ADRIFT AT SEA.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 April 1922, Page 7

ADRIFT AT SEA.

TEN GIRLS IN PUNT. RESCUED BY STEAMER. REMARKABLE FIJI STORY. Suva, March 13. One of the most remarkable happenings which have occurred in Fiji waters was reported to-day on the arrival of the Sir John Forrest from Savu Savu and Levuka. The captain reports that yesterday (Sunday), about 9.30, when in the Koro Sea, between Namena and Koro, and about three or four miles from Namena, he noticed an object some distance ahead. As no reef or rock was charted there he went aloft, and with his binoculars made out the object to be a boat or punt with people in it. The course was altered, and, ranging alongside, the captain looked down on a 16-inch flat-bottomed punt, with ten young Fiji girls barely clad in light sulus. Their ages ranged from 10 to 16 years. They appeared to be in an exhausted condition, and could hardly speak. They and their craft were hove on board, and a course shaped for Levuka. First giving the rescued maidens spoonfuls of water for a time, which they swallowed with pathetic eagerness, the purser finally had the satisfaction of seeing them enjoy a hot breakfast. With their thirst and hunger quenched they told the following remarkable story. They belonged to the island of Koro, and at daybreak on Sunday morning borrowed the punt from a Chinese storekeeper, and, with two 6ft paddles, made for the reef for a morning’s search for sici, which is treasured as a succulent article of food, and the shell is sold to the traders. They left the punt in the charge of two of the younger girls. But, like the foolish virgins, the watchers fell asleep, and when the fishers found time to look for their boat it was gone, and on searching they discovered it floating on the rollers over two miles out to sea. Some of the girls said it was three miles away. Anyway there was one thing which appealed to them to do —to retrieve the boat, so the eight mermaids slipped into the water and started off on the long swim. They could have swum ashore only a mile away, but they thought of their little mates still lying asleep in the bottom of the punt, and the thought of rescuing them without creating an alarm ashore spurred them to their task. It was a heavy one, and once or twice some of the swimmers wished to give up and go under, but the strong helped the weaker, and all took spells at resting. Finally all. safely reached the little craft and got on board, believing that their troubles were at an end. But wind and tide opposed them, and the paddles were small, and the paddlers were very tired. The sun, too, was very hot, and there was neither water nor food on board. Finally darkness came down on them, and the night found a bobbing punt drifting to the open sea and in it ten very, very tired and miserable little maidens.

When daylight came they could see land many miles away, and were feebly trying to pull thither, when, happily, they were rescued, after being 30 hours without food or water under exposed and trying conditions. It was lucky that the steamer picked them up, as within half an hour a semi-gale thrashed the Koro Sea, which is famed for its nasty, tumbling, jumbling seas, and the punt could not have kept right side up for five minutes. The children were handed over to the care of the police, who at pnee proceeded to make arrangements for their transport to Koro, where their agonised and frantic parents had no doubt given them all up for lost. The people of Levuka supplied clothing to the castaway’s.