FIJIAN NEWS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 224, 17 January 1880, Page 3

FIJIAN NEWS.

Auckland, Jan. 14. The sihoon r :\i g Merriles. brought Fijian news to the 3rd hist. The tidal wave and hurricane at Fiji on the 11th ult. did great damage, and caused serious less of life. Among't the drowned were Mr Macpherscn, Tairnnee, and Mr J. R. Grundav, manager to Mr William Bailey ; also Mr 8- L. P Winter and two Fijians were lost at Ban. In a half decked boat at Bau three Fijian men and thirteen women wore drowned. In a canoe at Cura two natives were drowned and several houses blown down at. Radmarr and Madroch. The whole country was denuded of timber and the native food crops destroyed. The schooner Stanley, of Queensland 113 tons register, caught the full force of the gale. She had 150 islanders on board for Fiji, who were kept under battened hatches for thirty hours with neither air nor food, and some of them suffering from dysentery at the time. Fifty’subsequently died, and one committed suicide on being discharged from the Lsvuka hospital. Ten more deaths are expected. H.M.S, Emerald, which had on boax-d Sir Arthur Gordon and suite en route for Rotptumate, encountered the cyclone off that island, but managed to weather it safely. Strange to say, the wind was from a very different direction at that island from what it was at the Fijian group. Rototumate suffered in consequence.