The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1890-07-12
A SAILORS ADVENTURES.
Wrecked at Sea and Miraculous1y Save
from the Sharks.


wrecked at Sea and MiracuIously Saved
from the Sharks.
A remarkable story of the sea comes
from St Malo, the narrator being an
ancient mariner named Bauche, whose
painful experiences in small boat on
the ocean ought to be warrant for the
truth of his tale. Bauche had signed
articles with the captain of a vessel
called the Mathilde. in which he sailed
to Martinique. While in the harbor of
ST. Pierre in boat with the cabin boy
one day he was driven oceanward by q
gale Of wind and was knocked about for
q week on the waves before he was res
cued by Norwegian bark.
After the first night. at sea Bauche
says that the cabin boy became partly
delirous, water was filling the boat every
instant, and in order to prevent the dy-
ing lad from being drowned in it the old
sailor made pals of the legs of his pant
aloons and was thus enabled to keep the
bottom of the little craft tolerably dry.
He had also to deprive himself of his
shirt, which he utilized as flag of dis
tress On the third day the cabin boy
died, and hardly was the breath out Of
his body before seven or eight ferocious
black sharks began to circle round the
boat, which they sometimes almost
touched. Rather than deliver up the
dead body to the monsters of the deep
Bauche kept it until it became decom.
posed.
Being afraid Of illness, he at length
threw 1t overheard, after having said
his prayers over it, and the prey was
speedily seized by the sharks, who dis
appesred with 1t, and did not show up
again for about twenty-four hours or SO.
Bauche now felt SO utterly miserable
that he was thinking Of throwing him.
self overheard, when he was dissuaded
from his intention by the temperance
OF the sharks, who, after cycling him
ravenously for some time, actually be-
gan to gambol before him, as If in an
ticipation of good feed of his body.
Il did not want to be eaten alive" re-
marked Bauche, in his narration of his
perilous adventures, $50 l remained
where was and waited assistance" On
the seventh day the sailor lost con-
seriousness, fell down in the boat and
was rescued in an insensible condition
by Captain Paterson, Of the Vladimir.
In his mouth the Norwegian sailors
found what they first thought was an
old guild Of tobacco, but which proved
TO be part of the horn handle of his
knife. which Bauche was crunching to |
'tave OF hunger when he became uncon-
'cious The rescued sailor, after hay
ng been taken to New Orleans, OBJ
aimed passage home to St Malo.
Only the other day he went down to the
port to meet his old shipmates of the
who had been wrecked OF the /
coast of Newfoundland, whittier they
had made another voyage since Bauche
disappeared at Martinique. The crew
II the Mathilde had been rescued of
he banks of Labrador by an English
'essel. They had long, of course, given
Up Bauche and the cabin boy as lost in
nidocean, and great was their surprise
vhen they beheld the former in the
lesh, and as hale and hearty as if he
lad never been without food on the
leep for full seven days in an open boat,
nd in perilous contiguity to the teeth
1 the tigers of the ocean.--Paris Letter.