The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-09-21

4
among us that night. We needed all
our breath. Silently we took our turn
| in relays-pumping, watching, praying.
Would it never end?
The suspense in that dense fog was
something frightful. God knows what
| would have happened had it not
/ broken. 1t scattered with the dawn,
| revealing us, water soaked, surrounded
by small islands and reefs.
Our lives we're safe. but the great
boat was still in imminent danger.
Fro that moment began the fight for
| her life.
| Fortunately wrecking company was
at work within a few miles Of US on a
| Japanese steamer
With their assistance we came to a
| full realization of the Oregon's posi-
| ton.
| She was impaled on a submerged pin
nacle-shaped rock, a rock about twenty
| five feet high, rising out Of very deep
water. It lay northward of the Miau
Tau islands, where rocks form one Of
the great perils of navigation. We I'M
derstood now why the locality had been
| named the graveyard of ships"
| 1t was like to be the Oregon's grave.
! She was keeling over then at an angle
! of ten degrees, with from ten to sew
enteen fathoms of water around her.
| Her compartments. were full of water,
with pumps working for all they were
worth to keep her from sinking.
1t was like saving a human life, and
we worked at it as hard as ever a. par
ent worked for the life of child.
Every minute it looked as though
she were going to fill with water in
| spite Of US. Then we began taking out
etc.
The Nanchang, chartered at Chefoo,
North China, by the captains orders,
at last arrived to give us new hopes.
We had struck on the 10Th of June
On July a hawser was passed aboard
! the Oregon and the Nanchang was
| towing us.
"Hurrah" we shouted Our hearts
| had leaped to our very threats with
| joy. Think Of it, you land-lubbers, the
the ship, our giant war boat, had
| twisted about with the tide and was
afioat and using her own engines.
Each puff they gave thrilled us with
new life as not even whiskey could in
| those raw days.
1t was a sound to gladden. her crews
ears.
"Hurrah!" we shouted till it sounded
like a roar. Another met it of dreadful
potent.
In this graveyard Of ships" we had
smashed upon another rock, another of
those frightful, unseeable pinnacle
| shaped monsters.
/ Afta,-uar divor M
had struck hard enough to cleave the
monster in two.
There was life in the Oregon yet.
Again every back was bent to light
en- the ship forward. Night and day We
unloaded coal and ammunition.
All the while, with the Nanchang
made fast on one side of us and the
Kwonsang fast on the other, we de-
| sired to slip off our bed of stone but
night left US in despair
The next day the British cruiser, En-
dymion, added her effects. She passed
a hawser aboard the Oregon astern.
All backed at full speed in one mighty
effort for freedom. The Endymion car
ried away her own hawser in the at
tempt, and shortly after another one
| belonging to our great batteship.
All day the Fourth, while we thought
! of America and how the news of Our
! terrible position must have shocked
her, we worked with three ships, US
ing all their power and the Oregon all
the force of her engines.
How we watched the sky for any
| chance of a storm,
A gale would have taken her life and
we knew it.
Every religious man on board prayed
to his God that night when darkness
fell.
The Oregon was still on the rock.
The waters reained calm and the sky
clear The sailors God watched.
| TIL. next day the sun shone and the
! tide by a miraculous providence was
uncommonly high.
| Lo and beholdi dashed once more to
! the three ships, the mighty Oregon
disdained them ALL
At 1:35 p. m. on July 5-the day and
the hour will never fade from the
| memory Of him who writes this-the
| Oregon f1oated off her rocky bed of
her own free will.
A half hour later she was anchored
| in 1919 fathoms of water, safe as
| though she were in an American port
built to receive her.
a few days later, by the blessing OF
God. she lay in Hope Sound, where her
holes were planked over by divers.
and now she is in the japanese Ma
val DOckyard from where she will go
to take part, favored by fortune, in
the Chinese campaign.
The great battleship that Travelled
| $4,000 miles to be in the death of Ger
vera's fleet, is alive to go wherever
| Americas flag may need support.
Here's to her,
And may she never be nearer tC
| death than she was on that fatal July
%, when a reef assailed and tore her
gigantic frame, filing her ingloriously
with water from the Chinese channel
Paris. Sept. 21.-At Matsons LATTE yes
terday Cash Sloan, the American jockey
won the Prix Salient. 1900 francs, owe
a course of 100 metres, on VI J. Debre
mond's Cranesbiu.
! SIXTY-TWO DAYS
ALONE ON THE OCEAN