Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1898-01-27


man the windlass
was passed one day just after dinner;
and the anchor being weighed and sail
made on the ship, the native pilot
worked us up through the fleet Of idle
vessels to clear anchorage and
brought us up to wait for more
wind, we having very little at the
time. Captain R was very anxious
to get out at once, but the pilot as
sured him that he would have fine
wholesale breeze by 9 o'clock that
| night, and, after a short conference
with him apart from others, the cap
tain yielded.
Not long before this time British
bark had sailed from this same port
with $11 900 in hard cash on board, but
she had never reached her destination.
She had been picked up derelict, hav-
ing evidently been captured and rifed
by pirates and her crew murdered. The
combined British and French fleets
had just met in a bloody repulse in at
tempting to force a passage past the
Peiho forts, on the Canton river; and
the Chinese pirates, acting on the
| theory that it was time to make hay
when the sun was shining, were par
ticularly active and daring in their vo-
cation just at that time.
| Our pilot had induced Capt. R to
acquiesce in his views by quietly tell
ing him the exact number Of boxes of
opium on board, and where they were
slowed in the ship, and assuring him
| that many others on shore knew all
about it as we'll as he. This seemed a
little surprising, as the opium had been
| brought on board secretly-so much so
that some of our own crew did not
know that We had any such cargo on
| board. Another thing the pilot had
told him was that but few if any of
the immense fleet of fishing junks
which constantly cruised about outside
the port and along the coast would OBJ
ject to add little piracy to their reg
ular business, especially when tempted
by such a prize as 200 boxes of opium.
The possibility that our capture might
be planned already, and that among
our tween deck passengers there might
be confederates of any outside enc
| mics, was also limited at; and alto
gether our captain concluded to follow
the pilots advice, and not sail till he
had plenty of wind, when he could
laugh at all the junks they could bring
on.
Soon after sunset the wind did in
crease, as the pilot had predicted; and
at 10 o'clock at night the pilot left us,
bowling along at eight knots an hour,
| with the wind about point on the
quarter Before leaving, he again as
sured Capt. R that any of the nu-
merous junks in sight would do lit
tie piracy if occasion offered; told him
to take no notice of any signals of dis
tress, and if anything got in his way
not to attempt to sheer out for it, but
to "give it the stern.'
We had passed scores of junks, some
of them pretty closely, but they all
got out of our way; a 900-ton ship
running nearly before the wind is not
pleasant thing to get in the way of,
The second mate, young man belong
ing to Lynn, as eight bells (midnight)
drew near, thought he would put a lit
tie more canvas on the ship; and the
watch were sent forward to reeve off
gear and rig out the stun sail-boom,
preparatory to setting the fore-topmast
studding-sail. AS we were short
handed, the lookout-man was called
from the to'-gallant fo'castle to help