A Tale of the Sea.

Manawatu Herald, 29 December 1896, Page 2

A Tale of the Sea.

Few tales of the sea have ever been narrated which can surpass in terrible experience as that told by Thomas Thomas, second mate of the Cardiff steamship Barling, an iron vessel which stranded on a sunken rock off Green Island, Nova Sootia, on January 6th, this year. Thomai has just arrived home at Cardiff, with the loss of both legs and all his fingers, as the result of frostbite, Himself and Captain Alfred Meek and the ohief and third engineers and thirteen members of the crew were four days in an open boat, without food, and scantily clad, the thermometer registering six degrees below zero. Before the boat reached land no fewer than nine of the unfortunate men, including the captain, had been frozen to death. Upon being conveyed to the hospital at Halifax, Thomas had to submit to amputation of the legs and all his fingers, and similar operations bad v to be performed upon the other iivvivors. Thomas feava that by noon of the second day after leaving the steamer two of the firemen died of cold. The boat at this time had a foot of ice all round her. On the following morning another fireman and the captain were found dead in the bottom of the boat. During the night one of the engineers and one of the firemen went nearly mad, and - ran from one side of the boat to the other, almost capsizing it. Their ; soream3 were horrible. On the third • morning the chief engineer, third engineer, and a fireman were found " dead. They were 9iraply blocks of ice. Thomaa was detained in the hospital at Halifax six months. A small boat which was launched from the Earling, and which was manned by the chief officer and six of the Aw, has not been heard of.— c Lftyd'g Shipping Gazette,