The Commander's narrative[1] is full of interest and brings ' vividly before the eye of the reader not only the progress accomplished in the twelve years which had elapsed since the separation
of Queensland from New South Wales, but also some of the abuses which had followed the scramble for wealth in a little-known sea far from the seat of government.
The cruiser left SYDNEY on 15th and BRISBANE on 28th January, 1871, taking on board at the latter port horses and stores for Somerset, and following the " inner route," which had already been charted by Captains Owen Stanley and Francis Blackwood and others. (SEE MAP O.)
The " Basilisk's " work began at the base of the Cape York Peninsula. Thirty miles from Cardwell, and therefore about the PALM ISLANDS, a small fore-and-aft schooner was met, apparently in a helpless condition, and was boarded. She proved to be the " Peri" and there was neither food nor water on board, and no boat. The crew, of Solomon Islanders, were " living skeletons, creatures dazed with fear and mortal weakness. . . . Some were barely alive, and the sleeping figures were dead bodies, fast losing the shape of humanity, on a deck foul with blood." The first thing that had to be done was to bury six bodies.
" The story of the ' Peri? " says Moresby (p. 5), " proved to be this : A noted kidnapping vessel, the * Nukalow? had brought a cargo of some 180 kidnapped natives to Rewa River, Fiji, some two months previous to our falling in with the ' Peri. 1 At Rewa they were disposed of by being hired out to planters at the rate of ten to fifteen pounds a head, paid to the owners of the ' NukalowJ and about eighty of them were transferred to the ' Peri ' for conveyance to the various islands of the Fiji group, in charge of three white men and a Fijian crew. On getting to sea, insufficient food was served to the natives, who were quite unsecured, and they clamoured for more, on which some rice was issued; but one of the white men, angered by the clamour for food, was heartless enough to throw the rice overboard as the natives were cooking it, and the maddened creatures rose at once and threw him over after the rice. The other two whites and the Fijians followed ; and the savages, thus left to themselves, and wholly unable to manage the ship, drifted helpless and starving before the south- east trade wind for about five weeks, accomplishing a distance of nearly 1,800 miles through a sea infested with coral reefs and full of islands; finally passing over a submerged part of the Barrier Reef, or through one of its narrow openings, to the place where the ’Basilisk ' found them. Thirteen only were then alive out of the eighty natives who had sailed from Rewa. We took these survivors to Cardwell, 30 miles distant, which was then, excepting Cape York, the most northeily point of Queensland, and here, under the humane care of Mr. Brinsley Sheridan, the Police Magistrate, they recovered strength in time, and were afterwards taken by us to Sydney, whence they were carried by one of H.M. ships to their various islands in the Solomon group."
It will be remembered that in 1848, KENNEDY, who landed at Tarn O' Shanter Point, opposite Dunk Island, had been unable to
- ↑ Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea and the D' Entrecasteaux Islands, A Cruise in Polynesia and Visits to the Pearl-shelling Stations in Torres Straits, of H.M.S. " Basilisk." By Captain John Moresby, R.N. London, 1876.
Two Admirals: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Fairfax Moresby (1786-1877) and His Son John Moresby. By Admiral John Moresby. London, John Murray, 1909.
