Hi Mariners, Thanks to Mick, MargM, Adi and Ted for their responses to my query about the Hindustan - much appreciated! The suggestion to search TROVE (an online archive of newspapers in Australia) has been extremely productive. I've been able to track the Hindustan's movements from the time she first entered Australian waters (Adelaide) in late 1896 with a load of sugar from Mauritius, to the time she finally left in June 1898. In between times she worked along the southern coast of Australia with repeated voyages between Sydney, Newcastle, Melbourne, Adelaide and Fremantle. She was in the wars along the way - slipped her mooring in the Yarra River during a gale in Nov 1897 and collided with another ship, causing considerable damage to both, and then ran aground soon after (Jan 1898) in Fremantle harbor. Australian newspaper shipping records have her departing Fremantle (Western Australia) for Java and Singapore on 18 June 1898, and the Singapore press has her arriving on 8 July. She departed Singapore for Karachi on 9 July 1898, which dovetails very nicely with Mick's intel that she left Karachi in August 1898. There is no further mention of her in the Singapore or Australian shipping press, and Mick's searches suggests she spent most of 1899 on the other side of the world. The key point here is that at the time she was supposed have visited Christmas Island and introduced those rats (Dec 1899), the available evidence suggests she was half a world away. The date of Dec 1899 comes from a Captain Vincent, who was manager of mining operations on the island at the time. It seems he got his date, or the name of the ship, wrong. Accepting it was the Hindustan, when did she visit the island? Christmas Island is on the route between Fremantle and Java/Singapore, and two dates are possible. 1. Newspaper accounts suggest the Hindustan sailed between Fremantle and Java in Dec 1897/Jan 1898, returning to Fremantle in late Jan 1898, or 2. on the run in June 1898 that ultimately took her to Karachi (above) and on to South Africa and London. I like the earlier date better, for no other reason that the month (Dec) matches with Captain Vincent's timing - maybe the good Captain recalled the month correctly, but not the year. One final piece of evidence. Many of the earliest records of mining on Christmas Island are archived in Melbourne, and somewhat amazingly, last week I located a photograph of the SS Hindustan berthed at Christmas Island. Unfortunately the photograph I saw is a copy of the original. It has the ship's name, but no date. I'm hoping to locate the original, and flip it over to find date written on the back. Thanks again for the help, Pete Dr Pete Green Department of Botany | La Trobe University | Bundoora VIC 3086 T: 03 9479 3675| F: 03 9479 1188| W: www.latrobe.edu.au<http://www.latrobe.edu.au/> La Trobe University - ranked top in Victoria for student satisfaction (Sweeney Uni Student Report, 2009) CRICOS Provider 00115M J Please kindly consider your environment before printing this e-mail Warning to recipients: This email and any attachments are confidential and subject to copyright. If you are not the intended recipient any use, disclosure or copying is unauthorised. If you have received this email in error please advise us immediately by reply email and delete all copies. It is your responsibility to examine this email and any attachments for viruses. Any personal information in this email must be handled in accordance with the Information Privacy Act 2000 (Vic).