The penny press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1859-1860, 1859-11-19
The Great Eastern in the Great Storm
The Little Western In a Norther.

SeS ~"s'Cih Al tuo STcat Storm
The Little Western In Norther.
A correspondent Of tho London Times
from Holyhead tells thrilling story of the
test the Great Eastern made of riding out the
tempestuous seas that drove into that harbor
in the latter part of October. 1t NAV be yery
well for the Thunderer to brag of what the biz
vessels can do, and do do,--that's what she
was built for-and vessels large NAV find IL
easy to "venture more" in the wide, wide sea-
but not easy to keep near shore. But to the
Ltnfe Western in a Norther. We have not
given our experience. One of the Penny Pres,
hrm, not "our Andy" has been to sea.
Inc steamer Ydzoo Planter, Captain Aaron
Fuller, on the 2Sd of July, 1872, left the
wharf of Cincinnati, bound for the Tobasco
River in Mexico; left New Orleans, August
70, and passed the shores of the United
States, at Southwest Pass on the 29th of Au-
gust. The little steamer, as fit for sea as
sugar trough for ferry over Maple Creek.
steamed 1t over serene sea from the mouth Of
the Mississippi to the coast of Sisal.
Inc little Cincinnati steamer, drawing, when
light, but thirty inches water, was q greater
novelty in the middle of the gulf than all the
Great Edsterns and Great Westerns that ever
mounted half dozen waves at once of the
Emerald Sea. The CLASSY quiet of the ocean
depths was soon disturbed; the adventurers of
the Pork City were to pass the ordeal of ter
ritc storm. Holyhead harbor may be good
scene for the display of the powers of the
Monarch Of the Trident ON big ships, but it
can't compare with the bar off Frontera for
.'northers"-that's the fearful word to chatac.
terlze storm on the Gulf. When Ossawoto-
mle's name Is mentioned on the banks of the
perilous Potomac, at Harper's Ferry, 1t does
not pale the cheeks of the first or last fami-
lies; does not create greater apprehension
among the citizen soldiers than the word
'norther" does to the greenhorns at sea in The
Mexican Gulf.
The Yasoo Planter had sea Captain to
direct the precious craft on the sea passage.
The "old salt" had never been on the decks
OF vessel so "fresh." He had rode on hulks
OF cavernous hold, and whose keels were if
teen teet under the water line, and when the
Yazoo Planter hove in sight of the mouth of
Tobasco River, Just before night fall of
Sabbath eve, September 4, the weather
wise sea Captain declared the vessel must not
attempt to cross the bar that night as
"norther" was coming up, and the steamer
could not cross the sandy line at tho mouth
OF the harbor without beating on the bar.
a tall, top-lottical sea Captain was not TO be
galnsaid by fresh-water navigators, who
knew that most of the coal having been
burnt, which was the only cargo of the
steamer, the little vessel would have gliied
lntp the longed-for haven without rubbing q
bafnacle from her uncoppered hull.
put cruel fate and Capt Levy had decreed
the fazoo Planter should anchor outside, and
outside she did anchor, and now comes the
record OF her gallant braving of the pitiless
storm. A faint streak of crape-like mourn
ing cloud painted the heavens about Vera
Cruz, and We had but scarce time to get out
anchors ahead and astern, when the " Old
Brown clouds, which in twinkling be-
came pitch dark, pitched with more than 0s-
saWatomle fury upon the devoted heads of the
Western country bush-whackers of Yazoo
River, and then came scene that the Thun-
derer's correspondent possesses not the 'ade-
quacy' TO describe. Lo, the poor Indian,
Lowe, the Montgomery County orator, nor
the London Times correspondent couldn't get
into the space OF three columns of the PENNY
PRESS, adequate outlines of the picture on
board said small steamer the aforesaid
Little Western, all the way from tho tranquil
waters of the Ohio; but there she is anchored
on the bar few miles distant from sheltered
haven, and on board worse scared company
of adventurers than now arc covering at
Charlestown. We need not say "that while
the gale lasted it equaled in violence any of
tho fercest channel storms that ever strowed
our coast with wrecks" that it was "dirty"
night; that it was wild and dark as pitch; that
tho roar of the storm through the rigging re-
minded one that its hoarseness might have
been nitigatsd by "Phillips's cough syrup"
but that thought might bave come and passed
away as rapidly as the CLEANS of Lightning.
But in tho uproar Of The hour, amid the crash
oficrockery, snspping Of hawsefs and breach
Of bulwarks by the dashing waves, there we're
as thoughtful, effective men at their posts,
though their faces were hlanched with fear,
and their hands tremulOus as they grasped the
throttle of the steam engine valve.
\ Sea captains might get Western steamboat
men in the trough of the sea, and shake the
life almost out of them, but it was reserved for
the desperate energy, historical learning of an
Engineer from Cincinnati, and one from tho
,coods about Maysville, Ky, to exemplify in
desperate emergencies the truth of an old
adage that peace can be secured by pouring oil
on the troubled waters. About two o'clock of
the morning, when human exertiops promised
failure, when hope from heaven was largely
at q discount, the two heads in the engine
room, as the vessel was heaving and batterin g
about in the brine of tho foaming sea, were
put as near together as the dashiug Of the
storm would allow them, and they ageeod to
stagger along to the lee side of the steamer,
and pour ten-galion can Of lard oil from the
door of the wheel-house on to the angry waves
beneath.
The can was emptied, and an ungrateful
shower-bAth was returned upon the good-inten-
toned but very much exposed engineers, who
were washed back into the engine-room. Not
minding the rebuff, this homeopathic dose was
not renewed, but an allopathic one of the
entire barrel of oil, obtained by US of Pollard,
Cincinnati-alas! poor Polard-who did not
long survive to make so useful and pacific
specific for allaying storms. The oil barrel in
the morning was empty, the storm had passed
over, and the writer had the great gratifca-
ton, on that beautiful Sunday morning, to
guido the vessel, as slick as grease, within the
harbor Of Frontera, and land at the hospita-
BILE house Of the American Consul.