The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-05-16
WEST INDIAN HONEYMOON
TRAGIC ATFATRs IN THE FELLOW
 JACK SEASON.
The Havoc the Fever Played on Ship bOard-A Sad Story of Pelican Island How Bride and Groom Perished.

ShOw It DFlue anu UrOOm ferhSneu.
 What sort of place is Santos, cap- tain?" I asked, partly because I really wanted to know, but partly also be- cause the cabin of the steamer was stuffy and cockroachy, and the sea rather rough and I had just been served with a liberal plateful of hot plumb pudding, with cream sauce, which in the tropics is dish that re- quires reflection.
 "Santos?" said the long-limbed Yan- kee captain, with a humorous side glance at my untouched plate, which showed he quite understood the situa- tion. Santos, sir, is hell upon earth when Yellow Jack is abroad and not much better when he isn't"
 'How so?" asked I, motioning fur lively to the steward to remove my plate, and shifting my chair a little so as to get the benefit of the trade wind through the open port I was on board  a little tramp steamer making the trip from Barbadoes to St. Lucia, at which latter island I had a few hours inspection duty to fulfill, which would have entailed a wait of fortnight had I gone by the regular mail.
 "Well, sir, it's this way. First and foremost, it's big port, and hundreds of ships put into it. It's a hot, dirty, damp, unhealthy place, with fifteen thousand inhabitants. And the fools have only built two wharves to load and unload 1t; you must take your aurn. Eight months I have known a bark to lie at anchor in the harbor, waiting her chance"
 My face must have expressed incre- dulity, for my nautical friend here stopped his story to remark" T guess you don't believe me, stranger. Stew ard, bring the officer another help of pudding"
 I assured him that believed him implicitly, and, indeed, I found after ward that the information was per- fectly correct. also declined the pud- ding and begged him to continue, which he did after smiling a grim smile.
 q was there in 1891; we put in on our way to New York. I thought there would be a good chance of picking up few passengers while the fever was on but we paid dear for It. You see, they had cholera there that year, as well as Yellow Jack, and the harbor was full of ships that couldn't get away, because they had no officers left to navigate them and no crews to man them. Seventy mine captains and six or seven hundred sailors had died when I got there, and calculate many a naval action wouldn't have cost half as much. I'm not easily frightened myself, but I can tell you I thought it was time to go when went ashore one evening after dark, and the first thing I did was to trip up over body lying across the street, and fall with my face right in the waistcoat of another gentleman who had just died where he lay of yellow fever The one tripped over had died of cholera, as could see when my mate brought up the lan- ternn'
 I stared at him in amazement, but
 the man was quite serious; he did not
 seem to think that he was narrating anything at all unusual From what I | have since heard of Santos I do not suppose he was.
 Well, sir, my first mate was with me, and he said he felt sick, and went and got some rum to keep his spirits up. It is a bad thing to drink rum in l Santos Next morning he and six of our passengers were dead. I wanted | to bury them decently on shore or in | the harbor, but the fools that called | themselves the government wouldn't | allow it--as if one dead body more or | less mattered then; so I made the en-
 gineer get up steam, and we sewed the
 corpses up in sailcloth, with plenty of
 scrap iron, and lashed them over the
 gunwales, and so we went to sea. The
 niggers we passed in the fishing boats
 howled that we were a death ship.'
 "I should think you were!" said I. 1 "We were afterward. When we got
 a mile or so from land I read a few
 prayers, the best I could think of, an
 then a man went round and cut the | lashings, and we laid our course for
 New York, but you bet we had time
 of it before we got there. We took the | fever with us, and we had no doctor on
 board, and it would not have mattered
 much if we had. The crew went mad one after another. It began with the firemen; they dropped down dead with | the shovels in their hands. Then one
 man with the fever on him jumped
 overheard to get out of his misery After that they all died. I put some
 of them in irons when they tried it, but
 they just died raving mad in few
 hours, so I gave it up. We only land ed one man in New York out of all l the passengers we took on board at Santos, and but for fine weather we would never have reached port at all, we were so short handed. Once we got out of the tropics we lost no more,
 though" He thoughtfully expectora- ted into a spittoon at his feet, and I
 found it advisable to go on deck, whither he soon followed me. Carlisle Bay, with its shipping, and | the low hills of Barbadoes, was fast 1 disappearing behind us as the little tramp, with the strong trade wind be-
 hind her, plunged ahead through the l sparkling waves, blue tourmaline col |