Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1881-09-22
A Rescue at Sea.

hours low barometer had given warn
ing of coming gale. The breeze was
fresh on the port quarter, with long
following sea, over which, under the
impulse of propeller and canvas, the
beautifully moulded hull of the great
steamship rushed like a locomotive,
raising roar of thunder ut her bows
and carving out the green, glass-clear
water with her stern into two oil-smooth
combers, which broke just abaft the
fore-rigging and rushed with q swirl
and brilliance of foam to join the long,
ghttering snow-ine of the wake astern
There was a piebald sky, the blue in 1t
tarnished and faint, and under it, like IA
scattering of brown smoke, the scud
went floating swiftly. In the south and
west the aspect of the heavens was
portentous enough, with leaden dead
ness of color and a line of horizon as
sharply marked as a ruling in ink The
gale was evidently to come from this
quarter and, sure enough, before eight
bells III the afternoon watch, it was
blowing "A hurricane from the S. S. w.
The fury Of the wind raised tremen-
dous sea. The Parthia ran for time !;
but running is not the remedy pre-
scrbed TO captains who are caught in a
circular storm and shortly after o'clock
the helm of the steamer was put down
and her head pointed to the seas. The
passengers were below, considerably
battened down by order of Captain
McKaye, tie commander of the vessel.
so that they should not be washed over
board or drowned i'll the cabins, for now
that the steamers bow was pointed at
the sea, she was one smother of froth
from the eyes to the rudder- head. Her
curtseying might have looked graceful
at distance, but it was tremendous
experience to those who had to keep
time to her dance. Every now and
again she would dish" a whole green
sea forward-taking it in just as you
would dip pail into water-a sea that
Immediately turned the decks into
small raging ocean as high as a mans
waist As she rolled she shattered the
furious tide against her bulwarks, where
it broke into smoke and was swept away
in clouds, like volumes of steam, for a
whole cabin-length astern. The grind
ing and straining of the hull, the
hollow, muffled, vihratory note Of the
engines, the booming of the mighty
surges against the resonant fabric, the
screaming of the wind through the iron
stiff, standing-rgging, and the enduring
thunder of the tempest hurtling through
the sky, completed to the ear the tre-
mendous scene of warfare submitted to
the eye In the picture of black heavens
and white waters, and struggling,
smothered, goaded ship
The Parthia lay hove to for six hours.
At 10 o'clock at night the gale broke,
the wind sensibly moderated, the
steamer was brought to her course and
went rolling heavily over the immense
and powerful sea swell which the cyclone
had left behind it. Sunday morning
came with benediction in the shape of
a warm, bright sun. But the swell was
still exceedingly heavy. 1t was shortly
after two bells g o'clock when the
lookout man reported vessel away on
the lee bow, apparently hull down. As
she was gradually hove up by the ap-
proach of the Parthia, those who had
sailors eyes in their heads perceived
that she was vessel in distress, and
that if any human beings were aboard
of her their plight would be miserable.
She was water-logged, and SO low in the
water that she buried her bulwarks with
every roll. She had all three masts
standing, but her yards we've boxed
about anyhow, her running rigging in
bights, with ends of it trailing over
board. Her canvas was rudely furled,
but she had fragment of foretop-mast
staysail hoisted, as we'll as a storm
staysail, and she looked to be hove to.
Her aspect, had she been encountered
as derelict, was mournful enough to
have set sailor musing for an hour !;
but when it was discovered that there
were living people on her she took an
extraordinary and trsgical significance.
No colors were hoisted to express her
condition; but then no colors were
needful. Her story wanted no better
telling than was found in the suggestion
of the small crowd of human heads ON
her deck watching the Parthia in the
dull and steady lifting of the dark vol
umes of water against her sides, in the
gushing of clear cascades from her
scupper-holes as she leaned weaIily
over to the fold of the tall swell that
threatened to overwhelm her, and in
the sluggish waving of her naked spars
under the sky. Twenty-Five people
could be counted aboard of her. All
these had to be saved, but it was very
well understood by every man belonging
to the Parthia that they could only be
saved at the risk of the lives of tie
boats crew that should put off for them
the swell was still violent to an extent
beyond anything that can be conveyed
in words. AS the Parthia, with her