TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 982, 28 February 1910, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Regret was expreased at Melbourne that the Tyser liner Tomoana did not stop to make an examination of the boat which, as reported by cable, is said to have bean obsaryed by the lamp-trimmer and one of the firemen when the steamer was 500 miles north-west of the Cape of Good Hope. The trimmer declares that the Jsows and a considerable portion of the derelict were visible, thp stern part being under water. Neither he nor his companion could discern any name on it, and it appeared also to be without oars or equipment of any kind. It was evidently a large lifeboat, and had been in the water for a considerable time. 'Roughly speaking, the Tomoana swept past the derelict at a distance of about 30 feet, and the lamp-trimmer and the fireman are both positive that it was a ship's boat of more than ordinary dimensions. It is thought that possibly the boat might have belonged to the Shaw-Savill liner Maori, which was wrecked off Duiker Point, near Cape Town, and the masts of which vessel were still visible as the Tomoana rounded the Cape. The identity of the boat, however, remains a mystery. There is, of course, no evidence to connect the drifting derelict with the disappearance of the Waratah, remarks the "Argus," although it is quite possible that the boat belonged to that liner, all her boats being painted white.