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The wreck of the 'Syria', 1884
by Brij V Lal (published in "Fiji
Times", 12 May 1979)
At
8.30pm on Sunday, 11 May 1884, the Indian immigrant ship Syria –
the fifth to reach Fiji – was wrecked on the Nasilai reef. By the
time the shipwrecked passengers were brought to safety, fifty-six
immigrants and three lascars (Indian seamen) had drowned.
The
Syria, carrying 497 indentured adults, children, infants, and a crew
of forty-three (including thirty-three lascars) left Calcutta on 13
March 1884. Its journey to Fiji seems to have been remarkably
uneventful except for a minor storm off the Cape of Good Hope in
which both the Captain and the Second Mate allegedly lost their
Certificates of Competency. The morality rate of 0.8 per cent on the
voyage compared favourably with the overall average of one per cent
for the entire period. But perhaps the most astonishing feature of
the trip was its length - fifty-eight-days - a record well above the
average for sailing ships of seventy-two days.
On
Sunday, 11 May, the combination of inexperience and simple
incompetence of the crew and the poor navigational facilities took
their toll.
Many more would have lost their lives
but for the prompt and efficient rescue operation mounted by Dr
William MacGregor, then the Chief Medical Officer and Acting
Colonial Secretary of Fiji. Later, Dr MacGregor wrote this emotional
and vivid account of the tragedy: "When the first boats reached
the scene, the majority of the Indians were in the water on the
reef, making as far towards the land as they could, but a
considerable number were still in the wrecked vessel, chiefly women
and children. The ship lay on her port side. The masts were all
broken into fragments, and spars, sails, ropes, and debris of all
kinds were mixed up and thrown about in the breakers in wild
confusion.
The scene was simply indescribable,
and pictures of it haunt me still like a horrid dream. People
falling, fainting, drowning all around one; the cries for instant
help, uttered in an unknown tongue, but emphasised by looks of agony
and the horror of impending death, depicted on dark faces rendered
ashy grey by terror; then again the thundering, irresistible wave
breaking on the riven ship, still containing human beings, some
crushed to death in the debris, and others wounded and imprisoned
therein; and all to be saved then or never; ... (Some sacrificed
their lives to save others; some, such as the strong lascar crew
thought only of themselves) and rushed into the boats surrounded by
dying women and children. One of these lascar seamen I took out of
the wreck paralysed with terror; afterwards by brute force I threw
him twice out of a boat to make room for drowning children ...
inspite of everything that could be done the loss of life was
fearful. At 2pm I was almost faint with despair, and I did not then
think that a hundred or so could be saved.
The loss of the Syria was one of the
worst maritime disasters in the history of Fiji, but similar losses
of life, though perhaps not always as dramatic, were not uncommon in
the history of overseas Indian migration. Indian immigrant ships
were, by the standards of the times, much better equipped and looked
after and took less payment in human lives than ships engaged in
labour traffic in other parts of the world; but even so, severe
losses of life could not always be contained.
Cholera, fever typhoid, and dysentery
were the most frequent and indeed the most dreaded killers, and when
they struck, lives were lost in great numbers.
The subsequent story of the surviving
Syria immigrants cannot be told with any certainity. However, from
the available records it appears that after two weeks of rest from
the exhaustion suffered during the ordeal, the indentured labourers
and their children were taken from the Nukulau Depot to Suva, where
they were sorted out and allocated to various plantations.
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