A ROMANCE OF THE SEA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1156, 25 April 1884, Page 4

A ROMANCE OF THE SEA.

'{Melbourne'] Argus) A ccording to that brilliant writer, Mr W. Clark Russell, the sea n velisc need never be at a loss for materials for a tale of adventure. And Mr Russell would appear to be right. Thus, there are all the incidents for a thrilling story in the tale told to the Melbourne Navigation Board by Captain Schutt, the master of the wrecked vessel Yarra. The Yarra was sailing in the Arafura Sea in December last, when she was ciughtin a hurricane, and Captain Schutt found himself in one of those dilemmas which Mr Russell better than any ‘man can invest with sensational interest; for if inferior to one or two of the great mas tors in the depiction of character, the •author in question is unrivalled in placing a picture of chance and peril before the reader. If Captain Schutt stood on the one tack he must run on the Seringapa+anf reef, anti nothing could save the vessel; while sailing on the other exposed him to the full fury of the cyclone Chosing the latter course, he was blown out of his reckoning, and was stranded on Scott’s Reef, which he had hoped to clear. The subsequent work cf building a raft admits of realistic treatment, and the wretchedness of the after situation is to bejiuLed of from the circumstance that just after the rescue, after a week at sea on a platform of spars swept by «every wave, captain’s wife gave birth to a child. That the crew should suffer and should he saved is according to the approved conditions of nautical fiction; but in other respects and denouement is both unconventional a d unsatisfactory. A Swedish vessel, the Alert, was found at anchor at Brown’s Island. According to all novel-- one has ever read, the waifs of the ocean should have been warmly 'welcomed by men who might themselves be the helpless victims of destiny any moment. But Captain Schutt tells the navigation Board that uothiug of the sort occurred, but very much the contrary. First, it was •agreed that the new arrivals should work at loading the Alert, and in te turn should be lauded at the nearest Aus'ralian port The vessel loaded,, and the Swedish skipper, we are told, asked for more A vi it to the wreck was suggested, to see if payment could be got hy stripping her. As the hull could not be reached, this idea was abandoned j but generous Swede was not at the end of his resources He could not take the clothes of the crew, of course ; but, according to captain Schutt, he bargained that, in addition to the al lowanco given by the British Government for the maintenance of shipwrecked sailors, be should receive ■certain instruments which had been atescufcd, and that the - Government

should par ,£lO for his own passage, and should giuiiuntCH 45 (airhead tor tin- sailors. Captain Sc ntt Inis paid hisow.l JEIO, ami tlie tale lonvna off at the very interesting point of the Swede applying for the £R persdl r, which the local author ties fit Poi t Darwin have advised should 1 e withheld. So singular altogether was the conduct of this successor of the Vikings that one would like to know the result of the r quest for die r-ward, if the novelist had to finish the story, one may be sure that the modern Viking—a tiling in Swedes —would never get it.