Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-10-05
PHOsPHORESCENT SHIP AT SEA.
Italian Shippers Cargo Glowed Until
1t Attracted Offers of Relief.

1t Attracted Offers of Relief.
From the Philadelphia Times.
Capt. Domestico, the italian bark Glenn
entina and big cargo of bones are now in
port from far away Uruguay. They have
completed a voyage which for variety of
incident has scarcely parallel in the an
nails of navigation. Storm and blow, bugs
and ghosts and mysterious incidents galore
| made up the run Of the Clementina from
Buenos Ayres to Philadelphia. the quickest
voyage ever sailed between these two
ports.
Italian captains are odd characters. They
are proverbially slow, so slow indeed that
1t is said they take their sails in at night
when at sea and so careful that they
would anchor if they could ind hoiding
ground.
reporter of the Times boarded the
Clementina yesterday almost as soon as
she dropped anchor in the stream. He was
much gratificd to find that the captain
spoke English in his own quaint fashlon
and highly entertained by the latters IN
genious account of his wonderful voyage.
"This is my first trip with bone ship,
said Signor Domestico, land if / can do so
it Is my last. Such trouble we had on &C
count of those bones. don know now TO
tell you about 1t.
I'VE loaded them at Buenos Ayres and
our destination was Antwerp. On arriving
at Montevideo we We're ordered to Philadel-
Dlla, When the southern pSSeiii "
blow we made good time. Very fast time
you say, but all Of us wished that the Voy-
age could have been made IN day AFTER
what we had to go through.
"TheSe bones we had on board were
fresh and when they were loaded in the
hold at least three million bugs were put
in with them. These soon became n1teeh
! Million and then what a time we had.
THE insects overran the whole snip. l
have seen the men shovel them up and
throw them into the sea at the rate of four
barrelfuls a day. They were what Is called
! the boring bug, and as 1 had never sailed
with them before I had not taken the pre-
| caution to have the ship painted with
| mixture of whitewash and arsenic; conse-
/ quently I was in momentary fear that she
| would begin to leak and go at once to the
| bottom When only three days out Of port
! the bugs became so bad that three of the
| men went into the rigging and stayed there
| In the meantime. near the equator. the
Clementina ran into fierce gales. which
| lasted week. One of the hatch covers
was lost overheard. and that in itself
makes a story. After the storm subsidized
we noticed that we were followed by a
British steamer. l hove to, ana ne low
cred a boat and boarded.
"How long have you been on f1re?' said
an officer who stepped on the Clementinas
deck.
II could not understand the man. He in
sisted, however that his vessel had no
ticed the Clementina blazing fiercely for
the last three days, and that they had fol-
lOWeu 10 dSsiotdhSS.
Might came oil while he argued. and
suddenly he exclad0ed:
There you are burning again aloft?
"Sure enough. a ghostly radiance played
t7c tfully around the spars and top hamper.
Then the explanation Of the mystery
dawned upon me- l remembered that dur
ing the storm it rained hard. and the mois-
ture going through the hatch. with the
cover lost off. penetrated the hold, devel-
opng the phosphorescence in the bones.
The light thus exudlng went all over the
vessel and in the distance she must have
appeared as a vertable fire ship.
Impressed by the simple solution of the
puzzle. the officer got in his boat and de-
parted All night, however. I saw his YES
sci following curiously in our wake. We
must have presented a wonderful spec
tacle, although the latter was imperceptible
to
my crew never heard the explanation.
consequently few days later. when my
pet cat got, by accident. into the hold and
became saturated with the phosphorus, her
sudden appearance In the forecastle struck
terror to their weak hearts.
"'She's been seiEed by demon they
cried. and then vowed candlesticks Of silver
to their patron saint II 1t should prove no
ill-omen. They finally threw the cat. which
loved very dearly. product Of sunny
Italy, into the sea. never saw her again.
"I wanted to get here. had enough Of
] trouble, enough of bone ships, and clap