Cruise Of Dove

Tragic Expedition Which Found Madang.

AN interesting little item of the for gotten history of New Guinea came under our notice recently, when we received from Mr. Arthur Peck, of Mel bourne, a copy of a pamphlet entitled, “Expedition to New Guinea in 1878 in the Schooner Dove.”

It was a tragic affair. There had been interesting rumours of gold discoveries in New Guinea and a little group of Melbourne men, after holding a series of meetings, decided in July, 1878, to purchase the topsail schooner “Dove” and go to New Guinea in search of the elusive metal.

The expedition left Melbourne on August 3, 1878, under command of the late Captain A. R. Rennie, with Captain James Bull as mate. The members of the expedition numbered 15. All are now dead, except Mr. Arthur Peck, now aged 79; Captain Bull, who is aged 84, and is a resident of Bairnsdale, Victoria; and Mr. Robertson, now a resident of Ormis ton, near Brisbane.

The "Dove” had a pleasant and pros perous voyage up the east coast of Aus tralia and the expedition commenced its search on the north-east coast of New Guinea, near Astrolabe Bay. It was well received by the natives and the men spent a couple of pleasant weeks ashore at various points. It was found, how ever, that there was no chance of find ing gold in the flat lands around Astro labe Bay, and that it was practically impossible to get through the broken country, swamps and dense vegetation that lay between the coast and the mountains, where it was supposed that gold might be discovered.

In the course of their investigations, the adventurers found the narrow en trance into the deep, beautiful, well shel tered harbour of Madang; and it is just possible that when they entered this haven on September 10, 1878, they were the actual discoverers of Madang har bour. Certainly, there was no trace of anything of the kind on Captain Rennie’s charts.

Still seeking gold-bearing country, the expedition left Madang harbour and sailed slowly westward. Then things went seriously wrong. Members of the party began to sicken with fever; while the ship, as it drew near the Sepik estu ary, met an entirely different class of natives, very arrogant and treacherous.

More men went down with fever—it is now quite apparent that the whole party were well bitten by the Anopheles when ashore at Astrolabe Bay—and there were one or two collisons with the natives. At one place, westward of the Sepik, the schooner one night was over run suddenly by savages, and there was a sharp, critical fight. By great good luck, a couple of old miners in the party had prepared dynamite bombs for just such an emergency as this, and these were thrown over among the clustering canoes with such deadly and terrific effect that the whole of the attacking army left uninjured incontinently fled.

After that the “Dove,” still making slowly westward, kept well out to sea and conditions became appallingly bad.

Several more of the party went down with fever and some died. They ran out of fresh food and fresh water. The ship began to leak and it was discovered that

her bottom was riddled with tropical worms.

The whole company became so weak and ill that they could not properly sail the ship or work the pumps. It is clear from the Captain’s diary that he only kept the ship afloat, day after day, by ruthlessly driving the fainting, fever stricken men to the pumps.

They tried to sail back east, but the winds were against it. The Captain had run westward beyond the region for which he held charts; and so he decided to try to make the Dutch East Indies is land of Amboyna by guesswork. They eventually got in sight of their goal, but for several days they were either be calmed or retarded by contrary winds.

Finally, when they were literally “in extremis,” they were picked up by a Scottish barque, “Sir Lancelot,” whose captain treated them very kindly. The “Dove,” already half-sunken, was set on fire and abandoned and the sick and un happy company were taken on to Yoko hama. Several had died on the “Dove,” and one or two others succumbed on the rescuing barque.

The others were sent back eventually from Japan to Melbourne, as distressed sailors.