A STIRRING VOYAGE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 22, 9 January 1912, Page 6

A STIRRING VOYAGE.

The stout litle ship Nimrod, which carried oir Ernest Snacidcton's expedition to the Autartic, has earned new laurels by making tiio / aorta-east passage to Siberia. ifie vessel left britain in duly last, under tne command cl* Capt. bi. \ . Webster with an experimental cargo ox salt, tea, and nee and proceeded round the northern. extremity of Norway and througn the Kara Sea to the mouth of tne • tenesei Haver. The-voyage was extraOrdinhi'y ffiiffictdt-’ 6il-* aoebtmt'- of the tcs&VJj?• Sttdlaiid-Hhe inaccurate charting, and an ordinary ship would have been lost. Hut tno Nimrod is accustomed to hard knocks, and she reached the .Siberian port of Goiehecka without serious liiisnap. Captain Webster pro-ceeded-up tne river on 'lns way to Krasnoyarsk, a centre lying some dUUU miles from tno coast. The Nimrod was ‘sent home’ by sea. The British officer did not reacn St. Petersburg until tlio end of October, and he reported that he had been subjected to extraordinary persecution iby tne Siberian officials. All his correspondence had been intercepted, he had been blackmailed by unscrupulous public servants, and had actually been kept under arrest for several weeks until the British Embassy intervened on his behalf. Captain Webster seems to have been treated in a deliberately insulting manner, and he discovered that arrangements had been made to seize the Nimrod just before she put to sea on the return voyage. The siiip’s papers were all in proper order. Many apologies were oifered to the captain by the itussiaas when lie had succeeded in getting the ear of the authorities in St. Petersburg, and he was invited to come again with two ships, but probably he will decide to rest content with his achievement. A good market for many articles can be found in Siberia, where heavy railway freights keep prices at a high level, but the north-east passage oilers few temptations to navigators. Only speciallyconstructed ships could hope to make the' voyage from Liverpool to Golchecka, and in bad seasons the route would become quite impassable. The Kara Sea is a death-trap that holds the bones of many stout ships.