Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1883-05-02
Death on the Ocean.

rom the LONDON IeleHraph.
terrible memorial OF the recent dreadful
loss OF the steamship Navarro was ished up
few days ago by smack, whose people found
In their trawl the bodies Of q man and woman
tied together. with their eyes bandaged Prob
ably the mysterious deep never yielded up
secret more shocklngly suggestive than these
corpses. whether the man and woman were q
married couple, OF sweethearts, or brother and
sister. we know not; but their bodies fastened
together in death. tell Q moving story Of devo-
ton. just as their bandAged eyes convey q most
pathetic picture OF resolution and anguish. In
the wreck Of the Cimbrfa 1t will be remembered
that the survivors spoke Of seeing some Of the
emigrants at the last moment cutting their
throats to shorten the final struggle. Most mar
fatlVes or disaster at sea contain passages of
TINS kind, telling how those who seemed Of a
shrinking and ti1nid nature when all was well
stood forth most noble and perfect types of
heroes when danger was supreme; how the
swasgerer, the bully, the tyrant proved an abb
jet cur, casting himself down upon the deck in
ms terror, alternately praying and shrieking 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 motioness upon the
sinking hull, going to their death like men lost
In thought
One of the most pathetic stories in the lam
guage is the account OF the loss Of the Kent
East Indaman by fire In 1925, for the reason
that q hundred particulars 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 ali
was uproar and horror On the deck, continued
TO play as usual with their toys in bed or to put
the most innocent and unreasonable questions
to those around them;" of a young military
officer removing from his writing desk lock of
hair, and placing it In his bosom, that he might
die with that sweet keepsake upOn his heart.
OF another writing q few lines to his father,
and enclosing it In O 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 1ruitless anxiety and sus-
pense which our melancholy fate would
awaken" 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 in
sensible or writhing in their terror upon the
decks; OF young girls praying calmly amid a
eollectedly with their eyes ON the set
ting sun, whose light they never hoped
to see again. II 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 II 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:
put the su1ierings she embodied seem to survive
yer, even IN 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 Wit
nesses from the bed of the ocean something of
the terror anu the resolution, the fear and the
courage. the wild despair and the passionate
eupplication to Heaven which made up the MIC
ture OF that as of all other wrecks Of similar
nature.