The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-02-12
BY THE SUEz CANAL ROUTE.
DIsCOMFoRTs OF GOING THAT WAY
TO THE ORIENT.
why an Experienced Mariner Pre-
fcrs ROundinE the HOrn-Naviga-
tIon in n sandstOrm-Lightho


both trails equally well, and it matters
little to a sailor which his owners order
him to take.
1T isn't pleasant coming by the Cape
Horn way. There ore sure to be icebergs
and storms. snow fog and gales, and you
take your chance of terrible hammering
every time you invade the southern do
mains of Boreas.
But the things a man is prepared for
are less trying in realization than those
that come 10 vex him from unsupported
sources in unusual ways. And, in my opin-
ion. the Suez canal can turn up more I'M
canny troubles for a sailor than he's likely
TO meet off the Horn. That don't sound
likely, but it's true"
SO spoke First officer Best of the Big
MOgm liner Ghazee, just arrived from
Hong Kong with a cargo of Tea and "A
story of weird experiences at sea and in
the Suez canal.
1T can't be regarded as proper and de-
cent for a ship TO run right over light
house and tear it down" continued Mr..
Best solemnly. But that is the unnatural
thing the British steamer Strathard, that
went through the canal ahead of us. did.
And her people, from Capt. Mcintyre down,
are not to be blamed in the slightest degree
for the accident
How old it happen? Mirage-desert mi
rage-one of those cussed uncanny things
l was speaking of that make it more both
CT TO come through that canal than TO trot
around the Horn under canvas
The Strathard was steaming sIow-you
are only allowed TO 20 six knots through
the canal-and one of the canal company's
crack pilots was on the bridge and in
charge. That was on Nov. Il at O'Clock
N the morning
The ship was just passing into the Bit
Ter lakest section of the ditch-where Moses
and his Israelites turned toward the Red
sea in their flight from Egypt; at least
that's where the natives say they turned
1T was broad daylight. of course, and
the lighthouse, a tower eighty feet high
built on plies driven into the sand at the
bottom of the canal, doomed up, glaring
white, apparently about three miles off the
port bow. The lantern is kept burning all
the time, fed by compressed gas.
how far Off is that light? Capt. Nc
Intyre asked the pilot
About three miles the man answered
Just then the quartermaster on watch
sounded the hour on the ships bell forard.
1t was three bells.
Now l don't know, and nobody else
mirages, but as soon as the StrathaTd's
bell sounded that light house just seemed
to run toward the ship and brought up
all standing, right under her bows.
''The Strathard was steaming half speed
but she couldn't be stopped and she went
right through the light house and scat
tered 1t over the placid surface of the
water like klndling wood. The ship got
to Port Said next day leaking like a lob
ster pot. 1t cost lot of money to get her
fixed up and pumped out, and then, by
Jove, the canal company's officers had the
nerve to come aboard and demand that
Mcintyre should pay $1,000 for moving
down their blooming lighthouse, when it
was one of their own pilots thai did It'll
Those mirages of the desert are Won
derful things" continued Mr. Best re-
flectively "Unden ordinary conditions
from the deck of ship passing through
the canal we can see the desert, stretch
ing away for miles, a glittering waste of
sand, so glarng white under the tropical
sun that it almost blinds ones eyes to
look long at it. But when a mirage oc-
ours one sees marvellous thlngs-or thinks
he sees.
1.-THE effect is that of a double horizon,
one merging into the other. Arabs mount
ed on camels and clumps of palm trees
will appear where a moment before there
was nothing visible but a barren waste
of sand as far as the eye can reach. Dis
tances and relative positions are entire
ly confused. An object that appears TO
be five miles away may be twenty, and
one that looks to be twenty miles inland
may be right under the ships forefoot.
It's uncanny positively uncanny.
"Then there are sandstorms too, to
make navigation of the canal a trial to
mariners. They're worse than mirages,
Seamen are used to storms that pelt and
beat and blind them with clean salt spray,
or hail wind-driven and merciless. But it
isn't natural that a ship should be navi-
gated through a storm of sand that cuts
the hands and face like a million needles,
and leaves man nearly blind for fort
night afterward.
"But that's what we got last trip
through the canal. and / shall never for
get the experience. sandstone looks
like fog coming on to the inexperienced
eve. but il is much more terrible than any
fog that ever blew up at sea. The sand
is driven in clouds so thick that they turn
the tropic daylight into darkness at
seconds notice. The flying atoms are
sifted through every nook and Granny,
however small. We had to stop the en-
gines, and put the canvas covers over the
machinery to keep 1t from being ruined by
the intrusion of the sharp, wind-driven
particles that no matches ever battened
can keep out of the engine room.
ms a costly and troublesome job com
Ing through the canal, even II one happens
to escape mirages and sandstorms. Traf-
fic is subject to lot of rigid rules and
regulations, charges, penalties and what
not that make man long for good old
Cape Horn hurricane by way of con-
trast.
In the first place there is the pilotage,
which is compulsory, of course.
when the ship reaches the bar off Port
Said the Jack is hoisted at the fore-peak,
or. If 1t be night time. three lights are
hosted. Then she takes aboard pilot No.
l. lie is a harbor pilot and only brings
her into Port Said bay. After coaling
there, regular canal pilot comes aboard
to take the vessel as far as Ismaili. But
he doesn't come until an official has made
the captain subscribe to a list of rules lon
ger than the shipping articles and pay
over the gross amount of highway rob-
berry schedule of charges, including every
imaginable item
THE canal official first demands the
name and nationality of the ship. name
of her captain, owners and charter hold