The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1890-04-22
AMONG THE SAVAGES IN PATAGONIA
While His Wife Searched Morgue
and Prison In New York.
The Adventures of a Sailor Who Was
Thought To &c Dead.
Nearly Starved to Death In tho Wilds
of South America.

CHARLESTON, S. c., April 21.-The unex-
pected return of j. II. Rodgers, sailor, for
merly well known in Charleston and New
York, and who for the last two years was
thought to be dead, form the nucleus Of an
interesting romance of the sea.
Rodgers young wife waited, and had al
most given up hope of ever seeing him alive
again, when he suddenly made appearance.
Rodgers came to Charleston in the Duke of
Wellington from Liverpool in 1866. His ad-
ventures began early in 1888. He left New
York on the Australia of the Hamburg and
New York line.
As luck would have it, by the time the
Australia reached Hamburg she had been
sold to West India company, and did not
return to New York. He in vain tried to get
shipping back to New York from Hamburg.
Finally he was prevailed upon to ship on the
Montrose, bound for Pisagua in Peru. 1t
was intended to spend about eleven months.
While all this was being done his wife was
writing letters all over the known world in
search of her lost husband. The voyage
from South Shields was, of cours Sc, around
Cape Horn. They left port on July 4, 1888.
On the morning of the 9th of October it was
discovered that the cargo Of coal was on fire
at the bottom and that the Montrose would
end her voyage under the lee of the fateful
cape. The officers and crew toward night
took to the boats and pulled away for the
land. They took only biscuits and salt pork
and sails. When they reached land they
lighted sixteen campfres. During that night
several tall, naked Patagonia natives hoy
cred around the camp, but made no attack.
They probably had some unpleasant expert
ence with Europeans before. 1t was well for
the party that they kept al0of, for there was
only one pistol in the whole party.
fret month
They thought, of course, that they could
easily signal ship and get away. But a
stormy month kept the ships out of the beat
en- tracks, and not single sail appeared
above the horizon. They hoisted their flags
by day and built fires by. night. and after
about six weeks 1t dawned upon them that
they were really cut off from the civilized
world. They knew that there was trading
station about 800 miles away, but the road to
1t was over most impossible mountains and
through bands of gigantic savages.
The provisions had now grown scarce.
They were given only one biscuit, and then
half biscuit day. They ate mussels until
they grew sick. Then they tried to eat seals.
They constructed rude traps and caught
birds. There they remained until July 10,
having experienced two and one-half months
OF most severe weather, the winter there be-
ginning on May l. Sometimes they saw ves-
sells long distance away. but they did not
see the signals.
Toward the close of July they succeeded
in signalling the Sera, Australia, which was
lying in close to the shore, the weather being
very calm. Captain Reed Of that vessel sent
out boats for the shipwrecked men and took
them too Pisagua, in Peru. Mate Rodgers
was the only American of the shipwrecked
crew. The British consul at Pisagua took
care OF the British sailors. Rodgers had to
go on to Calcutta, where he shipped on the
Bay of Panama. bound fer New York.
Thence he came back to Charleston on the
Iroquois about week ago. Meanwhile the
faithful wife had had her own experiences.
She went to New York and visited the
morgue day after day. She then went to
BlackwelPs Island, and thinking that her
husband might have fallen into bad ways
she made the rounds Of all the prisons. In
order to be in a position to obtain sailors
news she got position on the Clyde line.
and kept up her pitiful inquiry until she
finally heard of his raturn