The Oskaloosa herald., 1908-02-20
Mahaska County Boy Tells Of Trip
to Pacific.

| heldlifeS mere are III receipt OF IN
iteresting letters from Bruce E. Griggs,
son of Mr.. and Mrs. j. w. Griggs,
who is with Uncle Sans fleet in its
trip to the Orient. Bruce is a Ma
haska county boy who joined the navy
last August and was assigned to duty
on the flagship Alabama. The Herald
has made arrangements to publish ex-'
tracts from his letters which will no
doubt be read with interest by the
young mans many friends.
| At Sea, Jan 8, 1908.
Dear Father:-Well. / thought /
would write you few lines this AT.
ternoon, The ocean is the calmest
since we left. We have had two
storms since we left and one of them
was pretty bad One boy got washed
overheard and they got him with the
lifeboat. Maybe you think the waves
don't roll sometimes! One boy died
with the brain fever. His name was
Piper and they put him IN bag
and buried him between Hampton
Roads and Trinidad. Today we saw
some fellows on log and we lowered
a boat and went after them They
could not talk SO we could understand
them. We almost scared them to
death. They were black and had
rings in their noses and ears and did
mot have any clothes on. We sup
posed they had been fishing and their
boat sunk and we could not get them
to come into the boat, so we went
back and let them go. They had a
fish line and two or three spears with
them, | do not know how far it is to
land as | have not seen bit of land
since we left Trinidad nine days ago.
I do not know whether we wifi get to
Rio Sunday or not, but that is what
they are figuring on. We are on the
coast of Brazil, so the officers told us
this morning at quarters.
Pa, how would you like to take
trip like this? | like it fine. When
we were at Trinidad we got eight par
rots and two monkeys. We have al
ready had bear, goat and some
cats. The bear is not very big but
we have more fun with the monkeys
than anything else. One of them is
mine. | bought him at Trinidad. You
know they run wild down here. |
got this one from native for one dol
lar On my way out to the leproSy
farm | bet | saw a thousand in cocoa
nut trees, and parrots were thick. If
[ get TO come home when | get to
Frisco | will bring my monkey with
I
you with the English money that /
got in Trinidad?
1t is snap on one of these ships,
all the time. All we have to do is
labout days work when we get into
port, and it takes about a half an
hour or an hour to scrub down each
morning, and that is all. Sometimes
we have little drilling to do to learn
as to handle the guns. When we get
to Mag0alena Bay we will be there
about a month for target practice. BY
the time you will be reading this let
-er we will be getting pretty well
| :Outh.
| 1t seems to me like am never 60
ing to get any more mail. have not
| had a letter since we left Trinidad.
We got mail there, but 1t was just
what had been sent to Norfolk. We
will get mail at Rio. Hope so, or
will go crazy. / will write again when
get to Rio. May be you think we
did not get initiated when we crossed
the Equator! 1T is all a mistake"
There were about twenty fellows.
dressed up in the worst clothes you
ever saw. l am going to send you
one of their pictures If can get one
| Old Neptune and his family is what
they called them. The way they did
us was they had barber chair fixed
up by the side of tank of water and
they had a lot of black paint and tar
and everything else fixed up. One
fellow had paint brush and he would
just daub it in our faces and every
place else. Then one had big wood
en- razor and he would start to shave
fellow and all at once they would
let the chair go backward in the wat
err, and we certainly got ducked,
There were about five hundred got il.
know | never had so much fun in
my life and everybody else had fun,
too. 1t took all day to get through
with it. Then we got a certificate to
show that we had crossed the equator.
am going to send mine home, for |
want it when come back
| saw whale this morning. l have
seen quite number of sharks, too.
Did you ever see flying fish? You
ought to take trip across the ocean
and you would see lots of them. They
are as thick as hair on dogs back.
Well, Pa, must close, for it is
about supper time.
Vnttr CON pruca EriOoc