ARRIVAL OF THE CORIOLANUS
Otago Daily Times February 28th 1880

A fully-rigged ship standing in from the southward was signalled from the Pilot Station, at Otago Heads, at daybreak on the 22nd of February. She proved to be the Coriolanus, from London, under charter to the New Zealand Shipping Company. She was taken in tow by the p.s. Koputai and crossed the bar at 9.20 a.m., anchoring off Deborah Bay at 10.30 a.m. Here she was met by the Customs authorities, and all being well on board, she was promptly cleared in. The Coriolanus is as handsome a ship as any that has yet visited us. Her lines are perfect; she has a clipper entrance and clean run aft, and with anything like the winds should be a very fast-sailing vessel. She carries very lofty spars, spreads a large quantity of canvas, and is in every respect a first-class ship. She was built in 1870 by Messrs M. Millan and Son of Dumbarton, for Messrs John Patton, jun., and Co., of London, and is now on her third voyage. The first trip she made was to Calcutta and back to London, and is said by her commander to have been the fastest ship on record, as, including a detention of six weeks in Calcutta, she made the voyage out and home in six months and ten days. From London she proceeded to Lyttelton and back, and thence loaded for Otago. She is commanded by Captain Cawse, and brings 39 passengers and 1700 tons of cargo, of which some 1200 tons is general and the remaining 500 dead-weight. Having been built for the East Indian trade she not possess very large accommodation, but what she has is extremely neat and elegant. The panelling is of birdseye maple and ebony, while there are comfortable settees, or loungers, covered with crimson velvet all round the saloon, which is lit by handsome sky-light filled in with painted glass of an artistic character; leading from the saloon is a vestibule on each side of which there are state-cabins very neatly fitted up. She has excellent accommodation in her 'tween-decks for second-class and steerage passengers, and is said to be a most comfortable vessel at sea. The passage from anchor to anchor has occupied 98 days, and, and from land to land 92 days, a very long one for so smart as the Coriolanus undoubtedly is, and which is set down to the fact of her getting no north-east trades, very light south-east trades, and little or no passage winds across the Southern Ocean. Indeed, Captain Cawse reports the voyage to have been more like a yachting trip than anything else, and asserts that an open boat could have come across safely. She left Gravesend on November 16th, 1879, at noon; anchored in the Downs, and left again at 3 p.m. on the 17th; had moderate north-east winds and thick weather down the Channel, and took her departure from Start Point at 1p.m. on November 19th; thence made a good run across the Bay of Biscay, and breasted the Canary Islands on November 28th; after this experienced light variable winds, and sighted San Antonio (Cape de Verde) on December 5th, getting no north-east trade winds; this kind of weather continued until she crossed the equator, in longitude 30 W., on December 21st, 35 days out. She took the S.E. trades on the equator; they were very light and fickle and soon gave out, and were followed by light variable winds and fine weather; she passed the island of Tristan d' Acunha on February 10th, 50 days out, and crossed the meridian of Greenwich on January 15th, in latitude 39 S., on the sixtieth day out, having experienced nothing but light winds since leaving the Canary Islands; thence she had light fair winds, and rounded the Cape of Good Hope on January 21st, in latitude 45 S., had light breezes from S S E. round to S.W., W., and N., with thick hazy weather, and passed to the northward of the Crozet's without sighting them on January 28th, was abreast of Kerguelen's Land on February 3rd, and passed the 80th meridian of the longitude on February 5th; thence she took what may be termed the passage winds, which set in freshly from west to north-west, and carried her across the meridian of Cape Leuwin on February 11th, on the eighty-seventh day out; still keeping westerly winds she passed the island of Tasmania on February 18th, and carried strong westerly winds and hazy weather up to the land; passed the Snares at 7 a.m. on the 21st, had strong winds and rainy weather along the coast, and arrived as above. She passed a ship standing to the N.E. off the Snares on the 21st of February. Neither ice nor wreckage was seen during the passage across the Southern Ocean and the easting was run down in the 7th parallel of south latitude.