The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1883-06-07
Death on the Ocean.

A terrible memorial of the recent
dreadful loss of the steamship Navarro
was fshed up few days ago by smack,
whose people found in their trawl the
bodies of man and woman tied together,
with their eyes bandaged. Probably the
mysterious deep never yielded up Sc
cret more shockingly suggestive than
these corpses. Whether the man and
woman we're q married couple, or sweet
hearts, or brother and sister, we know
not; but their bodies, fastened together
in death, tell q moving story of devotion,
just as their bandaged eyes convey 9
most pathetic picture of resolution and
anguish. In the wreck of the Cimbria
it will be remembered that the survivors
spoke of seeing some of the emigrants at
the last moment cutting their threats to
shorten the final struggle. Most nara
tives Ut disaster ct sea contain passages
of this kind, telling how those who
seemed of shrinking and timid nature
when all was we'll stood forth most noble
and perfect types of heroes when danger
was supreme; how the swagger. the
bully, the tyrant proved an abject cur,
casting himself down upon the deck in
his terror, alternately praying and Shrek
ing in the agony of his fear; how some,
unable to await the approach of the last
moment, destroyed themselves, while
others, with folded arms and contracted
brows, stood motionless upon the sinking
hull, going to their death like men lost
in thought.
One of the most pathetic stories in the
language is the account of the loss of the
Kent East Indiaman by fire in 1925, for
the reason that hundred partiulars are
introduced by the writer relating to the
behavior of the people when all hope was
abandoned and death seemed inevitable.
We read of the little children who, when
the flames had mastered the ship, and all
was uproar and horror on the deck, ICON.
tinued to play with their toys in bed, or
to put the most innocent and unseasona-
BILE questions to those around them" OF
young military officer removing from
ing it in his bosom, that he might die
with that sweet keepsake upon his heart;
of another writing few lines to his
father and enclosing it in bottle, sin
the hope that it might eventually reach
it's destination, with the view, as he
stated, OF relieving him from the long
years Of fruitless anxiety and suspense
which our melancholy fate would swak-
en- of the older soldiers and sailors
seating themselves over the fore hatch
under which was the magazine, so that
they might be instantly destroyed when
the powder caught fire; OF towards
drinking themselves insensible, or with
ing in their terror upon the decks; OF
young girls praying calmly amid kneel.
ing crowd; of brave men standing col
lectedly with their eyes on the setting
sun, whose light they never hoped to zee
again. It is wonderful and thrilling
picture, and how often has it been re-
peated since in other ways and amid
other seas! The last is not, indeed, the
worst, but it is among the worst. The
Navarro is but one of scores of ships
which have gone to their doom Offering,
before they took the final plunge, the
most dreadful of all pictures OF human
anguish; but the sufferings she embod-
led seem to survive yet, even among her
dead, when We hear OF those two corpses
tied together coming to the surface, with
their eyes blindfolded, and when we en-
deavor to realize by those devoted silent
witnesses from the bed of the ocean
something Of the terror and the resolu.
ton, the fear and the courage, the wild
despair and the passionate supplication
to Heaven which made up the picture of
that Is of all other wrecks of q similar
nature.-London Telegraph.
Brave Dams Dead.