Sampan Wrecked

31 Japanese Reach Thursday Is.

From Out Own Correspondent

Thursday Is., April 24.

IN four unpainted boats fitted with sails and a short steering oar, 31 Japanese reached Thursday Island on April 7 after their sampan Fukujyu Maru had been wrecked four days earlier west of Mc- Arthur Island, near Shelburne Bay Cape York Peninsula.

Captain Shinchi Miyara said that the boat struck a reef and a hole was torn in the bow. The vessel filled up and sank, the crew taking to the 14ft. boats which are like square-nosed canoes.

On their trip to Thursday Is., the crew were very poorly clothed and suffered great privations, camping on beaches at night and subsisting mainly on fish. One man had had his arm bitten off by a shark ten days before the wreck and had not received medical attention.

The survivors decline to give any in formation about their movements or what class of produce they were seeking.

Technically the seamen are prohibited immigrants, but they are being allowed to remain here until they return to their own land in May. They missed the last Japanese steamer by only two days. In the meantime they are staying at one of the several local Japanese boarding houses, and the Japanese Society is mak ing itself responsible for their mainten ance.

Rear-Admiral R. Byrd, the famous American explorer, who returned to the United States in April from the Ant arctic, has announced that he is seeking to launch an expedition to explore South America and some unknown parts of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea.

Miss Valesca Schultze, who for 26 years was principal of the London Missionary Society’s Girls’ School at Papauta, West ern Samoa, recently died in Germany at the age of 76. She was born in Germany and educated there. In 1890 she went to Samoa for the L.M.S. to found the Girls’

School and remained at Papauta until 1916. Miss Schultze was the authoress of several educational works.