The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1899-12-15
REMARKABLE SURVIVAL.
Story Of an Amazing Adventure
Of Cast-Aways Related by
Mark Twain.

Of Cast-Aways Related by
Mark Twain.
The title of Mark Twain's story, my
Debut as Literary Person." gives no
idea of the terrible tragedy of which it
tells. In May, 1866, a merchantmen
was destroyed by fire at sea, and the crew
and two passengers put off in three
boats, with rations for ten days. Two
of the boats were lost, but the captains,
with IS frightfully emaciated men
aboard, reached the Hawaiian islands
43 days later, after a voyage of 1000
miles or SO. One of the two passengers
still survives, and has long been a pro-
lessor in Trinity college, Hartford.
Mary Twain got the story from the sur
vivors, whom he accompanied from
Honolulu to San Francisco.
ut is an amazing adventure. There
Is nothing of its sort in history that sur
passes it in impossibilities made posi-
BILE. In one extraordinary detail-the
survival of every person in the boat-it
probably stands alone in the history
of adventures of its kind. Usually
merely a part of boats company sur
vive-officers, mainly, and other educat-
ed and tenderly reared men, unused to
hardship and heavy labor; the I'M
trained, roughly reared, hard workers
succumb. But in this case even the rud-
est and toughest stood the privations
and miseries of the voyage almost as
well as did the college-bred young
brothers and the captain. 1 mean, phys
ically. The minds of most of the sail
in, ho ~ h Vxoa1 nd
went to temporary ruin, but physically
the endurance exhibited was astonish-
ing. Those men did not survive by any
merit of their own, of course, but by
merit of the character and intelligence
of the captain; they lived by the mas
terry of his spirit. Without him they
would have been children without a
nurse. They would have exhausted
their provisions in a week, and their
pluck would not have lasted even as
long as the provisions.
1.-THE boat came near to being
wrecked at the last. AS it approached
the shore the sail was let 60, and came
down with a run; then the captain saw
that he was drifting swiftly toward an
ugly reef, and an effort was made to
hoist the sail again; but it could not be
done; the mems strength was wholly
exhausted; they could not even pull an
oar. They were helpless, and death i'm
minent. 1t was then that they were dis
covered by the two Kanakas who
achieved the rescue. They swan out
and manned the boat and piloted her
through q narrow and hardly notice
able break in the reef-the only break
in it in stretch of IS miles! The spot
where the landing was made was the
only one in that stretch where footing
could have been found on the shore;
everywhere else precipices came sheer
down into 40 fathoms of water. Also,
in all that stretch this was the only
spot where anybody lived.
"Within ten days after the landing
all the men but one were up and creep
ing about. Properly, they ought to have
killed themselves with the food of
the last few days-some of them. at
any rate-men who had freighted their
stomachs with strips of leather from
old boots and with chips from the but
ter-cask; a freightage which they did
not get rid of by digestion, but by other
means. The captain and the two pas
sengers did not eat strips and chips, as
the sailors did, but scraped the boot
leather and the wood, and made pulp
of the scrapings by moistening them
with water. The third mate told me
that the boots were old and full of holes;
then added thoughtfully, but the holes
digested the best Speaking of diges-
ton, here is a remarkable thing, and
worth noting; during this strange voy-
age, and for awhile afterward on shore,
the bowels of some of the men virtually
ceased from their functions; in some
cases there was no action for 20 and 80
days, and in one case for a! Sleeping
also came to be rare. Yet the men did
very we'll without it. During many
days the captain did not sleep at all
Fl, I think, on one stretch.
"When the landing was made, all the
men were successfully protected from
overeating except the 'Portyghee;' he
escaped the watch and ate an incredible
numbr of bananas; hundred and fifty
two, the third mate said. but this was
undoubtedly an exaggeration; think
1t was ISL. He was already nearly full
of leather; it was hanging out Of his
ears. Il do not state this on the third
mates authority, for we have seen what
sort Of person he was; state it on my
own.) The 'Portyghee' ought to have
died, of course, and even now it seems