The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1881-03-17
A.Terrlble Tale Of theaSea.

If line be drawn from Manhattan
Beach to Rockaway, Long Island, N. Y,
it will cut fringe of shoals visible only
at low tide. This fringe, broken here
and there by masses of dangerous rock,
has made the foreground for more than
one marine painting of note, and has
been tue grave of more than one gallant
ship; but there lives in memory no such
casualty as that which has just occurred
there; no scene of shipwreck, indeed,
either or this spot or any other, of 80
strange and tragic horror. .
The Italian bark Ajacc was wrecked
on Rockaway Shoals Friday morning,
and one man alone of all her crew of
fifteen souls were saved. In the fearful
gale of Thursday night the vessel, which
had come from Italy by way of Antwerp,
WAS driven on the coast of New Jersey
but by good fortune and skilful handling
she was got off, By 10 o'clock on Friday
morning, however, she again struck,,this
time on Rockaway Shoals. She broke in
two at once like pipe stem. A sea of
tremendous force was running, and al
.,,ieugh the crew were at first able to sus-
tain themselves by clinging to the wreck
which had found lodgment, the waves
constantly rose higher with the tide and
swept over them with ever-increasing
fury. The unhappy men could see no
land, 30 full was the air of vapor and
flying water. Their position seemed
to them hopeless. Death to their eyes
was in short time inevitable; the agony
Of awaiting him WAS too great to bear;
and the terrible notion came into the
head of the carpenter to anticipate his
approach. ,''i
This poor fellow cried out, in Italian,
GAS must die; I prefer to die this way"
and he whipped his sailors knife from
the lanyard and slashed it across his
throat. A moment after he fell into the
sea. Then three of his companions did
precisely the same thing. Each cut his
throat and pitched headlong after into
the seething waves. The ten men who
we're left-it is the one survivor who tells
the story-become, in their despair, like
maniacs. They raved, cursed and prayed
by turns. "Drink drink!" cried the.
captain, "for we all must die" He gave
them whiskey and all drank their fill.
Scarcely had the last man done so when
wave huger and more furious than any
that had gone before came crushing
down on the after part of the fated ship
to which the crew were clinging, and all
who remained of the living freight of the
Ajact were swept into oblivion.
fhnf 10 n t,h y1o n
is Pietro Sala, and who, wonderful to
tell, has lived to tell the story. Sala
managed to keep his grip on fragment
of the ships cabin at tue moment of the
final catastrophe. Just before rhis the
wreck had been deserted from the life
saving station whose headquarters are
near the Oriental Hotel. In trice
Capt. Bebensee and six brave oarsmen
were in lifeboat and making superb
struggle to force her through the Chamber
ing surf. Twenty times the boat disap-.
peared from the sight of the straining
eyes that were watching it from the shore.
It was in the hollows of the waves. The
sea poured over tho rowers in torrents,
and as they pulled they were up to their
waist in water. But they made their
way to the shoals in safety. They brought
Pietro Sala in safety to the shore. And
had his shipmates held out they would
have been rescued also.
There were many wrecks on this Fri
day mornings fatally dismal in SOME
places, so ojoyous and memorable in others
along the coast, but none attended by
events so frightful as this. In truth, We
recall in none of the published annals
of "Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea"
an episode more terrible and more inn
pressive than the self.slaughter in the
agony of ftheir despair Of the crew of the
Ajacc. The tale is still furthur note
worthy in that it exemplifes with strik-
ing force the wisdom in all perilous sit
uations of holding out to the last, and
proves with an eloquence which words
alone can never bear that while there is
life there is hope.