The Portland daily press., 1895-06-04

Wnen heHet Came-ImpfoViseu FISH Lines
and Hooks-Hundreds of Pounds of
Rock Cod Caught Daily-over 600 Peo-
pie on the Disabled Steamer-Ten Days
Off the Barren Isle of Cerros.
The Inflated steamer, Colima whose
papers and caused the whole world to
shudder, has Been an unfortunate vessel
from the first And six Portland citizens
were among the victims of her first acct
dent on her first voyage.
She was built by John Roach in 1878,
and sailed around Cape Horn to Panama
On that trip she broke her shaft. 1t was
the next year that she made her first trip
from Panama to San Francisco and
among her passengers were the late DR..
Eliphalet Clark and wife, formerly of
Portland but latterly of Deering, Mr.. B.
M. Eastman and his wife, senior mem
Der of the firm of Eastman Brothers and
Bancroft and Mr.. Fred Conant and his
mother, of the firm of Conant, Patrick
& Co. The steamer had very large
number of passengers for so small a
vessel, though of course she seemed large
in those days. There were nearly two
hundred first cabin passengers and the
crew and the steerage passengers made a
total of between six hundred and seven
hundred people.
They were just off the island of Cerros,
three hundred mil south of Santiago,
one bright smooth day, and were seated
at the dining table, when they heard a
crash, and the machinery stopped. Two
blades of the propeller were found to be
broken short off. just what caused the
were apparently in deep water and yet it
seemed as if it must have been a rocky
reef, extendi ng far out from the island.
Thus disabled, the steamer could make
no Roadway, but managed to get into the
lee of the island and find good anchor
age.
The island is of volcanic origin, and
though about ten miles long is utterly
destitute of Vegetation of any kind. The
mainland, only a few miles distant, is
almost as barren, and there is no human
life for many miles.
The next day after the accident, the
first officer took b oat and crew and
started north, in hopes to reach Santiago
and telegraph for relief. The second
officer started north with boat and
crew, in hopes to meet another steamer
coming up.
For ten days they remained in the lee
of that barren island, and since there
were SO many people on board, the supply
of provisions grew short very quickly. AT
the last Of it everything that was fit to
eat, Mr. Eastman says, had been eaten,
and there was only left hard tack, that
when broken open revealed live maggots,
and salt beef that he as well as many
others would not eat. Luckily they had
plenty of water.
There was large number of marines
aboard en- route for the government
station at San Francisco. These men
improvised fish lines, by twisting several
strands of Irvine together. This was the
only sort of a string on board that could
be utilized for fishing The nearest ap-
proach to fish hooks were some steel bars,
an inch square. But the engineer
managed to draw these out to smaller
diameter and make rough fish hooks.
With this kind of gear from four hundred
to five hundred pounds of rock cod were
caught every day and the people were
fed on fried cod, boiled cod, baked COO
and cod cooked in every possible way til
they were fairly sick at the thought oil
cod
Mr.. Eastman now has, as a most valued
possession, one of those fish hooks,
improvised from an inch steel bar.
The boat that went south did meet
with another of the company's steamers
and this was the relief that came after
ten days of suspense, and several days Of
h unger.
Of course the other steamer did not
have sufficient provisions for over siz
hundred extra people, especially as the
| towing Of the disabled steamer up the
coast would lessen her speed by at least
one half.
When off San Diego, they sent in and
telegraphed to San Francisco for help
Every depot of cooked provision in thai
| city from the bakers to the grocery store
was cleaned out as quickly as possible
and a steamer despatched loaded with the