Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1889-05-03
Three Marine Mysteries.

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Three Marine Mysteries.
lsuppose that hundred ships come
and go where one is lost, but when one
reflects on the dangers to which they
are exposed he must marvel that so many
escape. / saw a list of thirty-six miss
ing ships the other day, missing from
American, English and French ports,
and the fate of each was unknown or
guessed at. Say that half of them
foundered in mid-ocean, five were run
down in collision, five more were
wrecked on capcs or shoals where all
hands perished, aud what became of the
rest4 Say that three of the remainder
were destroyed by fire, and what fate
shall we attach to the other fve2 From
the moment a vessel leaves port to begin
her voyage she is exposed to danger,
and though a sailor may be ever SO
brave a1d hardy, he cannot shake off
the knowledge that he lives on the verge
Of the grave. There are gales, and fogs,
and collisions, and fire, and hidden
rocks, and powerful currents; and so
repeat that it is marvel moro sailing
craft are not added to the lonesome list
of missing which is recorded year by
year.
In the year 1885, as the British bark
Lord Oldham, of which 1 was second
mate, was approaching the Canary
Islands, and when about $50 miles dis
tant, we were caught in the tail end OF
cyclone and badly knocked about. We
got out with some slight loss and great
deal OF discomfort, and were bearing up
again to our course when a great calam-
ity happened. Half an hour before
midnight, while the bark was doing her
best under fresh breeze, a sudden and
great shock was felt Her masts went
by the board, and, as l reached the
deck, a minute after the shock, the hull
seemed to split open from stem to stern.
l had gone below to get a glass of bit
ters, leaving the deck only thirty sec
onds before the shock came. / was
knocked down and confused, but it
could not have been over sixty seconds
before | regained the deck. 1t was Just
in time TO be carried overheard. /
went with lot OF rattle from
the decks, and amid the fright
ened cries of the men, and quarter of
an hour later, when had lashed myself
in the crosstrees of the mainmast,
could not get an answer TO any of my
calls to the rest of the crew. How it
was that all were lost never could
make out. There was rattle enough to
have hoated 500 men, and my watch
certainly all wide awake at the moment
Of the collision. The only explanation
| can give is that they were somehow
caught and crushed. / drifted during
the rest of the night, and was picked
up in the morning by a vessel bound in.
By that time the wreckage Lad drifted
apart until nothing could be found.
Nothing whatever was picked up or cast
upon any shore, and had I not been
saved, the fate of the bark could only
have been guessed at.
What did she collide withl The
lookouts were on the Tow, and alert,
and the night so clear that ship could
have been seen a mile away. The chart
showed clear water for hundred miles
about, and we must have run full tilt
upon some vessel which had been dis
masted and bilged in the hurricane. If
loaded with timber, her decks would
have been awash, and she would have
been as bad as rock to collide with.
There was only one shock, and the
whole bows of the bark were crushed in
by it.
Three years later, while of the Banks
Of Brazil in small English ship called
the White Cloud, another strange thing
happened. was first mate Of this ship,
and about 10 o'clock in the forenoon,
the weather being very fine and the wind
light, l had all the men on deck setting
up the rigging, some Of which had
slackened away. A man aloft suddenly
hailed the deck with the information
that large whale was bearing down on
the ship head on. We were a mer-
Giant vessel, and the sight of a whale
had no interest for US. We went on
with our work for three or four minutes,
when the man again hailed me with:
''If that fellow holds his course he
will be dead on TO us. He's big fel-
low-.aud Gaming ilss ;sss.sa. sseassaA.'
ran forward to get look, and the