THE STEFANO TRAGEDY
“…the Croatian sailors started their extraordinary journey…”
- A few years before the first pioneers arrived to settle the Gascoyne country, in West Australia, a Croatian barque, Stefano, loaded with 1300 tons of coal for Hong Kong, ploughed through a stormy Indian Ocean in October, 1875, slightly off the North West coastline, near Point Cloates.*
About 2.30am, on October 27, the wooden vessel struck Black Rock and started to disintegrate in the rough seas. On board were sixteen young Croatian crew (plus an English cabin boy, Harry Grose), under their captain, Vlaho Miloslavic.
In the panic-filled night, as the Stefano smashed to pieces against the rock, seven of the crew lost their lives; the other ten managed to reach the Australian mainland more or less alive. Burying themselves in the warm sand of the beach, the exhausted survivors slept.
In the morning, while searching along the shoreline, the sailors discovered barrels and cases of foodstuffs, even a bottle of wine, that had washed ashore overnight. They also found the body of Ivan Radovic. Scraping a shallow hole, their comrade was interred close to where he had perished.
With salvaged debris from their ship, the Stefano men constructed a rude shelter in a clearing behind a hill (now called Camp Hill), using hatch covers, sheets of canvas, sections of the mast, boxes, etc, and bound together with rope or stitched with thread.
One of the survivors later remembered: “I tried to black out thoughts of those who had died and … those back home whom I might never see again. I wanted to sleep to escape the thoughts that I did not want to think … I wept most of the night and awoke weak and despondent.”
The sailor’s bleak world was interrupted by an even more gruesome prospect when, suddenly appearing before them, were a large group of wild, naked Aborigines. Plagued by remembered tales of atrocities and even cannibalism, the sailors did not know what to expect.
The black people approached the white men and started to examine their bodies and clothing, closely scrutinising details. Plainly terrified, the Croatians noted the “dangerous looking spears” and “short, curved sticks” (boomerangs) carried by the tribal men.
The black people, their curiosity satisfied, turned away and started to search the beach for crabs and clams and, on finding them, generously offered these to the white sailors, indicating with sign language that the offerings were meant to be eaten.
An Aboriginal man handed to the deputy captain, Karlo Kosta, a fragment of paper he had found along the beach. Miraculously, it was a piece of the Stefano chart showing the North West coast of West Australia, including the location of the wreck and the Gascoyne River to the south.
Incorrectly, Kosta assumed there was a British settlement on the Gascoyne River and compounded the error by estimating the distance between their location and the “settlement” as being “only 80 miles away.” In reality, the Gascoyne region had yet to be settled, and the distance to be walked was, in fact, 120 miles over an extremely harsh and rocky coastline.
Before embarking on their fruitless overland journey, Kosta carved the names of Stefano’s crew on a salvaged cabin door.
Wrapping their feet in linen and carrying a sail cloth over their heads as protection against the sun, the Croatian sailors started their extraordinary journey down the rugged coastline, the thorns, razor-grass, rocks and thistles lacerating their legs and feet. Very quickly, the travellers lapsed ito exaustion and desperation. At night the men wept openly as they faced the terrible possibility of a lingering death of heat, starvation and thirst.
Near Cape Farquhar an Aboriginal tribe emerged from the scrub to save the white men’s lives. The “ferocious and frightfully armed creatures” guided the famished sailors inland to a native soak (waterhole).
“We were wild with delight,” one later remembered. “ …We greedily grabbed handfuls of wet dirt and stuffed it in our mouths … My heart suddenly overflowed with gratitude to our black Moses who had miraculously wrung water from … the desert to save us …”
With peculiar self-righteous irony, the young midshipman, Miho Baccich, reflected on his Aboriginal saviours: “I knew I was superior to them in so many ways … These savages … could never enter the kingdom of heaven. I reminded myself that we owed our lives to them. Maybe I could baptize them. I wished … they were white.”
Fed by the Aborigines with berries and shellfish, the ship-wrecked Croatians continued their torturous journey overland. On November 16, 1875, they walked past Cape Cuvier. By now the men were starved and thirsty again, sore and bleeding, and blinded by sun and despair.
The land around them seemed cruel. Rebellion grew in some of the men’s hearts. They requested to retrace their steps back to Cape Farquhar where they had enjoyed food, shelter and water.
Following a brief disagreement, Kosta agreed to the change of plan and, limping slowly along together, the sorry crew laboured their way once again to the north.
After eating poison beans found along the way, the men began to notice the strange behaviour of Josip Perancic. He appeared to be in a trance; he concealed himself in the bush for long periods and was constantly smiling. He had obviously gone mad.
A cyclone moved down the coast from the north with vicious winds and rain smashing the coastal vegetation and driving the survivors to a large cave they had discovered about three miles inland. After a wild night, Ivan Juric, Toma Dediol and Miho Baccich left their sanctuary to look around the devastated countryside.
Soon they discovered the dead bodies of Domenic Antoncic, Josip Perancic and Bozidar Vulovic, who were buried where found.
The next man to perish was Karlo Kosta.
Deliriously, Kosta’s parched voice begged: “Give me some food.”
Dediol and Baccich only had a few berries to offer their starving friend. He attempted to put the berries into his mouth, but only smeared them around his face and chin.
“Soon I will be with God,” Kosta whispered, “and I will plead for all of you, my dear friends.”
That evening Kosta passed away and yet another grave was dug in the sand to contain his “sorely bruised body.”
Ivan Lovrinovic was found semi-conscious, mumbling incoherently, and was soon dead. Days later the lifeless body of Nicola Brajevic was roughly interred in a makeshift grave, and afterwards Fortuna Bucic breathed his last, leaving only three of Stefano’s crew still alive.
Toma Dediol, lying in a semi-coma in the “Cave of Death,” was slowly dying, too. By his side, Baccich and Juric, both half insane with starvation, suddenly fell on the corpse and started to tear at its flesh in a frenzy of horror.
Dediol awakened, saw the cannibalism of his friends, and cried: “May God damn your souls,” then fell back dead.
Struggling at the edge of sanity, Baccich and Juric started fighting on the beach. With declining strength, they punched each other, threw sticks and stones, and finally collapsed together, too weak to move.
They were mere boys: Baccich was only sixteen years of age and Juric was nineteen.
The young and frightened survivors were eventually adopted by an Aboriginal tribe, nursed back to a reasonable state of health and taught the skills necessary for survival in the harsh North West environment.
During their stay with the tribal people of the North West coast, the young Croatians witnessed, and later had recorded, many of the customs then being practised, including ritualistic cannibalism.
A sick child died. A large fire was started on the beach and the little corpse was placed on top of the coals. As the Aborigines gathered around, the Croatians quickly realised this was not a cremation.
“The young one was being roasted as a gruesome meal,” they later wrote. “It began with the first portion being offered to the father … The mother was served next as we all sat around the dying embers. Then everyone else was served until the small corpse was completely consumed.”
Baccich commented: “I found myself participating in the ceremony without the slightest hesitation or any thought of impropriety … As I joined in the ritual on the barren shore of the Indian Ocean … I felt puzzlement and mystery.”
About six months after being ship-wrecked, along the coast came the cutter, “Jessie,” captained by the Mandurah businessman, Charles Tuckey (1846-1912), an ancestor of the well-known West Australian politician, Wilson Tuckey.
As Tuckey’s 47-foot skiff approached the shoreline, the Stefano’s survivors, now half naked and burnt black by the sun, stared at the white man in stunned disbelief.
“We trembled as we exchanged stares with the white man,” they said later. “The older one approached us with his hand out-stretched and a compassionate, or perhaps bewildered, look on his face … Tears flowed as we shook hands, and joy filled (our) hearts as never before. The faces of our native friends were a sea of smiles as they shared this wonderful moment. The Englishman (sic) was so moved that he was unable to hold back the tears.”
Captain Tuckey took the ship-wrecked Croatians on board and sailed them back to Fremantle. There the small community raised money for two purposes: to reward the North West Aborigines with gifts of flour, tea, sugar, knives, etc., and to arrange for the Stefano’s only two survivors to return safely to their homeland.
From the safety of Fremantle, Baccich wrote a letter to his parents on May 16, 1876, saying: “ … We lived for … months eating only raw shellfish and having no fire to cook with … We looked like skeletons … We nearly died of hunger … When the black savages came … we clasped their hands, begging them to give us something to eat. They were deeply concerned and gave us some fish and water to drink … We were immensely happy and very grateful for being saved, especially since the natives had previously eaten several persons …”
Following recuperation from their terrible ordeal, Baccich and Juric sailed north once again in a friend’s schooner, “Rosette,” to personally present gifts to the Aboriginal people who had saved their lives. They carried with them two bags of flour, a bag of sugar, ten ounces of tobacco, a dozen sheath knives and a dozen looking glasses.
A later report noted: “The natives showed no hostility whatever, and at once recognised the foreign seamen and greeted them with apparent affection.”
Back at Fremantle, a benefit concert was conducted at the Oddfellows’ Hall to raise funds for the stranded Croatians. When the survivors expressed a wish to be returned to their homeland, the Acting Colonial Secretary made the necessary arrangements and, on August 7, 1876, they departed for Egypt, each carrying in his pocket the equivalent of fifteen dollars. The frugal colonial government of the day, not being flush with funds, sent a reminder to the consul saying they expected reimbursement of the Croatians passage money in due course.
By October, 1876, the two survivors had reached their home at Trieste, back again in the care of their “parents … sisters and brothers, and many dear friends who had long mourned (them) for dead.”
Baccich’s father engaged the services of a Jesuit scholar, the Rev. Father Skurla, of Dubrovnik, to write a formal record of the wreck of the Stefano and the subsequent adventures of the survivors on the cruel western coastline of North Western Australia. The original hand-written manuscript is now in the USA. A hand-written duplicate copy has also been lodged with the National Museum, in Rijeka, Yugoslavia. The beautifully hand-written manuscript was titled “I Naufraghi del Bark Austro-Ungarico STEFANO alla Costa Nord-Ouest dell Australia.”
Ivan Juric vanished into obscurity. His home was on the Peljesac Peninsula in the town of Oskorusno.
The grateful Baccich senior commissioned a painting of Tuckey’s vessel, “Jessie,” taken from a photograph, in 1878. The artist was Bazilije Ivankovic and the painting still hangs today in Our Lady of Mercy church, in Dubrovnik.
Miho Baccich, aged 21, emmigrated to New Orleans, USA, in 1880, to become a highly successful commission merchant dealing in liquor and groceries. Situated in the French section of the oyster market at the corners of Ursuline and Decatur Streets, Baccich flourished as a commercial entrepreneur. Later he branched out into real estate and became the foundation president of the National Realty Company and was later still a president of the Gentilly Terrace Company. He retired from business in 1935. Baccich married, produced seven daughters and a son and died on December 12, in 1935, at the age of 76 years. In New Orleans, USA, Baccich Street is named in his honour.
In 1894 Charles Tuckey received correspondence from Miho Baccich, saying he always esteemed the older man as a saviour and a second father, and on a mantlepiece in his home he maintained a photograph of him.
Tuckey responded, in part: “When here you spoke of getting a pamphlet printed of your adventures of the Nor’ West Cape, and through not receiving a copy of that, it was with great surprise and pleasure that I received your letters.”
Charles Tuckey duly received a communication from the Austro-Hungarian Embassy, in London, stating: “The distinguished services you rendered in saving the lives of two of the men on the occasion of the wreck of the … barque, Stefano, have been reported to the Royal Hungarian Governor, Maritimo, and they have sent a gold watch to this Embassy to be forwarded to you, together with their best thanks as proof of their acknowledgement of the distinguished services rendered by you on that occasion … To ensure its reaching its proper destination safely, I take the precaution first to write to your address … and beg you will favour me with an answer affording me necessary directions as to where I should direct the aforesaid watch.”
The letter was signed by “Count de Montyder, Secretary of the Austro-Hungarian Embassy.”
In 1993 – 118 years after the Stefano tragedy – among the Croatian community of Carnarvon, in West Australia, a move was undertaken to have made a commemorative plaque in memory of the Stefano and her crew, to be installed on the beach, on Warroora Station, where, in 1875, fifteen of their countrymen were interred in unknown graves.
-B.J.C.
