The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-05-19
ESCAPING FROM PIRATES.

The Curious Adventures of a Sailor While
ON tue Chinese Coast.
From the London Standard.
1t has surely fallen to the lot of few
men to come near starving to death
in a land of plenty, with over $500 in
gold in ones pocket-nay, by reason
of that very fact. ! had shipped at
Rangoon on board a steamer bound for
Shanghai. When / signed she was fly
ing Jardine's flag at the main. but
believe she carried the ensign of every
nation and half the house flags of the
world in her signal locker. An opium
smuggler / was prepared to find her,
but that her chief business on the
waters was piracy of the vilest sort
and unredeemed by CLINT of romance
came upon me certainly as a revala-
ton. We attacked no ships, so far as
i know, but handled with marvellous
skill and knowledge of the intricate
coast navigation, she would run in af-
ter nightfall among rocks and banks
where one would expect a sampan to
take the bottom, while shrieks, flames.
the report of firearms and clash of
steel would testify to the descent of
my delectable shipmates upon one or
another of the numerous fishing viii
lagos which fringe the shores of the
China seas.
After four months duress ] struck a
blow for liberty; my little heard of NOR
phia-jealously guarded toward this
ventuality-deepened the narcotism of
the Chang, in which the whole crew
lay stepped after a CHASTITY debauch as
we rode at anchor, and, forsaking all
my goods and cattels and seizing in
lieu such moneys as / could find, /
dropped into the dingy and pulled off,
shoeiess, hatless, arrayed only in a
shirt, trousers and belt containing the
aforementioned sum. (close on G2O0),
hoping to reach German gunboat
which had been sighted earlier in the
day.
But the night was thick. and in less
than an hour / found myself close to
shore instead, the question of what to
do being speedily settled by the boat
capsizing among the breakers, leaving
me no alternative but to land. Day
was breaking and l lay until next
morning in a tomb cut above the road
in the hillside, and for the next three
weeks as / have said, l nearly persisted
for lack of nourishment, and not dar-
ing to exhibit gold piece, for / had
no weapon and should certainly have
been robbed and murdered.
/ would gladly have thrown away all
but one piece, but there was no single
small piece in the sum total, and the
result would have been the same.
Though a good walker at that age, U
had made a record for twenty miles
not long before and could cover 300 a
week without a blister), j accomplished
no more than 200 miles in twenty-five
days, travelling only by night and hid
ing in tombs or bitches by day. often
rushing back to my last lair in terror
of the advancing sun, when no suitable
place of concealment hove in view
With paddy and plantains snatcheo
precariously here and there, / managed
to exist during those three awful
weeks; Chan Chan is not regarded as
a terrestrial paradise by those Euro
peans whom fate malign has compelled
to sojourn there, but Walhalla was
never hailed with greater ecstasy by
the world-worn pilgrim than was thai
Celestial sink by myself. Toward the
twentieth day the smell of cooking alb
solutely overcame me one morning, and
at the peril of my life / emerged into
the light of day and laid felenlous
hands and teeth on what l believe was
part of a baked cat, in the temporary
absence of the legitimate landlord
thereof,