The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1912-11-29
III GH0GnI c&zzp 0zRE1HRD EzHzE

down to the sea in ships? Will he not rather
give an ear to the tales of strange things seen
and believed by sailor-folk?
1t is the writer's pleasure to waste time sailing
the sea in small craft, usually alone Upon
of these voyages, having anchored upon the edge
of the More, Sands he awoke in the middle of the
night to find himself enShrOuded by a thick fog
eerie enough the uninitiated reader will doubtless
think. Upon looking out at the black woolly
wall of fog that surrounded him. he distinctly
heard his name hailed the water.
No other craft near This struck him as be-
ing peculiar that he mentioned it to a friend
when he arrived at Of the little anchorages,
and the skipper of barge, CHANGING to overhear,
said: That's the Of gentleman of the Nore
Often of foggy nights ye may ear i'm a-yelling
aht in a kind O. 'elpless way. but sometimes is
language is something hOrful. They say e
was a first mate wot dropped overheard and
swan to the sands, where e walked about until
the tide rose an drownded i'm"
Upon another occasion was sailing along the
coast of France, under the cliffs upon which
stands Girls Nez lighthouse, which is about the
most powerful light IN the world. 1t very
dark night, end the revolving rays of the light
house kept flashing upon the sails Of my boat,
lighting them like powerful searchlight until
proceeding along the | got out of their
range. The strange effect had been forgotten,
only 10 be remembered in time to prevent me
from becoming firm believer in ghosts There
out at sea a ghostly ship was sailing; she was
rather too modern perhaps, to be real ghost,
for every sail set like a gloye-ghost ships were
never particular in this respeet-indeed, she was
of those fine ships out OF Glasgow which are
the last words in sailing craft.
From apparently nowhere a ship had come
a ship uncannily glowing with an unnatural light
Her sails were surely cobwebs and her ropes
were spider strings
Strange sights and sounds frequently come the
way of seafarers
The groyelling kissing sea, breaking through
the night It's appearance is CHASTITY gray; it
comes from nowhere, it fades away soon after.
What could not the imagination weave it into?
Shape or sound of spirits chased by the Evil One
the dying wife with arms outstretched, or sound
of mothers voice. Moreover such messages as
sea sounds give have frequently come from the
dead: the howl of the raging gale, the muir
of the gentle breeze through the halyards.
have borne the departing message in words that
were exactly those the lost one whispered last
To the mind of who knows the sea. it
would seem strange that sailors are not more
superstitious than they are and there are GER
tainIy many reasonable excuses for their belief
in such stories as that of the Flying Dutchman
A patch of swirling vapor through the rigging of
his ship upon a dark night Imagination does
the rest: he has seen the Flying Dutchman.
Cornelius Vanderdecken. Dutch navigator of
long ago was making a passage from Batavia
For DAYS and days he encountered heavy gales
and battling head winds while trying to round the
Cape of Good Hope Struggle against the winds
as he would he lost as much on tack as he
gained upon the other. Struggling vainly for
nine hopeless weeks he ultimately found himself
IN the same position as he was in at first, the
ship having made progress. Vanderdecken,
in fit of wrath threw himself on his knees