The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-02 00:00:00

ARRIVAL OF THE BORUSSIA..

SOUTHAMPTON, Feb. 2.—The Hamburg and American
Company's steamship Borussia, from Now York on the 20th
tilt., has arrived hero. She brings\6 passengers for this
port, Havre, and Bremen ; $151,135 for England and
$137,500 for France.

On the evening of the 20th the Borussia spoke the
steamers City of New York and the Hansa.
Her news has been fully anticipated.

Adventure on the Niagara Biver.

(Front the Buffalo Express, Jan. IG.)

- -
We have to recount this morning one of the most fearful
and extraordinary stories of perilous adventure, death, and
suffering that it has ever been our lot to make public-
Of the three actors and sufferers in it, one is a prominent
and widely-known gentleman of this city, Mr. William A.
Thompson, the proprietor, and now vice president of the
new Erie and Niagara Railroad, running from Fort Erie to
Niagara. We have obtained the particulars of our story
from the lips of Mr. Thompson, who survives to relate such
an experience as few men in the world have passed through.
It seems that on Saturday afternoon the quantity of ice
passing pown the river from the lake caused the ferryboat
plying between Black Rock and Fort Erie to suspend her
trips. Mr. Thompson, who was on the other side and de-
sired to cross to this, accepted the offer of a coloured boy,
Wm. Bartlett, to row him across in a small boat, not realis-
ing at the moment the difficulty of the passage occasioned
by the movement of the ice. Subsequently he was joined
in the trip by a man named Warren, foreman under the
contractors of the Elie and Niagara Railroad, who was
very anxious to reach this side in time to take the 6 p.m.
train to Suspension-bridge, going home to his family at
Prescott, C.W. On reaching the river side, Mr. Thompson
saw the hazards of the attempt at crossing, and would have
receded, but Mr. Warren pressed him to go on, and he was
prevailed upon by his companion's anxieties.
About half-past 5 o'clock the three pushed out into the
stream. They found much difficulty in making their way
through the ice which ran close to shore, and again Mr.
Thompson advised a return. But presently getting through
the shore pack of ice they found clear water, and went for-
ward confidently, meeting no obstacles until they again
neared the shore on the American side, near the Erie Mills,
when the ice pressed upon them thicker than in the first
instance. Mr. Thompson then gave an imperative order to
the boy to back away and return, but it was too late. They
had entered so far that return was impossible. They were
caught by the ice, wedged fast between its grinding cakes,
and could go neither forward nor back. Another moment
and it had crushed the sides of their beat, so that it began
to fill rapidly and sink.
The throe immediately leaped out upon a cake of ice
nearest at hand, which proved to be but a small one,
scarcely larger than a door, and drew the boat partly upon
it after them. Their hope was in being able to turn the
craft bottom up and mount its keel, in which position they
might be floated by it, but the mass was not large enough
to permit such an operation. Mr. Thompson then at-
tempted to bale out the boat with his cap ; but while doing
so the boy Bartlett cried out that the ice was upon them
again, and they had barely time to throw themselves into
the half-filled boat when the piece upon which they had
stood was crushed by another mass coming down upon it. An
instant more and the boat was also struck, turned bottom
upwards, and Mr. Thompson and Mr. Warren plunged into
the water. The negro boy succeeded in leaping upon an
ice cake. Mr. Thompson sank once and came up, when he
clutched the boat, made his way to the stern, and climbed
upon the keel. Here he saw his companion Warren sink-
ing for the last time, a short di§tance away, and drowning
before his eyes, while he was utterly powerless to help.
He had scarcely witnessed this when death rushed upon
him again. The boat was once more struck and rolled over.
Again he sunk, and again, on rising, he clutched the boat,
which again had righted itself. Climbing into its stern,
which sank with his weight two or three feet below the
surface, he sat for a time with the water to his chin.

By this time it had long grown dark. He could see but
little about him. Presently, a cake of ice drifting down upon
him, he put out his hand to ward it away, and feeling it to
be several inches thick and apparently of some size, he con-
cluded it best to escape, if possible, from the boat to the
ice. He very nearly failed in doing so, barely getting his
breast upon the cake when he sprang from the boat, and
finding it impossible to lift his body from that position.
Providentially, however, the boat in rising just touched his
foot and gave him a slight push forward, after which he was
enabled, by long and exhausted efforts, to crawl upon the
cake. Here he stood upright, and not knowing the size of
the ice raft dared not move. Hailing the boy Bartlett, he
found him still afloat on his bit of ice, 100 or 200 yards
away, loudly engaged in frantic prayer.
And now began the wonderful voyage of the river through
the darkness and the storm of freezing sleet which fell upon
their frail rafts of ice. Those who were out that Saturday
evening will remember what a bitter night it was. A fierce
rain, driven by keen north winds, stung the face of the tra-
veller, and cased everything exposed with a quick mail of
ice. To all this pelting storm these wet and exhausted cast-
aways, drifting along the cold waters of the Niagara, with
the horrid dread of imminent death to freeze their hearts
within them, were exposed for three mortal hours. Mr.
Thompson had lost both cap and gloves. His clothing was
frozen into the rigidity of iron armour, and he became in-
capable of motion, except as he lightly swung his arms to
keep thorn flexible. All that he could do for himself was to
shout and cry for help, which he steadily did, and with the
whole strength of his lungs, for hours. Fortunately pos-
sessed of a magnificent physique in every respect, his voice
was capable of exertion. Once, somewhere in the vici-
nity of Lower Black Rock, he received a response from
shore, but to his appeal for rescue the voice, out of the
darkness, replied that it had no ears and could do nothing.
The miserable fool, or worse, who heard and hailed, seems
to have made no effort to rouse his neighbourhood and set
its energies to work for the rescue of the perilled men who
appealed to him. And so they drifted on beyond Black
Rock, beyond Strawberry Island, past the head of Grand
Island, and steadily onward to those currents of the great
cataract where no hand could save them. Steadily the cry
for help rang out across the water and through the black
night, and no ear heard and no tongue answered. Three
hours had passed—seven miles of the river traversed—it
was 9 o'clock of the night. Hope began to die in the heart
of Mr. Thompson. He called to his companion, the negro
boy, and gave him a message for his wife and children, if
it should be his lot to escape. His thoughts, as he describes
them,were very quaint and curious. They were too busy to
give an opportunity for fear, and death was faced calml
and Coolly.

And so they drifted steadily down, between Grand Island
and the American shore, until Tonawanda was passed, and
the last houses upon either shore from which help could
come before help should be too late were going by. But
there, at the last, by the good providence of God, help did
come. The shouts were heard on the Grand Island shore.
Lights began to move from house to house. The neigh-
bours were running together. Presently the gleam of a
lantern moved upon the river, and they knew that boats
were coming out.

Mr. Thompson, when reached, had to be rolled into the
boat like a log. He was taken off by Mr. Chas. Poplar and
Mr. George Glide. Another boat, manned by Mr. Wm.
W. Blackney and Mr. John A. Bacon, rescued the boy
Bartlett. The boy, being thinly clad, had nearly perished
when taken off; but Mr. Thompson, a man of large, robust
frame and great vitality, felt himself capable of enduring an
hour or two more of the bitter trial. Astonishing to say,
neither was severely frozen, and Mr. Thompson, whom
we saw yesterday, appears little the worse for his extraor-
dinary experience.

Mr. Warren, who was drowned, was an elderly man of
about 56 years of age. He resided at Prescott, 0.W., where
we understand he leaves a family.

THE ALABAMA AND THE KEARSAGE.—" I thought
you had been in the Confederate navy ?" " I was,"
said Aleck. "I was with Semmes everywhere he went; I
was in the naval brigade and blockade running, and on the
Alabama all the while he commanded her." "But not
when she sank, I suppose ?" I rejoined. " Well, I was,
and was picked up with him by the Deerhound." "It was
a pretty sharp fight, wasn't it ?" I suggestingly asked.
"It was that," replied Aleck, but he didn't care about en-
larging. "I suppose it was the eleven-inch shells that
did her business ?" "Oh no," said he, coming to a kind
of confessional, "we never had any chance ; we had no
gunners to compare to the Kearsarge's. Our gunners
fired by routine, and when they had the gun loaded fired
it off blind. They never changed the elevation of
their guns all the fight, and the Kearsarge was working
up to us all the while, taking advantage of every time
she was hid by smoke to work a little nearer, and then her
gunners took aim for every shot." "Then, it isn't true
that the Alabama tried to board the Kearsarge ?"
"No, sir, she did her best to get away from her
from the time the fight commenced. We knew well
that if we got in range of her Dahlgren howitzers she
would sink us in ten minutes." " But," I asked, " don't
you believe that Semmes supposed he would whip
the Kearsarge when he went out to fight her ?"
"No ; he was bullied into it, and took good care to
leave all his valuables on shore, and had a life-pre-
server on throughout the fight. I saw him put it on, and 1
thought if it was wise in him it wouldn't be foolish in me,
and I put one on too. When Semmes saw that the ship
was going down, he told us all to swim who could, and
was one of the first to jump into the water, and we all made
for the Deerhound. I was a long way ahead of Semmes,
and when I came up to the Deerhound's boat they asked
me if 1 was Semmes before they would take me in. I said
i wasn't, and then they asked me what I was on the Ala-
bama. Said No matter what I was on the Alabama, I
shall be a dead man soon if you don't take me in.' They
asked me again if I was an officer or a seaman, and wouldn't
take me in until I told them that I was an officer." "But,"
said I, " did they actually refuse to pick up common sea-
men, and leave them to drown ?" " They did that," replied
ho wrathfully, and probably not very correctly ; " and as
soon as they had Semmes on board they made tracks as
fast as they knew how, and left everybedy else to drown
or be picked up by the Kearsage."—Cornitlll Magazine for
February.