Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-03-10
WEIRD TALE OF THE SEA
Mystery of Brig Sailing From Boston
Many Years Ago.
Abandoned Vessel Found Later ON
Spanish Coast-NO Word of the
Twenty Persons ON Board.


Celeste, brig which sailed from Boston in
the sixties. bound for Mediterranean ports
with ge 1eral cargo of merchandise? No?
Well. You shall hear 1t as heard it told
the other night by friend over pipe and
something else which cheers the heart of
man. l shall tell you the story as 1t was
told to me, plain, unvarnished tale, the
details of which are writ large in the rec
ords of the American foreign office, or
whatever bureau In Washington CORE
spends to our own department at home
that looks after the affairs of other folks.
This is no mere myth or fiction of the sea,
but sober tale of fact. and when 1 have
told the story-1 hope / shall relate it cir
cumspectly-my readers will have presented
to them as pretty a puzzle as ever was set
before the mind of man to solve. So far as
l know. it has never been solved yet.
The Marie Celeste set sail from Boston
with crew of seventeen hands, the cap
tain, his wife and his little daughter, TWEEN
ty souls all told. Nothing, as far we
know. occurred on the voyage across the
Atlantic other than the routine life of a
trading brig at sea. But one fine day the
brig came within hail of the Spanish coast.
1t was thought she was heading for Glib
raltar on her way to enter the great inland
sea. All her sails We're set. The weather
was fine, the sea calm, and a light wind
bore the vessel along. Duly the Spanish
authorities hailed the brig. without receiv-
IlS any answer 10 their Signals Inen ca me
visit of inspection by the coast guard,
presume, and an astonishing state of things
revealed itself.
Not soul cf the twenty persons who set
sail from Boston in the brig was found on
board, Every man had disappeared, from
the captain to the boy, and the captains
wife and child also were as if they had
never been. The vessel was infinitely and
carefully examined. There was an inspec-
ton by the American consul; there was a
busness-like noting of all details and a re-
port was duly prepared for the authorities
on the other side of the sea.
Listen to the astonishing particulars
which an examination of the brig revealed
Not rope or stay. not a sail was injured
or bolt missing. Everything. from truck
to keel. was in its proper place. The brig s
board. slung on their davits or slowed on
deck. Below everything was in the same
ulldlSturbed state. The watches of the cap
tain and his wife hung nails in the
cabin-another fact to be noted-there were
the remains of half-eaten dinners cooked
apparently no long time before the brig
drifted toward the Spanish coast. Below
and aloft all was silence-a CHASTITY signifi-
cant silence, appalling by reason of its in
eXplicablc nature. and causing the faces of
the searchers to pale before the mysterious
possibilities which offered as solutions of
the grim deafness of the ship. Since the
day when the Marie Celeste drifted on her
course to the European shores not a trace
OF any one of the twenty souls had been
discovered. Needless TO saw strict inouirias
were made both in America and in Eurone
concerning captain and crew Every sail
ors home was notified of the story in case
some derelict seaman should have come to
a reStful haven therein. The names and
nationalities of the crew were known, 7 he
heFe they included Americans Danes
NorWegians and men of other nations in
their numbers. But not a scrap of intellt-
gence. not a wave-washed bottle with
Iaa1 hnl,,
came TO light which could suggest a solu
ton of this horrible mystery
suppose we set our wits agoing on the
problem of the Marie Celeste what explana-
tons are possible or likely to merit atten-
non! Pirates and wholesale slaughter of
the crew by ordinary murder or by walking
me plank? Nonsense. Piracy was no
more common in the Atlantic in the eos
than it is now, and pirates do not attack a
snip merely for the sake of numbering the
ere" or without looting the vessel and
SINKING her. and a piratical attack surely
would have left traces of a struggle ON the
deck. The pirate idea clearly will NOT hold
water at all ~
"A storm which swept everybody away?
Equally untenable as a theory; for storms
there were none at the time the brig dr;ftad
eastward, and storms leave traces Of dan
age sucn as were absent in vessel with all
salls set and not rope or bolt missing
some calamity in the way of Illness. yo3,
suggest. Well, where were the bodiesp AID
II. mayhap, you maintain that the last cur
VlVor pitched his dead friends into the sea
and then drowned himself, You have first
TO md that mysterious epidemic. and to re-
gard 1t as very unlikely that any disease
should attack a whole crew rapidly and
instantly, so as to cut them off in a few
hours time. "
Don't forget the half-eaten dinners. for
tEat fact proves that within a short dis
tance of the land the crew were practicai1v
a. rest, undisturbed by any omen of an
proachlns calamity; and no disease know
OF save, perhaps, cholera of malignant
type can kill people in few hours. RE-
sices you must have Infection and whence
did the pestilent microbes come to the brig?
Sudden insanity on the part of one of the
crew leading to homicidal staying of the
others? Well, If you elect to believe that
theory, you may. 1 don't. for the plain
reason that seventeen men could surely
have overpowered one. The insanity ida
Will not work. 1t does not explain the facts
as true theory should, and a true theory
should explain them and be contradicted by
none.
Have 1 any suggestion to make? I have.
though offer it in all modesty, seeing that
II my information is correct American sol
entists We're consulted regarding the posi-
bi'lties of catastrophes arising from the
denizens of the sea themselves, and rejected
the idea But we know more about certain
sea monsters In this year of grace than
they did in the eos, and my explanation of
the mystery Of the Marie Celeste is that
which attributed the disappearance of the
crew 70 tHe attack OF huge octopus, or
devil fish, or of some other member of the
cuttlefish group. Let me picture what 1
think may have happened There is man
at the wheel. All the others are below at
mess.
A huge octopus rises from the deep and
with wave Of its sucker-studded arms
encircles the steersman. He yells for help.
Everybody rushes on deck. Then up sweep
the other arms Of the monster and one by
one or en- masse the whole are included in
the tenacious grasp of the sea devil They
are swept over the side and perish. There
is no damage done to the vessel and the oc-
tcpus leaves TO traces of it's attack as It
sinks itself, loathsome mass of flesh and
muscle. into the ocean abyss. II we find
squ1ds, which are cousins of the octopus.
forty and fifty feet long. II octopi abound
in southern seas with bodies as big as watts
and arms twenty feet in length-these
things We know-we may go farther and
rare worse IN our attempt to explain this
mystery Of the deep.