St. Paul daily globe., 1888-08-18

Sa.u He WCulQ IurnlSn all the QetaliS III
ms ms power. II was in my bed"
san; sald the captain, ION the morn
ing of the 14th. The second
officer relieved the first officer
on the bridge at o'clock in the morn
ing. About 4:30 l was awakened Dy.
nearing the second officer shout out
Fort helm.' A moment later the tele-
graph bell rang to reverse engines. l
Jumped out of bed and rushed on deck
In my nghtclOthes. just as l arrived
Oh deck
THERE WAS A TREMENDOUS CRASH.
I'VE had collided with a large steamer,
and struck her amidships just below the
mainmaSt. For moment all was con-
fusion. and there were loud shrieks
from the people on both ships.
l Immediately ran aft and ordered
my crew to prepare boats for
the bridge we had disentangled our
ON the bridge the second officer of the
vessel we had collided with. From him
learned that she was our sister ship,
the Geiser, Capt. Muller. The Thing
valla had cut into the Geiser clean to
the mates stateroom. That officer was
asleep at the time. He rolled out of his
bunk and grasped the chains of our
anchor. My first duty was to look after
my ship and quiet nay passengers. This
l did. Daylight was just breaking and
there was no fog, but
IT WAS HAZY
and there was slight shower of rain.
went forward to see what damage we
had sustained and set the pumps in
working order. Very shortly after the
collision the GeiSer sank, | cannot tell
lAnp hr1t tor
minutes" ''How many boats had YOU
launched by that time?' Zone of our
boats was atioat when she went down."
How long did it take you to launch
that boat?" II can't say. 1t NAV have
been three, four or five minutes. You
know that in such fearful crisis as we
were passing through minutes seemed
like hours" Had the Geiser any
boats out?" She had three, so l heard
afterward, but they were all capsized
by the suction. The Geiser seemed to
break in twain and
WENT DOWN STERN FIRST
with fearful suction. Her boats were,
doubtless, all capsized by the suction.
The scenes at that moment were inde-
scribable. Ihave read thrilling romances
of great disasters at sea, but nothing 1
ever read can compare for a moment
with the reality. Above the gurgling
noise of the suction rose the shrieks of
$50 drowning men and women. Oh, it
was terrible! can hear their dying
shouts at this moment and shall never
forget the scene to my dying day; but it
only lasted two minutes. The widest
cries for life began as the Geiser began
to sink: Her living freight was drawn
down by her and the last cries died
away as she disappeared from view.
The final scene only lasted two minutes.
THEN THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH
was succeeded by an appalling silence"
''What were your boats doing all this
timer" ''By the time the four boats
were launched and the passengers and
crew OF the ill-fated ship came to the
surface we picked them up until fifteen
of them were rescued and taken aboard
the Thingvalla. We provided them
with clothes and hot drinks. They
were mostly all in their night clothes
and many of them were exhausted.
Meanwhile our boats were still cruising
among the wreckage in the hope of saw
ing even one more human life, but the
rest had all been drowned. We only
found the floating corpse of one woman.
Our own passengers and crew behaved
well. Some of the
SURVIVORS HAD THRILLING ESCAPES.
The first, second third engineers were
all together on a life raft, The third
engineer had his arm broken during
the collision, yet the first two men were
lost and the disabled man Saved.n