Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1903-03-12
COAL FAMINE FOR SURE.
In Midocean, Aboard the Steamer
Rio de Janeiro, Without Fuel.


whenever my wife and / get to
worrying about the coal situation,
said Washingtonian who used to
be in the consular service in the ORR
ent, 1--WE recall a certain time when
we were in a sure-enough scrape on
account of the lack of coal--when it
seemed, in truth, that our lives would
have to be surrendered on account
of the lack of coal-and then we feei
more at ease.
Seven years ago my wife and
left Yokohama, Japan, for San Fran.
cisco, on the steamer Rio de Janeiro,
the same steamer that went down at
the very entrance to the Golden Gate
of San Francisco two years ago,
when nearly all hands, including the
lamented Consul Wildman and his
family-which came pretty near
clinching the theory l had formed
| five years previously, that the Rio de
Janeiro was a hoodoo boat all right
"Twenty-four hours out of Yoke
hama, then, on this occasion when
my wife and | were passengers on
board of her, bound for Frisco, the
steamer ran into one of those ty'
phoons of the China seas. If you
never rode through Yellow sea ty-
phoon, don't root for the experience
! | recently read a book called the
i Typhoon,' written by a clever man,
who knew whereof he wrote, and he
described some typhoons he had
seen with kind of realism that was
harrowing-yet he fell short of con-
veying to readers who had never
been through a typhoon any actual
realization of the horrors of the thing.
Anyhow, this typhoon of ours on
board the Rio de Janeiro was full
grown affair." and the vessel was hove
to for eleven straight days. The
only thing that can be done with a
steamer in a typhoon is to keep her
nose to it, but eleven days is a long
time even for a Yellow Sea typhoon
to remain busy.
Coal, of course, had to be taken
out of the Rio de Janeiro's bunkers
for the furnaces throughout the en-
durance of that hellish blow. and so
when the thing abated and the seas
began to calm down IL was found
that the vessel was pretty shy on
coal in sufficient quantity to enable
her TO make the first leg of her trip
to Honolulu, where the recoaling for
the run to San Francisco was done.
The passengers weren't told any
thing of the coal deficiency, but they
came pretty near guessing the situa-
ton when the steamer was slowed
down, first, to three-quarter speed
and later to half speed in order 10
save coal.
"The ship was still about three
days-which in the case of the Rio
de Janeiro meant about 200 miles
from Honolulu when the fireman,
under the direction of the skipper,
began to tear her apart for fuel. The
tunkers, it seemed, were almost
err oty, and the steamer just had to
reach Honolulu. The spars went
first and as the Rio had good
double extra set of them, they push.
ed her along quite lot. Then the
fireman started to tear away all OF
the woodwork below. The steerage
was chewed up first, and when the
black gang got through down there
there wasn't enough woodwork left
in the Storage to make a toothpick.
Then the Chinese firemen began
to work their way above, stripping
the second deck clean and clear OF
every particle Of wood. The steamer
crawled along with her oil-dipped
wood fuel, while the passengers con
templated the possibility of being
adrift in the middle of the Pacific
ocean, where there isn't much of a
path and where the currents have a
knack of carrying derelicts to out-of-
the-way spots of the sea. The cap
tain-the same captain who went
down with the Rio de Janeiro two
years ago-tried not to look nervous,
r 1t r1,n uyau