DREADFUL TALE OF THE SEA.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 10 May 1901, Page 2

DREADFUL TALE OF THE SEA.

Wreck of the Angola.

On a Raft for over a Month.

Sailors go Mad and jump into the tea. A Frenchman slays the Mate and is killed by the Second Mate. The Survivors live upon the Frenchman's Body. [BY ELECTBIC TELEGBAPH.—COPYEIGHT.] (PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

Received this day, at 9 19 a.m. Sydney, This Day. Sydney underwriters have received information that two of the crew of the ship Angola, which left Newcastle with a cargo of coal for Manila, after leaving which port she was not again heai-d of, have reached Singapore. The survivors are seamen named Johannsen (a Swede) and Marticorua(a Spaniard), who tell the following story : —■ The Angola, under the command of Captain Crok, with a crew numbering eighteen, left Cavite.S Phillipines, on the 12th October last.

Six days after they struck a barren reef.

Two sailors were drowned when she struck. The rest;remained on the vessel for four days ; then, fearing the food was giving out, they put oil' in two rafts—one carrying twelve including the survivors, and the other five men.

After floating together for one day they lost sight of the small raft and never saw it again.

They drifted on day after day, the provisions getting shorter and shorter.

By the 25th day things were absolutely desperate. The men had no proper food for some time, and had been eating their boots and barnacles from the raft and chewing sea.weed. The salt flavor in everything ;&iade all well nigh mad. ■SSIPwo became crazy and jumped into the sea.

Suddenly a French sailor seized an axe and cleft open the skull of the first mate, killing him instantly. He then tried to eat the body, but it was got from him and thrown overboard.

The Frenchman immediately seized the axe again, wet with the mate's blood, and rushed the captain, to strike him, when the second mate felled him to the ground with the axe, despatching him on the spot.

Johannson admitted that they ate part of the Frenchmen's body. After this they drifted in a most awful plight for 17 days more, their sufferings being too horrible to describe. One after another became mad and died.

Finally only the two survivors were left.

They floated on to foubi, a small island between Borneo and the Phillipine, in a terrible condition, their bodies being covered with sores. They were unable to lift themselves from the raft.

Malayan Salus found them, took them ashore, tended them carefully and when they recovered sent them to Singapore in a Chinese junk.

The Angola was owned by Mosser of Nova Scotia.