The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-01-23

holes, it lowers away, thousands of feet
down, farther and farther, until at last
it strikes the bottom; and all is peace,
for they have landed. He1msman, dead
at the wheell Engineer, dead amid the
extinguished furnaces Captain, dead
in the gangway! Passengers, dead in
the cabin! Buried in the cemetery of
dead steamers, beside the City of Bos-
ton, the Lexington, the President, the
Cambria, waiting for the archangel's
trumpet to split up the decks, and wrench
open the cabin doors, and unfasten the
matches.
thought that I had seen storms on
the sea before, but all of them together
might have come under one wing of that
cyclone. We were only eight or nine
hundred miles from home, and in high
expectation of soon seeing our friends,
for there was no one on board so poor as
not to have friend. But it seemed as
il We were to be disappointed. The most
of us expected then and there to die.
There were none who made light of the
peril, save two. One was an Englishman,
and he was drunk, and the other was an
American, and he was fool! Oh! what
a time it was! A night to make ones
hair turn white. We came out of the
berths, and stood in the gangway, and
looked into the steerage, and sat in the
cabin. While seated there we heard
overhead something like minute guns.
1t was the bursting of the sails. We
held on with both hands to keep our
places. Those who attempted to cross
the floor came back bruised and gashed.
Cups and glasses were dashed to frag-
ments; pieces of the table getting loose,
swung across the saloon. 1t seemed as
if the hurricane took that great ship of
thousands of tons and stood it on end,
and said: ''Shall l sink it, or let it 90
this once?" And then it came down with
such force that the pillows trampled
over it, each mounted of fury.
We felt that every thing depended on
the propeling screw. If that stopped for
an instant we knew the vessel would
fall off into the trough of the sea and
sink, and so we prayed that the screw,
which three times since leaving Liver=
pool had already stopped, might not
stop now. Oh! how anxiously we list
ened for the regular thump of the MAJ
chinery upon which our lives seemed to
depend. After awhile some one said:
''The screw is stopped" No; its sound
had only been overpowered by the up
roar of the tempest, and we breathed
easier again when we heard the regular
pulsations of the overtasked machinery
going thump, thump, thump. At three
o'clock in the morning the water COW
cred the ship from PROV to stern,
and the skylights gave way! The
deluge rushed in, and we felt that
one or two more waves like that must
swamp us forever. AS the water rolled
back and forward in the cabins and
dashed against the wall, it sprang half
way up TO the ceiling. Rushing through
the skylights as it came in with such
terrific roar, there went up from the
cabin a shrek of horror which / pray
God l may never hear again. I have
dreamed the whole scene over again,
but God has mercifully kept me from
hearing that one cry. Into it seemed to
be compressed the agony of expected
shipwreck. 1t seemed to say: 81 shall
never get home again! My children
shall be orphaned, and my wife shall be
widowed! l am launching now into
eternity! In two minutes I shall meet
my Godr'
There were about five hundred and
fifty passengers in the steerage, and as
the water rushed in and touched the
furnaces and began violently to hiss,
the poor creatures in the steerage inn
agined that the boilers were giving
away. Those passengers writhed in the
water and in the mud, some PRAYING
some crying, all terrified. They made
rush for the deck. An officer stood on
deck and beat them back with blow
after blow. 1t was necessary. They
could not have stood an instant on the
deck. Oh! how they begged to get out
of the ship! One woman, with child
in her arms, rushed up and caught hold
of one of the officers and cried: "Do let
me out! 1 will help you'll Do let me
out! l can not die here!'' Some got
down and prayed to the Virgin Mary.
saying: so, blessed motherl keep usi
nave mercy on uSF some stood with
white lips and fixed gaze, silent in their
terror. Some wrung their hands and
cried out: 80, God! what shall I do?
What shall do?'
The time came when the crew could
no longer stay on the deck, and the crv
of the officers was: Below! all hands
below" Our brave and sympathetic
Captain Andrews-whose praise I shall
not cease to speak while 1 live-had
been swept by the hurricane from his
bridge, and had escaped very narrowly
with his life. The cyclone seemed to
stand on the deck, waving its wing, cry
ing: This ship is mine! 1 have capt
ured it! Ha! ha! l will command it!
If God will permit, 1 will sink it here
and now! BY thousand shipwrecks, 1
swear the doom of this vessels There
was lull in the storm; but only that 1t
might gain additional fury. Crash
went the lifeboat on one side.
Crash! went the lifeboat on
the other side. The great booms
got loose, and, as with the heft of
thunderbolt, pounded the deck and beat
the mast-the jib boom, studding sail
boom and square sail boom, with their