The times., 1898-11-06

and at, his. request l read the Catholic
prayers to him., He said he wanted to
make friends With the Swede before he
died. and. bysa strange coincidence. the
Swede at the same time asked II he could
wait upon him. granted both requests.
The Swede went into the sick bay. and in
a few. moments the cry of Murder! was
heard 1 hurried to the bay and found
Smith trying to stab the Swede. He de-
clared he meant to kill him before he
died, and was slashing him with knife
when his life suddenly ended. And now
comes the strangest part Of the affair
and the demonstration OF the supersti-
tions of the sailors. The man at the
wheel declared to me that five minutes
before he heard of Smiths death he had
seen hi;1 jump over the rail- with his
sheath knife In his hand. l believe the
sailor thought he was telling the truth
He was SO overcome by something that he
let go of the wheel and sailor never
does that unless he has had terrible
fright, for he knows the punishment is
hanging (that is. 1t was in those days..
Afterward / showed him Smiths body
and the sheath knife, but he could not be
persuaded that he had not seen Smith
sink into the sea. The effect of this
strange appearance to the man at the
wheel was to increase our stock OF super
stition on the ship"
While Capt. -Buckman does not believe
in the superstitions of sailors, and while
he has to use his own expression, "a
standing offer Of 800 for the first ghost
brought to me and $500 for the first we'll
developed DEVIL" he nevertheless ac-
knowIedges that strange things happen
at sea, things that would battle the phil
osophy of Horatio.' Here are two strange
things which happened to him:
81 was running the trades In the South
Pacifi under a heavy press of canvas"
he says 1.-The watches had all been post
ed and had been that the ship was on
her course and had retired to my bed in
my cabin. Suddenly / heard voice say
ing: John, get -up, l turned over, con-
tented myself with the thought that
had been dreaming, relapsed into uncon-
sciousness. Soon after l was awakened
by a vigorous slap on the face and the
exclamation: John H., get up! l arose,
hurried to the forecastle, took up my
glass, and shouted, 'Starboard your
helm, Hard a-starboardr The man at
the wheel obeyed instantly. and our
yards scraped the yards on another ves-
sci coming from the opposite direction
and commanded by an Englishman whose
crew was worn out by continuous labor
wild sea and was sailing without light
of any kind. Had I not been reused and
gone on deck when / did we would GER
tainly have had a collision. Now, that
voice that / fancied heard seemed to be
my mothers voice. The strangest part
about it was that no person on board the
ship knew that John H was the first
part of my name. / afterward asked my
mother If she had any particular recollec-
tsa 1f oh xt-tfh V.afa IN mo
She said she had not.
Another time" after while the cap
tain continued: 4 was working on a Pa
cific mail steamer, from Acapulco. Mexi-
co. to San Diego, Cal, In thick fog. /
told my men that had the latitude and
longitude of San Diego, and directed them
to slow down the ship and take sound
| ings Then j went into my room, locked
/, my door securely land II you were eyer
on one of the old sailing vessels, where
| every mans hand was against the cap
tain, you will know that the door could
| not be easily opened from the outside
| when locked and sat down. The lights
were burning low. Suddenly the doo-
opened and a voice exclaimed: John!' l
| hurried to the door, there was no one to
| be seen, and then hastened to the deck
| There i heard the sea lions on the beach
| and had just time to order the anchors
out to prevent our going on the rocks.
| The voice that called me was, to my ear,
that of my sister Maggie, and she was
| at that time in Paris.
Sailors have SO many superstitions
| that / cannot enumerate them all, said
| the captain with a smile, as he recalled
| some of the odd things they do. For in
| stance, no sailor will put on his left shoe
before his right, nor will he tie the right
before he has the left on his foot. The
story that goes with this is that sailor
| who ran away from his ship. with his
left shoe tied before his right was on, was
| caught by a coast guard and in his an
ger pronounced a curse on every sailor
| who put on his left shoe first or tied IL
before both were on. / never knew a
sailor who did not believe the story of
Mother Carey's chickens Mother Ca
reys chickens are petrels, the harbingers
of storms. You never see petrol in calm
weather. In such weather they dive. The
sailors believe that Mother Carey lived
on the coast of Ireland and that her son
was lost at sea. She went for months
TO the shore to await his return, and
eventually lost her mind. When the pc
trels appeared she thought they repre-
sented her son and fed them.
''I helped said Capt Buckman, turn
ing away from superstition to the
church, Ito save $50 of the 700 passengers
of the Vile de Paris, which burned in the
early '70's, and there saw a magnificent
demonstration of the sustaining power OF
mans religion. such as I never expect
to see excelled. 1t was at night and as
the ship burned, Roman Catholic priest
stood on the boat and gave absolution to
every Catholic on board who could make
his way to him. He was urged to save
himself, but he refused: he was caught
by frantic arms and pulled toward the
sea and our boats. but ne pushed away
those who would have carried him out of
danger. His duty was TO the poor peo-
pie who were perishing. he said, and, he
roic and noble he continued at this la
Dor until he was burned to death"