TWO GERMAN CREWS KILLED AND EATEN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2013, 11 June 1885, Page 2

TWO GERMAN CREWS KILLED AND EATEN.

. The Cologne Gazette publishes extracts from a letter dated Cooktown, Australia, Januara 30, and written by an officer of the German cruiser ilysna, gividg the following particulars of the fete of two German merchant vessels, whose contents were plundered, and whose crews were killed and eaten by South Sea Islanders. "Our Christmas holidays," sayß the writer, "we spent near the Anachoretes Islsnds, situated to the north of New Guinea. Some of the natives of those islands we proceeded to examine, as it was reported that the natives of the (neighboring) Hermit Islands, a warlike, race who had been severely punished by us two years ago, had again attacked two vessels (a two-masted and a three-masted schooner); and then plundered and burnt them, afterwards killing the crews and eating them at a cannibal banquet, The news ,was brought by a native of the Anachoretes Islands, who, as a youth, had been carried off as a prisoner of war to the Hermit Islands, and who had recently escaped and returned home. A nativo of 'Manilla living at the station Matupi, to whom the intelligence was communicated, reported the facts to the German Consul, Herr Hernsheim.

"Our investigations have, • unfortunately, confirmed these statements in every particular. Among the articlesrelics—of the two, burnt vessels, was a woman's chemise, marked with the in.iti.al.si 'A.P.,' anid we succeeded in ascertaining that amongst those on board the three-masted schooner was a white woman named Annie Pagels,