The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-03-13
"The cruiae Of the Natalie. !,

AtG 4ANtAN steam hllb NdllAlC Sdl4tA
| from this port last January upon a revo-
/ lutiouary venture. The movements of the
/. vessel while in these waters were neces-
! sarily secret The Natalie IS in the hands
/ Of the enemy. And her crew are as dead
/ as.Julius Cesar Notwithstanding julius
/ long priority OF demise Hence the Nata-
/ lie and her crew and their venture are
| good subjects upon which contemporary
and future romancers may exploit their
/ abilities
/ The air of mystery that euvironed the
enterprise at its inception is delightful,
| from the romancer's point of view; more
/ especially since an exquisiteIy sensational
taking o. makes it impossible for any one
/ Of the beetle browed" or "swarth
skinned" crew to explode the Clark Rus
sell-like stories Of The Cruise of the Ma
talie' that are finding and will find their
way into print.
To Judge from what has been accom-
plished in that line, the stories of the ad-
venture that appear year hence will be
summers. They will open something ike
this the style being set by the New York
World Of March Ii, 1894: 'On the night
Of Jan "a, when it was very dark, the
Natalie. with her lights eXtinyuished.
slipped out of the port of Savannah,
reached the open sea and steamed away
in a southwark course" That opening is
daisy. Capt. Marryat himself never
did better one. It makes no difference
if the facts are as completely extinguished
as II Is alleged the Natalies lights were,
for the excellent reason that nobody can
successfully ContrOvert the statements.
All the people who knew are dead
The stories will probably deal in a de-
scriptive way with the bold and hand
some Corsican who ,aptained the ship:
of his piercing black eyes, his command
ing mien and his Monte Cristo's
wealth. For we learn through the New
York Herald's correspondent at Savan-
nah, under GATE of March 10, 1894, that
the captain had an abundance of gold
This is the language used: Captain Sa-
lima had plenty of money with him,
which. it is said, he deposited in the Citi-
lens' Bank, and he contracted several
debts, almost all of which were paid "
This, it may be remarked parenthetically,
will be HI. of interesting information to
oOiIA ANOAL n Z q DOlls VI LlllS ClIA.
When it comes to an account OF the
Natalies armament and cargo, the writer's
of the future will have conflicting author
tiles to draw information from The
World says there were several Hotch-
kiss and Calling guns, and forty cases of
rifles, each case of which weighed 800
pounds, The Heralds man admits the
heavier guns, and says there were 100
cases of rifles lnasmuch as the Corsican
captain is dead, and will remain in that
state, the future historian Of the Natalie
will be perfectly safe in adding the sums
of the two stories together; the public
by that time will have forgotten the car
rying capacity of the little craft
The narrative of the run from Savan-
nah to the West Indies will afford an op-
portunity for some choice nautical phras-
eolOgy. She SKINNED down the Ameri-
can coast and then slanted over towards
Hayti,' says the World; ''and while pro
ceeding to the southwark, ran hard and
fast aground on Eleuthera Island. The
master hired wreckers to haul the Yacht
OF for which he gave a draft on one At
water, former owner of the yacht, for
5000. The different delays the yacht had
encountered gave the Haytian govern
ment time to act, and whel the Natalie
was just passing outside British jurisdic-
ton, at Fortune Island, the Haytian gun
boat CapOiX hove in sight The Natalie
Immediately scurried back to anchorage
at Fortune Island, and waited for an op-
portunity to escape. But it never came"
Now, there is material enough in that
paragraph, with suggestions of skim
ming, slanting, skurrying heaviug and
hauling, to make half dozen chapters
literally ree&ing with tar and salt, and
thrilling in dramatic recital And then
the finale, so full of human interest, is
good for an exceptionally strong chapter.
II the writers of the future do notmake
THE Cruise of the Natalie" story
worth reading, they will dishonor their
preceptors of the contemporary daily
press.