The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-06-01
Death on the Ocean.

A terrible memorial OF the recent
dreadful loss of the steamship Navarro
was fished up few days ago by q
smack. whose people found in their
trawl the bodies of a man and woman
tied together. with their eyes bandaged.
Probably the mysterious deep never
Welded up a secret more shockingly
suggestive than these corpses. Whether
! the man and woman were a married
couple. or sweethearts. or brother and
sister, we know not; but their bodies,
fastened together in death. tell a NOV
ing story of idevotiony just as their
bandaged eyes convey 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 mar
ratives of disaster at sea contain pas
sages of this kind. telling how those
who seemed of shrinking and timid
nature when all was well stood forth
most noble and perfect types of heroes
when danger was supreme; how the
swaggerer, the bully, the tyrant proved
an abject cur, casting himself down up
on the deck in his terror. alternately
oraying 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 mo-
tionless upon the sinking hull, going to
their death like men lost at 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 par
ticulars 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 up
roar and horror on deck. continued to
play as usual with their toys in bed, or
to put the most innocent and unreason-
able 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 a
few lines to his father and inclosing it
in a bottle, '.in the hope that it might
eventually reach its destination, with
the view, as he stated. of relieving him
from the long years of fruitless anxiety
and suspense which our melancholy fate
would awaken of the older soldiers
and sailors seating themselves over the
fore-hatch under which was the maya
zine. so that they might be instantly de-
stroyed when the powder caught fire:
of towards drinking themselves insen-
sible or writhing in their terror upon
the decks; of young girls praying calmly
amid kneeling crowd; of brave men
standing collectedly with their eyes
on the setting sun, whose light they
never hoped to see again. 1t is
wonderful and thrilling picture, and
how often has it been repeated 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 embodied seem to sur
vive yet. even in her dead, when we
hear of those two corpses tied together
coming to the surface, with their eyes
blindfolded. and when We endeavOr to
realize by those devoted silent witnesses
from the bed of the ocean something OF
the terror and the resolution, the fear
and the courage. the wild despair and
the passionate supplicatiOn to Heaven
which made up the picture of that as
of all other wrecks of similar nature.
London YeIeGrnph. -----.---