The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-08-06
THE WRESTLING BUOY.
ALONGSIDE OF A TERROR WHICH
FRIGHTENED Z SHIPS CREW

wanderings of WhisfIing Buoy Adrift
on the American Coast-A simple De-
vice for Warning sailors Against shoaI
Water-Cut Loose,
A painting in the photographic Office
represented a wild tumble Of breaking
waves, on which a big red buoy was rid
ing with a low stretch of treeless sand
dunes in the distance. When the hydro
graphic officer saw visitor looking at the
picture, he said:
Jack has always been a superstitious
mortal, but if, in the days when ocean
navigation was new, he happened TO bring
to alongside of terror which haunts the
ocean in these days he would have been
frightened quite to the verge of insanity,
if not to death.
A number of years ago the Spanish ship
St. Jago was trying to beat up to this
port, having been blown across the gulf
stream by cyclone that caught her when
she wasn't sixty miles from the capes.
There was light breeze that kept her
fairly steady over the long rollers, al
though the sails would occasionally shake
and roar when the vessel gave an unusual
plunge. 1t was soon after changing the
watch at midnight that one of the men
slipped aft and told the mate that some
thing was making queer noise little on
the lee bow. The mate had heard the
noise, and was ready to ascribe it to super
natural causes, because he could think of
no natural cause. The entire watch, eX-
cept the man at the wheel, gathered at the
rail forward and listened TO the increasing
sounds.
PARALYZED WITH TERROR.
To unaccustomed ears these sounds
were frightful enough, rising from muir
murs and sObs to unearthly shrieks, only
to die away again in the most mOurnful OF
walls. The mate kept his ship on its
course bravely for a time, but flesh and
blood could not stand it long, and he gave
the order to go about on the other tack,
hoping thereby to escape the terror. But
the men were paralyZed They let go
halliards instead of the braces, bowsed
down the fore tack and did other things
that might be expected of badly fright
ened crew of dagOes, until the crash of
one of the upper yards was added TO the
bowling of the monster that was appar
emily all the time approaching them. This
brought the captain on deck, where, find
ing the sails shaking, he concluded that
the trouble was due to a shift of wind,
and ordered the wheel put hard up. The
vessel had not lost Roadway, and she inn
mediately wore round, bringing the I'M
know terror dead ahead.
"Soon after this was done there came
the thump of d collision of the ship with
some solid substance, producing an awful
yell that ended in a gurgle just under the
bows The teeth of the captain himself
chartered, but the screams ended with the
collision. By daylight the wreckage had
been cleared away aIOft, and only the
memory of a very bad scarce remained to
the crew. When the ship reached port
the captain related his story to his con-
signees, who at once reported the matter
to me- l then entered in my log the state
ment that on certain date the ship st.
Jago had passed, whistling buoy adrift,
but had probably carried away the
whistle by colliding with it.