointment Island, an outlying island of the Auckland group. The night was thick, with a half gale Wowing, and land was not seen until immediately before tho ship struck. An effort was made to wear ship, but it was too late, and she was DRIVEN STERN FIRST right into a crevice in the cliff, which towered up 300 £eet high. In a few minutes the fore part of the ship DROPPED INTO THE SEA, and caused a huge wave to wash along the deck, sweeping the crew before it, and carrying away in one sweep eleven men, who were never seen again. ELEVEN MEN DROWNED. Amongst lhc.se were the capuun ..nd his son. The. rest of the crew ciung to various lixtures, and when the wave had gone by they rushed up the rigging. Three men got ashore irom tho Jigger mast, but one of them slipped oaciv over the cliff and MET 11IS DEATH.

loiiuueu is uescnood in lu-j iiurrau\e of uianes .byre, wiuca »s yi.c.i un-tv. u.pl..in IjO.ions suppl.eu uie mcu witu some auuiuonui scores, and luid luein no would call lor tuem on his return from the Bounty and Cainpbcn Islands in ten or tweno uays. ine men all appeared well, and it was evident that the food they had subsisted on had agreed with Uicui.

While the men were on the island two ships passed them—the lirst in July and the other later on—out tile castaways could not attract their attention as the vessels were a considerable distance off shore.

A dOriftvutf't) SluriY,

liiii -\AiUiA'iTVL 01' UiAuLLt KVIKK.

hollowing is tno statement given by Ulrica J-yie, .i,!*., oi .London, to au. L'rosjjy bnntli, wnne lie w.is acung us cook to tiie expedition party on the Campbell fslanus. " i sigucd on to the Dundumild in Sydney, the vessel being bound tor luilmouth lor orders, she was laden with wheat. We had contrary winds all the way from Sydney, and when oil' the Auckland Islands it was BLOWI.NO. HALE A GALE.

The weather on the night of March Oth was very thick and heavy, and we were shortened down to upper tup-sail, and had set the lower top-gallant. '• Suddenly, at 12.30 a.m. on the 7th, land was seen right ahead. We tried to -.wear short round, but she would not stay, and went stern lirst into a crevice in the dill's. " Orders were given to CLEAR THE LIFEBOATS,

but it was found to be useless, as there was a big sea, and rocks all round us. ■ "The captain ordered us to put on our life belts. The steward gave up all hope of saving himself, and said, ' Goodbye, boys; I'm TOO OLD TO GET ASHORE.' lie went into his cabin, shut the door, and soon after the compressed air in the hold i BLEW UP THE DECK. The mate (old us to get under the forecastle head, as the. ship might be dis- j masted. We were there two or three minutes when she started shipping seas • | just abreast of the forecastle. I "When we saw the seas coming we | went on the forecastle head, but were [ not there more than a couple of minutes when the water began to come right over. • OXI3 TREMENDOUS' WBA washed clean over us, and although we all managed to hang on, the next, one washed us all away. 1 don't know what became of the others, but I was whirled round and round. I caught hold of the foot of the fo'c'sle, but' was instantly torn away by Hie sea. I then caught hold of one of the shrouds ami elimhed

As I did so, I heard someone, following me, and, looking back, saw it was an Irishman named John Judge. We went on to the foretop-galhmt yard. As it was canted towards the shore, we thoaght it was touching Hie cliff, but foii'.id if to be about sixteen feet away. We were going to try to swing ashore on the end of a rope, but found the rops was too short. Unfortunately we had dropped the only knife we had', and cotili not cut another rope to lengthen ours. We SI'KXT THE NIGHT up there, anil heard many distressing cries around in. Aleut an hour before daylight we begaa to climb down to the forelop, and foufld about twelve men there, including the first awl second mates. The mate told 118 to PREPARE FOR THE WORST, $5 the, mast could-not stand much

EIGHT MONTHS ON AUCKLAND ISLANDS. FIFTEEN SURVIVORS OUT OF TWENTY-EIGHT. WRECK OF WHEAT SHIP DUNDONALD. SMASHED UP IN MARCH LAST. HARDSHIPS OF LIFE ON DISAPPOINTMENT ISLAND. LIVING IN HOLES; SUBSISTING ON SEA HAWKS. AUCKLAND ISLAND REACHED IN CANVAS BOAT. FOOD AT THE DEPOTS. RESCUE BY THE HINEMOA. A GRAPHIC NARRATIVE. Per Press Association.

longer. He thought we had better make a few lines, as we might be able to help one another ashore. I had lost my knife, so the, mate gave me his, and I went up again and cut away some of the running gear. A LIFE LINE. Suddenly I heard a voice from the shore opposite, and found it to be Michael Poole, a Russian Finn. I cut one of the topsail buntlines and throw it to him, and we made fast at both ends. By this means we all managed to get ashore. The cliff was about 300 FEET HIGH,

and at the point just above the mast was a very steep slope, which allowed us to climb up with comparative ease. SIXTEEN KEACH SHORE. There were sixteen of us out of twenty-eight got ashore, which left twelve to be accounted for as drowned. They were washed away when the big sea swept the ship, I now learned that the first man ashore, Walter Low, called out to pass a rope, but before this could be done he slipped over the cliff into the sea and was never seen again. Wo were all very MUCH EXHAUSTED when we got ashore, being verv hungry and cold. When in the top-gallant, the 'mate told us there was a depot on the island, and when we got ashore we went in search of it. The weather was so thick that we could not tell where we were going, so we turned back. Later on we discovered that there was no depot on that island. This was A GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT

to tho mate, who, along with the second mate, had been seriously ill from exposure. We never expected the second mate to recover, but lie gradually got better. THE MATE'S DEATH. The mate, however, after finding he was not on the main Auckland Island, was disheartened. He sank ..rapidly, and died on the twelfth day after the wreck. He was over sixty years of age. By this time we had discovered that we were on Disappointment Island. After the mate's death we shifted over to the eastern side of the island. The water where we struck was very bad, so we shifted to the other side. The first day after getting ashore \vc subsisted upon RAW MOLLYHAWKS. The few matches amongst us were wet, and it was three days before we could get them dry. When we once got a fire going, wc banked it up and kept it ALIGHT FOR SEVEN MONTHS. Until May we only covered ourselves up with canvas we got from the ship before she disappeared, but we began to see that we were going to have some COLD WEATHER, lor snow and hail came on. We then decided to DIG HOLES in the ground, which we did with our hands. Above the holes we built up sticks, and put sods on top, forming hula about six feet long and four feet wide. THE WINTER. Wc managed to scrape through the winter all right by living on seanawks, inollyhawks, and seals. When we saw the seals first bobbing up on the water we thought we had got the sea-serpent all right. We did not know how to kill taem at first. We used to whack them on the back with a stick, but one of the fellows happened to hit one of them on the nose and it rolled over, So after that we had no difficulty in despatching them. In the beginning we used to cook everything by putting it on the Ilames, but afterwards we made A MUD OVEN and cooked our food on a spit. We knew the depot was on the other island, which was about six miles distant, but we did not know how to get across there. Il was decided to build A CANVAS BOAT.

" i in July, three men built a boat of can--1 vas and sticks. To do this we hud to put in pieces of our clothes and blankets and sew thciu together, and the task was all the harder as the sailmaker and carpenter were both drowned when the ship went ashore. "We did the sewing by means of a small bone from one ot the birds, with a hole bored in it. We used a little bit of wire wc had. On 31st July a STAKT WAS MADE in .the boat for the main island which was reached all right, but as they could not lind the depot, they CAME HACK on llth August. They had six matches with them, aud used four while over there. Then a SECOND BOAT was built in September, and on one fine morning the party started for the main island. The boat wa9 SMASHED BY THE SEA before it could got away. We then built a third one in October, and started again with a party of four —namely, luiudseu, Walters, Oration, and myself. AUCKLAND ISLAND BEACHED. Wc got over to the large island, but as we reached the shore we struck it rock and the boat was smashed, sending us all into t'.w w.ttor, but we scrambled ashore. The misiiap PUT OUT THE ITKE which we had carried in the boat on a sod. Wo had carried the lire in order to save tiie matches, of which we had only two, These got wet, and even after | drying them for three davs we could not i get a light from thein. ' '

On the fourth morning after landins wo started to b

SEARCH FOR THE DEPOT, nml after walking across tJ.e island and about fifteen miles through bush and scrub, we struck right ou it. There was a good boat at the depot, but no sails, so we cut up our clothes to make a sail, so that we could return to Disappointment Island for the rest ot the crew On the next day we tried t» sail roupd for them, but the weather was too bad, a.id we had some dilliculty in returning to the depot. Ou the following day we made another start for Disappointment Island, «ml got there about 3 o'clock. We had loimd clothes at the depot, ami <■*. pliangcd them for what we were wear- '»),'. .and we had also cut each other's l"»r ami beards, which during the seven months , Vl . wm un l|lc othcr khnA had grown so long that we looked like a lot of sprang poets. As we got near our old camp, our mates did not know us in our new | toggery, and they thought we were sealers. ALL REAOIT THE MAIN ISLAND. The next morning we put half the men ashore where we fiint landed with the canvas boat, and ieft them to make their way over to the depot. Then we took the second otlicer and the others round to (he depot. We had been seven months on Disappointment Island. We saw from a piece of paper then [in the depot that the Tutanekai had been there on the Ist February, and that fiome other (lovernment boat' would call in about six months, so we were on the look-out for a boat every day after we got to the depot. You can imagine our delight when the Hinemoa I put in an appearance on Saturdftjj nigra-.

ing, tlie 16th inst., ciglit months after the daj' of our shipwreck. "life AT THE DEPOT. When we got to the depots we found only ship's biseuite and tinned meat. There was no tea, butter, sugar, or coil'ee. We found the door of the depot open, and it was evident that some of the stores had been purloined. We. found an old-pattern gun in the hut, and •liter a bit got it to work. We used the rootrf of a plant (Stilbucarpa Polaris) lor vegetables, and it was not bad when boiled! We also made eoll'ee from sea l.iseiiit* by roasting them, /ftc aflciwards found a little tea at the Enderby '"Mr' Crosby Smith states that Charles ! Eyre,' who gave the above statement acted as cook for tile Campbell Island section of the expedition. Mr. &.m says he is an intelligent young felo« 21' years of age, having ,urt completed his tern of apprenticeship. He* gen and full of humor, and can look on the pomieal side of the situation although ■Very deeply impressed with its sad aspect He "amused the party when bent: plied with questions liy saying that he had lmd rfitlrt months of a gentleman's life, hunting big game.

SCENE OF THE WRECK VISITED

HELICS OF THE SURVIVORS' RESIDKNCK

> At 5.30 on the morning of the 28th, Pattain Bollons weighed anchor in Fort Ko! and steamed *or Disappointmen .fsn'd, where he had P™»f '° > a the members of the expedition for a Lew hours if it were at_ all poss.be to do so It had a special interest ioi LtXin that no one of scientific s and-| i„ K had been iknownl to land Itbere piously to examine the flora and fauna. Apart from this, there was the extraordinary interest that it was here that the Dundonald had been so recentHere, also.were to bese en the novel huts and other relics of the fcWpwrecked crew. There was also an ttnleasant task to be performed on S3, v sit-the removal of the remains S the mate of the Dundonald who had died there of exposure nearly eight months before, to the little cemetery at pO Di 3 Xointment Island is from point to point about 13% miles long by one mile wide. The coast consists of high rugged cliffs. . We had a good view Vf the place where the ship struck, and it was certainly a very difficult and dangerous niece of coast. She was washed stern first into a kind of tunnel, working 'round In a semi-circular direction, and hence it was that the ship was tossed alt so much by the rough seas washing in from each end of the tunnel. Ab we passed, we could see a projecting rock with the sea just washing over it, standing about half a ship's length from the mouth of the cave. This must have pierced a tremendous hole in the bottom of the ship, which accounts for the fore part going under so quickly. One could quite understand from this how she toppled over on one side, throwing the masts against the cliff's side. It was a wonder that anyone survived. On the island there is only one possible landing-place, which was discovered only after considerable search by the Dundonald castaways. This spot Caplain Bollons steered for, piloted by the second mate of the Dundonald, whom, we picked up from the depot at Port Ross for the purpose. Neither Cautain Bollons nor anyone else, so far as we could learn, had ever, landed on the island previously. However, the landing is by no means a bad one in calm weather and favourable wind, and these conditions wc were favoured with 1 . This favourable wind (N.K) is very rare in these parts, and Captain Bollons had experienced it only three times previously. Nearly every member of the expedition landed on the island, and commenced at the zig-zag ascent up the hill, a rise of about !)00 fc;et in 800 feet. The track was very slippery, too, making the going very slow and difficult. At almost every step in the climb we were met by molly-hawks setting on their nests. One egg each seemed to satisfy tlrcm, but each egg was as large (is four ordinary hen's eggs. As one passed them they made a snap sometimes, but no matter how molested they could not be induced to leave their nests. Thoiisands of the birds could be peen dotting the hillside The vegetation consisted chiefly of tussocks, but on the top of the hills patches of bidibid covered large areas, intermixed here and there with purple flowering veronica. Passing over the brow of the hill wc came in sight of the huts which had been built by the shipwrecked crew. On nearer view they were seen to be very much of the shape of a Zulu kraal, A hole about two feet long was first scooped out of the ground with a piece df wood and' the haridjs, and pome branches and twigs from the sma 1 tree veronica elliptica were placed over the 'top, the whole when finished looking like a miniature hay-stack. Inside the huts seemed most comfortable and warm, and must have been a great improvement on the first arrangement of sleeping under a piece of sail. Altogether there were fourteen of these huts, but one or two did duty as cookshops, and another as a storehouse. Occasionally a hut would catch fire, and the .occupants would have to make a hurried exit on their hands and knees. Then the village fire brigade was turned out and the fire extinguished. Lying about the huts were to be seen ample evidence of the food the men had subsisted on. Heaps of bird-skins, feathers, hones, pieces of sealskin, and sealbones were lying about everywhere. Great must have been the slaughter of birds, for the men declared that it required from three to four birds per man per day to satisfy them. Seals they did not eat until all the birds were scared nway

As we landed on the island, a most interesting object was seen resting on the. cliff side. This was the frame of the canvas boat which had first been built to carry the party to the mainland in search of the depot. A more rugged structure could not be imagined. It was all elbows and knees, but when one considers that it was built of Veronica El-liptic-a, which rarely has two feet of straight wood in it, the wonder is that the men had sufficient patience and ingenuity to build it at all. How such a boat reached its destination, propelled by oars made of forked sticks with canvas tied round them, is a miracle.

BURIAL OF THE MATE

AN IMPRESSIVE SERVICE. While we were examining and photographing the huts and examining tho island for plants and rocks, a party of four of the castaways had gone over the hill to their first camp to perform tho sad work of exhuming the remains of the male of their ship. This took n couple of hours, and while this was being done the captain spent the time in searching more of the shore line for traces of castaways. About 4,30, two boats put off from the Hincmoa, containing all the "passengers and the ship's company, who landed to attend the funeral. The party numbered about sixty. The service was a most impressive one. The captain read the Anglican Church funeral service, and the body, which has been enclosed in a sea chest, was lowered to its last resting-place by the second and third mates of the Dundonald. * THE SURVIVORS.

The names of the survivors are:— McLaughlin, second mute. Kmidseii, third jnat-e. Ibirrv Walters, A.B. Alf. Finlo\v, A.B. John Judge, A.B. Santiago Murine, A.B. John Puhohe, A.B. M'erriiiian Quorfelt, A.B. Charles Kvrc, A.l!. Robert Ellis (Adelaide), O.S. .laek Stewart (Waikato), O.S. John Grattoii. O.S. Michael Pul, O.S. Arthur Ivimey, O.S. .Jabcz Huberts, cabin hoy.

THE DROWNED. Tlic drowned wore:— Captain Tliornlmrn. Jiimofi 'L'lioi-nlmni, the captain's son. William Smith, steward. Thomas Crawford, suilmafcor. Edward Leo, carpenter. Willi it Law. Sam Watson. Carl Anderson. Hnlderson. Tiiunnnui'l Xavoati. .lames Cromarty. Tt. Largenlinlonin. DIED FROM EXPOSURE. .lahoz Peters, the mute, was saved from tile wreck, lint died some cloven days afterwards from exposure.