RIDDLES OF THE SEA.

Shannon News, 21 March 1924, Page 4

RIDDLES OF THE SEA.

The sea sets us riddles we cannot answer (says “D. K..” in the Daily Chronicle”). What has happened to the good ship Rosa, out of London? Six of her crew have been picked up dead in one of her lifeboats. But of Rosa herself not a trace. There is no survivor to tell us why the ship was abandoned—just another mystery of the sea.

Sea records abound in strange tales of ships being abandoned without apparent reason, and were these tales woven by some romantic sea-writer they could hardly be mofe weird or fantastic. Take the case of the schooner Gloriana. The story was told by the captain of a whaler, working in tho northern seas.

Gloriana was sighted among the icebergs, Sailing, the seas with no hand at the helm. Her rigging was tangled and rotten, her sails drooped, her decks were covered with snow. Boarded by the whaler captain, she was found to be the scene of strange affairs, a veritable derelict of death. In the cabin there sat at the table the figure of her captain; he was dead and had been dead for fifteen years, but the cold; had preserved his body, and he looked as he did in life.

Before him lay the open log; his fingers; grasped a pen, but though the date of the last entry in the log showed how long Gloriana had been a waif of the sea, there was simply nothing which explained the fate of her crew or how it was that the schooner had found her way into those lonely seas. THE SEA’S SECRETS.

Crews have been found dead, but no ship. Derelicts have been found, but never a sign of a man that belonged to them. Why have they been abandoned? In the days of the sailer, one might have found reasons, and curious reasons. In ships of that class sailors were apt to be more superstitious than they are today. A black cat or a crosseyed Finn in the forecastle was looked on as an evil omen. The voyage was found to be unlucky. In the tropics strange shapes of beasts, were seen on the decks at night—and the deluded,, often ignorant, men deserted the ship. But the modern ship and superstition do not go hand in hand. So w? must seek other explanations. A ship's cargo' may shift suddenly,' barely giving the crew time to get'away, with their lives; The vessel sinks, and the crew drift about for days-in their lifeboats —perhaps to .be picked up dead. So another mystery is heard in port. Ships sailing in strange seas have been boarded by cannibals, their crews have been murdered,- and the ships have been found months after. And, even in these days, we have not done with barratry and scuttling.