The Washington times., 1901-11-03
THE CoBRA'S WRECK.
PitifuI Details of the Loss of the
Crack British Destroyer.

| One of the survivors has given graphic
| description of the wreck Of the Cobra:
| we struck" he said, at 7:30 yesterday
| morning. The sea was high. and there
was nasty cross sea. The ship began to
| roll very heavily; in the middle watch. at
about o'clock, it was anyhow Just
about sunrise / went on deck to see what
was up. She continued to roll heavily
and then all of a sudden she struck the
shoal, and the waves in a moment broke
over her Alarmed by the force of the
| shock. every man came up on deck, and
one-half of the men were in their berths
at the time, and had no time TO dress
themselves. The seas began to roll over
the forecastle, and a few moments later
the vessel broke in two, fore and aft
Somebody gave the order to clear the
boats away, though who it was ! do not
know. but l had already commenced to
do this. There was a whaIer and a dinghy
aboard and three colIapsible boats There
was, however, some difficulty experienced
with these. and whether they were ever
got out or not I do not know The whaIer
and dinghy were got out, but / believe the
whaler was swamped; she never took the
water right. ! myself cut the dingy
clear, and then, the after part of the
vessel was rising, I could see there was
no hope of remaining on her and VIC
launched the dinghy into the water Di-
rectly she was in the water several men
boarded her from the ship. Most of the
remainder Of the crew jumped into the
water. from fear OF being taken down I'm
the wort X, as no one knew the depth of
the wa. = around; besides, every moment
an explosion of the boilers was feared
Several unfortunate fellows, however, re-
mained on board until the last.
Everything seemed 10 happen So
quickly that l cannot tell how long We
were before we got clear Of the ship and
the wreckage. but I should think it would
be about five minutes. As we moved
from the ship we picked up number
Of the men in the water, till we had nine
aboard. Chief Engineer Percy was the
last We took aboard as we left the DOOM
ed ship but three men hung on to the
side of the boat for three hours before
we dared take them aboard owing to the
rough sea ana the imminent danger of
swamping the dinghy, which IS only built
to hold eight men. | had. however
thrown all the tackle overheard that was
not absolutely necessary, and we had re-
naming two sculls and two oars.
When / took last look at the ship
she was living awash on her after part
and her fore part was standing up al
most vertical like beacon. AS we row
ed away from the ship we kept on pass
ing bodies OF drowned men, and fear
that all the ship crew and contractors
men who were p:t saved in the dinghy
were drowned. Lifebelts wcI. no use; we |
rowed all day, but we unable to |
make much headway. for fear of being |
swamped. We endeavored to get in the |
track OF steamers, and / tried to attract |
attention by waving a stokers towel al |
the end of boathook, but several steam |
ers passed without noticing AT last.
after a weary and trying ten hours in an |
open boat. we were rescued by the T. |
and o. Harrington
The dramatic story of his rescue has |