Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-12
ICE FIELD MILES LONG.
Two Months Overdue the william
Nottingham Comes In.

Nottingham Comes In.
NEW YORK, December 12.-Nearly two
months overdue, and with her crew utterly
worn out with three monfhs Of constant
pumping, the schooner William Nottingham,
carrying the biggest load Of Oregon pine
ever shipped around the Horn. came stag
gering past the Hook yesterday. to find
berth of Clifton, Staten Island.
The schooner is bound for Boston, Tor
which port she sailed from Port Townsend
1876 days ago. She was obliged to put In
here because of the exhaustion Of her crew
and through shortness of water-the leak
which was sprung before she reached the
Horn having kept the donkey engine sob
bling day and night since then, the clank OF
the hand pump keeping dreary accompani-
ment, as the thrush of water was such that
both had to be in constant use.
Into the long and dreary voyage-tnere
was only one sail sighted throughout the
many thousand mi es which the vessel
traversed-was crowded more OF peril and
of hardship than the crew had ever en-
countered throughout all OF their sealaring
lives. Partly schooner and partly raft, the
seven hundred sticks Of Oregon pine she
carried brought the load line almost to the
matches, and then on the deck was lasned
load Of g1nat pines which lowered IN a
solid bulk full fourteen feet above the
rail, the heaviest deck load that Arctic seas
ever sheathed with ice.
Captain Austin Keegan, the schooner s
young master, had just gone ashore to
the tug Daizell, with a Herald reporter on
board, ranged alongside. The chief mate
told the story Of the voyage, described now
the captain had been assaulted by drink
maddened seaman on the eve of sailing, and
how the man had inflicted four stab wounds
on the captain, Of how the man had been
arrested and taken on shore prisoner, and
of the delay in sailing, caused by the cap
tain's injuries.
Nothing that need be made part of the
mates narrative happened until the schoon-
err neared the region of the Horn. There
the vessel sprung the leak. With close
reefed sails frozen stiff with Cape Horn
spray, the heavily laden craft rounded that
bleakest Of all headlands to encounter OF
the Falkland Islands a drifting Ice pack,
which the mate describes as the biggest and
most formidable that ever threatened q
ships destruction.
ut was about 1 o'clock of morning"
he said, shooting the red dottel out of his
pipe and beginning to refill the bowl. THE
first we knew about the ice was a big
something that looked like block of haze
dead ahead and we was fair on top OF 1t
before we saw it was something solid, Just
time enough to put the hellum hard over.
and, bump, we were into it, berg 2OO
foot high and the Almighty knows how
long. Lucky enough for US we got the
hellum over, for if we had hit it end on
it would have been all day with us. AS IT
was, she snapped off her head booms and
her foreyard and then glanced of from 1t,
some ten or fifteen tons of the ice which
the foreyard and the head booms had
loosened crashing down on deck and in the
water.
"Whatd we do after that7 Nothin'
mate, there wasn't nothin' to do except to
clear away the wreckage and wait for day
light And when daylight comes we finds
ourselves in the middle Of an ice pack and
no clear water nowheres Now, I've seen
ice before, and I'm giving you this straight,
there was bergs there that was ten and
fifteen miles long, regular islands they
was"
The rest of the voyage was made tumult-
uous with many gales, and when a few days
ago It was found that the water was about
exhausted, the captain decided to put into
here for a new supply and to take tow
for the rest Of the journey.