SEVENTY-ONE DAYS IN AN OPEN BOAT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 595, 12 September 1873, Page 3

SEVENTY-ONE DAYS IN AN OPEN BOAT.

Further particulars of the remarkable preservation of Captam Wren and two of the crew of the British barque Ehvell, rescued in the Straits of Magellan by the White Star steamer Tropic, are to hand. The Elwell had a cargo of coal from Cardiff to Valparasia, with a ship’s company of fifteen, including the captain. After doubling Cape Horn, the ship was discovered to be on fire, from spontaneous combustion of the coal, and during five days the captain vainly tried to put out the flames or make progress to some Chillian port, two of the sailors dying from over-exertion, or, perhaps, being suffocated by the smoke. On the 6th and 7th of December they had at last to abandon the ship, which went down a few’ hours after they had left her. They were then some hundreds of miles, in the Pacific Ocean, distant from the nearest land. The captain had time, before leaving the burning ship, to secure ten day’s provisions, and then got into the boat with his eleven officers and sailors, and the stewardess (the latter being the cook’s wife). Rain, hail, and snow were almost continuous, both before and after reaching the mouth of Magellan’s Straits, and the sufferings of the men were so great that they began to succumb one after another, the survivors committing the corpses to the deep, It is impossible to describe the adventures and privations of these poor people in w r et clothes for weeks together, and trying to obtain sustenance from the musse's on the rocks of the island. At times they ventured ashore for fresh water, regardless of the danger of meeting Fuegan cannibals When all Captain Wren’s companions but two hiid perished, he still resolutely pushed through the numerous islands for the main channel frequented by steamers, hoping eventually to be picked up before their little remaining strength was gone. The stewardess seems to have been a woman of remarkably robust constitution ; she had now survived all but Captain Wren and one remaining sailor. The steamer Tropic j which had been detained live days by adI verse weather from entering the Magellan ; Straits on the Pacific side, had come about fi ty miles through the Straits when she saw a boat containing two men and a woman, who signalled for help, and were promptly taken on board, after seventy one days spent in the(boat.