The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-22

From the New York World.
 IF anyone foolishly believes that the
 age of romance is dead, that sailor A men have become machinists and dull arithmeticians and that polar bears are no longer met with except in the dreary captivity of geological gardens. then let him seek our Capt. Fritz Franke, of the steel ocean freighter Karthago, which slipped into this port yesterday. carrying mixed cargo, 8 live polar bear in pig pen and the finest sea story of many long year.
 Captain Franke has sailed the seas, man and boy, for 26 years. He has merry blue eye, good name with his owners, and, when talking to reporters, the most veracious manner in the world.
 He swore seven sea oaths on the tsory yesterday and called his whole afterguard to verify him. He had no use for bears, he declared; he didn't expect to meet bears when he sailed from Germany, and If every word of the bear story wasn't gospel he hoped to lose his ship on his passage back.
 But let Captain Franke tell the story himself just as he told it yesterday and then if you don't believe it go over to Hcboken and see the bear for yourself. "On the 17th of November Captain F'ranke narrating) we sailed from Ham burg with the Kathago for New York. The Kathago is the type of boat like to go to sea in; well found, dry and lively; but tell you she was as wet as bath tub from the time we put her nose out side the Lizard until me made St. Johns, Newfoundland, on December s. Twenty
 one days for the short North Atlantic pas | sage; how is that for boat that regu- ! larly makes her ten knots?"
 Well, as I tell you, it was dirt from | the beginning and no mistake. On the | 27th the sea was running so high we had | to heave-to, under half steam We lay | so for three days. It was on the second | day that the sea conger-but wait, l will end with that. First, you must hear
 about the bear The carpenter, too, was 1 washed overheard on the same day, but l that also, l will keep until the last. "On December 6, while we were running
 before the worst gale I ever encountered
 in all my life at sea, the first officer came l
 The ship is afire he cried Come 1 out and see for yourself
 | T went with him and sure enough, | some cans of calcium carbide that we
 were carrying our after deck had | broken loose and were afre. It was a
 magnificent sight. The more water that | came aboard the higher the carbides
 burned, it being the nature of the stuff. | as you know, to burn fiercely when l wetted.
 q smiled, knowing that the carbides
 would burn themselves out without in- l turing the vessel, which has steel decks. At that moment the lookout raised
 blood curdllng cry.
 Icebergsl Icebergs aheadr
 Before I could give an order the ves-
 sel crashed into the berg, which was
 dead ahead. Nothing saved the vessel
 except that we had come up to the berg
 under half steam and against terrific
 head sea- It was night, of course, and l the weather was very thick, of course, l otherwise, of course, we would have seen | the berg in time."
 "IIow about that heavy head sea, cap
 tain?
 "Why, the wind had shifted, you lub-
 Der. But listen, now comes the bear
 part. We crashed as I have said, into l the iceberg, and at least 20 tons of ice
 came tumbling down upon our bows. I
 gave the order to full steam astern; and
 when we got clear of the berg I ordered all hands forward to shovel away the l loose ice that had fallen on us.
 "It was then that got my surpriee. Two men who had tackled especially | big block of ice suddenly leaped back, screaming. The ice it seems was not ice at all, but polar bear that had been on 1 the berg and had fallen on our bows when we struck. Strange, was it not? The 1 first intimation my men had that the | piece or ice was bear was when the piece | of fee growled.
 ! What did we do then. Why, we tied | the bear hand and foot and put it in a pen we had for hogs, but in which at the time there were fortunately no hogs.