Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-04-23

World. The narrator is doubtless descendant
or an admirer Of the late Baron Munchausen:
MELBOURNE, Australia, March 1.-One day
last week there arrived at this city the ship
Althea, which, during the past three years, had
been cruising about in many waters in the At
lantic, Pacific, Southern and Indian oceans. Her
original crew had been forty-ive men, but she
came to this port with only twenty-eight. Of
the original number seventeen had died. She
is owned in Australia by the house of Messrs.
Allen & Bros, by whom she was sent out on an
experimental voyage TO traffic with natives in
various places and for other business purposes.
The captain of the Atnea is a man Of fifty years
of age or Whereabouts, and a tine specimen of
the skipper, with full round face, lined with a
red beard, and with the eyes Of a lion. At pres
ent he is the very picture Of health, and certain
ly, to sec his manly bearing and honest ways,
no one would dream that he would wilfully spin
sailors yarn for the sake of getting people TO
believe lie; and, so far as outward appearance
goes, 1t would take great practitioner Of pSy-
Geological medicine to detect any marks of in
sanity about him. Yet Captain Arlington (for
such is his name) tells strange story, and one
worth hearing. therefore send you an ac-
count of it, thinking that 1t may interest your
readers.
The only part of this narrative which is of i'm
mediate interest to the public is the account of
what took place during the last nine months
during part of which the Althea was in the In
dian and Southern oceans, and to this alone at
sci was near Madagascar, and, in doubling Cape
st, Mary, the southernmOSt point of the island
the watch suddenly noticed what seemed dense
black cloud hovenng in the air and apparently
making directly for the ship In anticipation of
a gale, such as is common in the Indian ocean
the sails were instantly furled and all things
made ready for the Storm But the cloud came
on steadily preceded by deafening din, and in
about twenty minutes it dissolved into perfect
rain of swarming flies, which settled down upon
the ship, where they were packed as denSely
upon each other as were the pigeons in South
America, which Audubon describes. They bit
and stung and buZzed till the men were almost
crazed but all hands were instantly piped to
clean the decks and shovel the plague into the
sea.
They worked for three hours, slashing and
and MASKING and hammering the flies; but so
great was the weight added to the ship that she
was still in danger of laundering, when, luckily
for them, a mighty wind swept down from the
Red mountains and blew the pests all away.
The sailors, who did not know what TO make of
the affair, and were growing superstitious
about it, wished instantly to leave the track
they were pursuing, and which was toward the
mouth of Sofala river in Mozambique; bnt the
captain refused to accede to their request For
days they proceeded on their path across Mo
ZambiQue channel, seeing no more of the flies
until they were within about four days sail of
SOlaa, when for whole day their keel ran
through miles of the rotting carcasses of these
lDSeclS, WHICH UlIe0 tlle air with a horrible and
loathsome STENCIL Eight of the men were
taken Sick and five of them died. their corpses
being covered with pustules somewhat resam-
bling those of smallpox, but looking more ma
iignant, while acknowledgment ichor distilled
from them even in DEATH The men were on
the verge of mutiny, hut there was nothing for
them to do but sail on, for now they had come
TO clear water, and evidently it won Id
not do to sail over the course
again. At last they reached Sofala, the inhab-
itants of which they found suffering from a
loathSome and most malignant type of small
poX, which had long ragged in the Interior and
which the physicians held had been propagated
by enormous swarmS of flies which had been
bred and propagated in the unburied and
rotting carcases of victims which lay broiling in
the sun in that vast and almost unknown in
terror. They held, too, that not only did the
flies themselves reek with the virus, but that
when they settled on victim their puvilli, |
which are beset with numerous hairs, and act |
as suckers, sucked up the virus, and then who |
ever they. afterwards settled upon was inocu-
lated. The Althea sailed away, all of its crew |
being reduced to the extremity of fear, although
none of them at the time were taken down with |
the disease; for on the sickness of the eight
men, five of whom had already died, and the |
other three of whom soon followed the surgeon |
had vaccinated them all. Thus far Capt Ar
ingtOn's story had seemed horrible enough,
yet it might be true; but for that which followed
| was wholly unprepared, and think that the
captain must have gone mad. The Althea
sailed away northward towards the Comoro
Islands, every day or two running through Law
ers of the rOtting flies; the crew again became
sick and half crazy, and were reduced almost to
skeletons; half Of them only were made to do
duty for ten hours at a time, while the rest were
confined in the disinfected hold, where the sur
geon, by means of some chemicals made them
breathe air surcharged with oxygen, under the
influence of which they came to sleep well and
eat well, nut their nervous systems deerorated
and they became more and more insane For
some reason or other the Comoro islands seem To |
be free from this peStilence, and here the crew |
remained for three weeks, during which time |
they were greatly recuperated. Then they de- |
termined at last to get away from the horror MS |
soon as possible and set about to return home /
wards. But they went back to Madagascar, stop |
ping midway between Cape Ambro and ST. |
Andrew. Here the trees and shrubbery for GREAT |
areas were covered and absolutely weighed |
down with enormous black flies, some of which |
were as large as humble bees, and occasionally |
vast clouds of them would whiz through the air |
and, going down to the shore, would settle on |
the ship What they lived on was the mystery. |
Tor already they had stripped the trees of leaves
Sometimes limb loaded with them would fall |
and crush myriads of them to death, and the |
ground was covered with dense black masses of |
their deCaying bodies, which festered there and |
filled the air with the most loathsome stencil. |
One realized what the plague of flies which once |
afflicted Egypt must have been. They intended |
to SET sail, but the wind came up blowing with |
almost hurricane violence from the west and |
they found it utterly impossible to leave the |
place; but the wind relieved them from the |
urgent necessity of doing so, for as they were |
on the west side of the island the wind blowing |
away towards the east, blew the stencil and the |
flies Off towards the mountains. Here six men |
were taken i'll but with no smau-pox |
symptoms, their malady being of an |
intensely enervating nature, and maxine |
them nervous and eXeitable to a degree. Four
of them became insane and jumped overheard. |
After the gale had continued for a week its VIC.
lence abated, and as the pure air had done much |
to recuperate the men, their despair gave way |
to hope. They set sail towards the north. and |
were driven by gale up towards the Sevchette
islands, where they finally got rid of the plague
and after much stress of weather finally reached |
Melbourne, five more of the men having died on
the passage. The captain himself was i'll, but
soon recovered, and this is the tale he tells.
What seems to me the most dreadful suggestion
in it is that small pox and other diseases of a
contagious nature may be propagated by flies,
against which insect there seems to be no pro.
lection. They deyour all manner of filth and
diseased bodies, the particles of which stick
within their hooked feet, by which they NAV he
inserted in the human flesh The enormous
quantities of them which are spoken of need
not be incredible to him who believes the bibli-
cal account of the plague Of flies in Egypt in
the uaSs Vi Moses' MD.