The Antipodes Island Castaways.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIV, Issue 3148, 6 December 1893, Page 3

The Antipodes Island Castaways.

The " CHago r>aily Times " of Tuesday in its lengthy account of the wreck and narration of the survivor^' story contains very interesting particulars of their life on the island. Mr Morrissey, the second officer, supplied most of the informatiori. They first of all lived on limpets, and a c»mp was roughly pitched under an overhanging bluff opposite where they had landed. The sail of the boat was used for a roof, and the bedding consisted of cuttings from the tussocks which grew to a height of over live feet. The loss of the boat wh eh had evidently got adrift as the tide rose was much deplored, as it prevented them from exploring the island and !indii,g the depot. Strange to say nothing was washed ashore from the ship. When the first penguin was killed nobody liked to eat it raw, bub Mr Monissey ate the heart He " tasted it and nibbled at it like a fish at bait and found it did not taste very bad." As the penguins came to the island in large numbeis they had a royal time, though they had to "drink the eggs raw." The narrative continues: — "Between the Bgga and the penguins we fared pretty well. We used to skin the penguins, and then take them to the beach and keep them in salt water for some time, and afterwards put them in the sun to dry; on the next day we would dislocate the birds and cut them in slices co that the sun might have more effect. That is the way we used to dry our meat, and finally we got to be as good as French cooks in regard to the penguin. The worst of our trouble was in mending the scanty clothes we were able to escape from the ship in. We had no clothes worth speaking of, but when we shifted— about three weeks before we were found —to a pace beneath an overhanging bluff, and built a wall in front of it so that we had a sort of cave to live in, we ha<? the boat's sail to spare, which we had previously used for a covering. We'whacked'the canvas out between us so that to might mend our clothes, but we had no needles and no thread. I had a pair of mittens, and I unravelled the wool to use as thread, and we made neeiles out of albatross bones. In that way we made a flag out of a piece of canvas, a red singlet that was washed ashore, and a piece of an old flag. Besides that sinzlet there were a few empty gunny bags a few small pieces of wood washed ashore from the wreck but nothing of any consequence. On the seventeenth day after our landing on the the island we 3aw a barque, and en the eighteenth we caw a full rigged ship, and if we had had our boat we should certainly have been able to pull out and cut the ship off. Both of them passed noi; over three miles from the shore. We shouted and hollowed enough to raise the dead when we saw these vessels. I was \ hoarse for nearly two weeks afterwards. Eggs would not cure it!" The chief officer and the second m<*te and two seamen started to walk round tha island, but after walking about half the distance gave it up, the second mate protesting by stating* " Why not keep it up and go round the island and then we'll be satisfied whether there is nothing on it." As it was coming on to rain, however, the mate thought it w^uld be better to return to camp, and accordingly the party started back again. On getting back to the main party they told them that they could see nothing, and that they had come to the conclusion that thsre was nothing on the islands barring bird ■ and so forth. Their signal staff was at first on low land, bufc they soon shifted it t6 a high hill, so thifc any ressel coming wi< h>n three or four miles of the island could not help seeing the flag on a clear day, and as it happened io was a nice clear day when the Hioemoa came. They saw the flagpole before the flag was hoisted, and the moment the flUg was hoisted the Hinemoa showed her ensign. We did not know what island we were on at the time, though so far as latitude and longtit u^e are concerned we were pretty well correct. The island is about twelve miles round, but it was so mountainous that you cannot expect a man to climb the hills on nothing. You walk about two yartfs and then you fall down between a couple of tussocks, and are out of eight. The tussocks grow higher than I am, and I am sft lOin. They grow 6ft or 7ft high, and you have to tread from one to another ; and just as you get up you fall down again. A fellow living on raw penguin, and with no clothing to sfaif b with, does not like doing that, betides which, if he got wet and got rheumatism there was no medicine as well as no clothing. Our health was good, excepting that of a halfcaste Indian boy. When he first came on board the ship he was laid up with a bad finger; and when we got clear of the wreck he had no shoes on, and his feet were in water all the time. He could not stand the cold the same as we could, who were used to ifc, and his feet got frosh bitten, and became very bad. We did all we could for him, but he lost four toes off one foot and two and a half off the other. ' They mortified that much that we cut them off with limpet shells.