Evening star., 1924-05-11
FEAR FOR SAFETY
OF ADVENTURE SHIP
Marine Men Believe Narwhal, in
Search of Treasure, Has
Sunk in Pacific.
TWICE WAS REPORTED LOST
Writers and Hunters Among Crew
Membership.
by Consolida ted Press.

SAN FRANCISCO. May 1o.-once
with her crew. of eighteen gentle
men Sailors" who set out from San
Francisco fourteen months ago for
the romantic South Seas and such
joys and perils as they might chance
to meet, is lost somewhere on the
broad Pacific.
Three months ago the Narwhal,
after already having twice been post
ed as missing and then Nurning up
safe and sound like the family cat,
left Nouimae, New Guinea, for San
Francisco and home. But she has not
reached port. Without mishap and
good sailing weather. the vessel was
due here a month ago. But she has
not reached Honolulu, which was to
be port of can on her home bound
trip, and she has not been sighted by
any other craft since she left the
New Guinea port.
Fear Typhoon Got Vessel.
Now it is feared that "the third
time" being the charmed one, and
TINS oeins the third occasion upon
which the Narwhal has been reported
lost, that she really has gone to
the bottom in one of the freuuent
mld-Pacific typhoons.
1t is too hard that a Conrad or
Capt Dingle was not among those
VINO sailed out of the Golden Gate on
the Narwhal year ago last March
Had a writer of sea stories of the
caliber of either been among the
adventure ships motley crew, her
strange and exciting experiences and
of those aboard her undoubtedlv
iol
dozen or more classic tales of the
briny deep
Poet Member of Crew.
When the Narwhal left San Fran
cisco, 1t was on LAY cruise" That
is, members of her crew of eighteen
had put up $4,000 each to outfit the
old vessel and to share in the ex-
penses of her South Seas rambling,
and each was to share equally in the
profits expected to accrue from her
long ocean trek. In her crew were
a. couple of movie photographers, an
alleged poet, trio of embryo maga-
zine writer's, twain of big game
hunters, naturalist and few others
who were just plain soldiers of
fortune.
Their principal objective was an
island in the Solomon group, where
they expected to dig up a fortune
of more than quarter of million
dollars in gold and pearls, buried
during the world war by two German
planters who were aboard the Mar
whal. Also, the vessel carried a car
go of calico, glass beads, a dozen or
two cheap monographs and a lot of
other jimcracks, which her crew pro-
posed TO trade to unsophisticated and
ear-cannibalistic South Sea natives
for pearls and other things of more
material value.
So far as can be learned, the Mar
laden island in the Solomon group.
Instead, she was reported to have
disappeared from the face of the
ocean while en- route from Honolulu
to Papeete. Both crew and vessel
WnespectedIy ax @ IS She -, turned ned up, tho thousands sands
of miles off her course at port in
Borneo.
Next word came fltering back
that she was to explore the dreaded
Cobra River, in Borneo, up the is
land reaches. of which no white man
alive. But instead of adventuring
up the Cobra, it was reported that
the Narwhal had headed for another
group of South Sea Islands. Ul-
her crew broke" and the
Narwhars lardef without food. In
an effort to bolster up her financial
status, the Narwhal next undertook
to transport a load of steel rails to
New Guinea. Again she was report.
ed lost" and she was ninety-seven
days overdue when she finally turned
up at Nouimae.
In Poor Condition.
Now, in her homebound trip from
New Guinea, where it was reported
that her entire crew was Sated to
overfiowing with adventure, she
again has been numbered among the
missing.
When she left Nouinae the Mar
whal was in poor condition Places
where her seams had sprung had been
fixed up with makeshift patches, and
her sails-She had no auxiliary en-
gineswere in tatters. Some Of her
crew are reported to have stayed in
New Guinea rather than face the
perils of the trip home.
Now that she has failed to reach
Honolulu after being forty-nine days
overdue there, shipping men hero ex-
press the belief that the guardian
angel who kept watch over the ad-
venture ship when she was "lost" on
two previous occasions finally has de-
serted her, and that she has gone to
the bottom somewhere between
Nouimae and Honolulu
and Rhythm Clubs, directed by