The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-05-15

BALTIMORE, April 29.-'I can't say
I have ever played old sledge a-sitting
on top of one of those mines like the
Russians say blew up the Petropav-
lovsk. but I have played high, low,
lack day after day on top of thing
quite as dangerous, and with the fuse
lit, at that"
Thus it was that Capt. ]. A. Ans
gest wooden sailing vessel afioat,
which has just reached Baltimore after
a cruise of $4,000 miles that took 15S
days, started his yarn about the re-
markable adventure of the vessel with
a fire raging in her cargo of coal.
I'VE loaded with 5000 tons of coal at
Norfolk for the Government to be de-
livered at Mare Island and We got a
round the Cape in good shape and
were congratulating ourselves upon
what an easy thing we were having OF
it, when, on the second day out of a
west coast port where we had put IN
L
cabin with the pleasant information
that our cargo was afire.
Now, a fire in cargo of soft coal
is the meanest kind of a calamity that
comes to a ship, especially when bad
weather sets in as it did that very day.
with winds so heavy that We couldn't
turn back and make for the port we
had left forty-eight hours before. When
T
out Of the ford hatch and it was OF
that nasty black and blue that showed
it had got a good Roadway and was
making gas faster than coke oven
of a hundred batteries.
I'VE got a steam pump to working.
as soon as we could, but every minute
l expected to hear a roar and see the
ship lifted toward the sky, but kept
a pretty calm front-as calT1s as I
could, anyway-and got the crew 10
work in two hour shifts. Two men
| worked the nozzle for the pump anu
two others manned the wind pump 70
| bring out the water that the other EEL
lows were pumping in. That water
went into the hold at a temperature OF
about fifty-five degrees and came out
az nfnety-seven degrees.
| s.The fire was anidships, but We
couldn't see it. figured that the mass
| of live Goals lay about the middle OF
] the cargo and pretty near prayed we
might hold it there, for II DIT OF
fame ever got to the top it was a fonu
farewell to the Roanoke and sxerypoay
aboard.
/ THE wind bowed great guns Tor
| two days and then came week OF
4 calm and all the while. night and DAY
| we were keeping a steady stream. 81
water going into the hold and another
/ coming out.
/ "At first the thing got so onto oul
j nerves that if a seaman dropped ms
i knife at mess the rest of them wouil
howl The slightest noise aboard snil
set every heart to auakfng
4 But this wore of and after the mrs,
4 four or FIVE days most of US coule
sleep awhile. each day. Finally we go
q so used to the danger that We actuaiis
4 went on with our card games undei
the awning we had swung over tne
{ quarter deck
ITO relate this seems all simple
!, enough. but when you come to thinl
4 of it il isn't SO funny as it might be
There We were. actually sitting on TOT
| or a volcano anu IShhS ~ 80
lponents' jack and count game a:
though. everything was ship shape anc
we were bouncing along under twelve
knot breeze.
sIt was sixteen days before we reach
ed San Francisco and then came tne
reaction No sooner had we pulled int
the harbor that six of the crew took
to their beds, utterly broken down
+ ssTheir nerves We're in the condition
of a man who is recovering from Ions
debauch. They were about as pitiablt
| a lot of seamen as / have ever seen
and I've seen a good many.
'"That fire reduced to coke about five
hundred tons of my cargo and so effec-