THE YARN OF THE NISERO. A Romantic Story of Shipwreck and Imprisonment. British Seamen in Captivity. [BY THE AUCKLAND " STAR'S" LONDON CORRESPONDENT. ]

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 60, 26 July 1884, Page 5

THE YARN OF THE NISERO. A Romantic Story of Shipwreck and Imprisonment. British Seamen in Captivity. [BY THE AUCKLAND " STAR'S " LONDON CORRESPONDENT. ]

London, May 31. Although many of us had heard something about the crew of a British steamer being detained in captivity by * certain Rajah of Tenom, few, I fancy, knew the true " Yarn of the Nisero," till it was related in the " Echo " the other day. The information came direct from Captain Woodhouse (the skipper of the unlucky vessel), and may be relied upon as strictly correct. So far, the Government seem to have been very apathetic in the matter, but they can scarcely remain so. It would, indeed, be a sin and a shame if our unhappy counh'ymen were left to languish much longer in captivit}', simply because they are " only sailors." It was on November Bth of last year that the British steamship Nisero, while making for Acheen for safety, ran ashore on the West coast of Sumatra, and heeled over on her port side, a prey to the heavy sea. She had been trading between Rangoon and Penang, and had left Sourabaya, an important seaport of Java, with I,SOO tons of sugar, bound for Port Said for orders ; but, hindered by bad coals and stormy weather, changed her course 660 miles from Galle, nd made for Sumatra, 400 miles away. It was after S o'clock at night when she struck. A teiriiic wind was blowing, and the rain was falling in torrents, while tremendous seas broke over the vessel, breaking up the port boats and putting out the engine fires. In this perilous condition the crew remained until 11 o'clock, when — thinking they could not save the ship — they got out a lifeboat and a starboard boat, and made for the shore, a mile and a half away. By good fortune they reached it without losing a man, leaping out as the boats rode in on the crests of the waves, and seizing them to drag them high and dry. In this they succeeded with the small boat, but the lifeboat broke away, and was driven ashore about half a mile along the coast. Here, then, on that strange shore they gathex - ed, twenty-eight men in all, half clad, their only property some provisions and the ship's papers ; around them impenetrable darkness, before them a raging sea, behind them the unknown and perilous bush. Before long one oi the crew made out some figures moving in the bush, and after a time the Captain went up to where they were, and found five natives, heavily armed. They refused to shake hands with him, so he called Ah Yeow, a Chinese-American cook, who told them in the Malay language that the crew were English, and that their assistance would be rewarded by the English Government. While the cook was speaking another native, who had crept up on his hands and knees, whispered something in the ear of one of them, and they all withdrew. Soon after this the light of an approaching torch was seen through the trees, and they then discovered that all the time natives had been concealed behind trees in the thicket, covering each man of them with a musket. On came the torch, until by the light of it they could discern the presence of a chief, a noble-looking man, decked with a crown of long feathers like those of an ostrich, and followed by a band of fifty men, armed with swords and knives and muskets. This chief, who turned out to be the Rajah of Pangah, beckoned to the captain, who went forward and received a gift of bananas, stripping one according to custom as a sign of peace, and offering it to the Rajah. These formalities over, the Rajah asked them to go into the bush, but tke captain pleaded that he had hurt his side, and that he wanted to see the position of the ship in the morning ; and to this fie Rajah agreed, sending some of his men with dried sticks to enable them to light a fire. This they did ; but heavy rain put it out, and the morning that disclosed their vessel being swept away by the sea found them drenched to the skin and wearied out by exposure and suspense. Soon after daybreak a band of armed men arrived, and led them for a mile and a half through the bush to a village composed of bamboo huts. Here they were taken before the Rajah, who sat on the mat in the principal hut, turbaned, and with a sword of state lying across his knee, its handle gleaming with diamonds and precious stones. Aided by the cook, the captain made his statement again, and then the Rajah, having looked long at them, ordered the captives to pass before him. Two light-haired Dutch sailors seemed to arouse his suspicion. " Are these Englishmen?" he asked. The captain said they were. "If I thought they were Dutchmen," said the chief, "I would kill them now." Still further to satisfy t heir captor, the Captain swore the men were Englishmen, and the Chinese cook, with a sword held over his head, swore they were Englishmen also, for the sight of a Dutchman inflames the passions of these tribes of Acheenese, and swift and cruel death is inevitable. At last the Rajah's lingering suspicions were removed by the sight of the Union Jack, which the Captain unfurled before him, and thereupon he left the hut, and the captured crew saw nothing of him or his men until next day. Here they remained for nine days, with no dry clothes, and nothing but rice to eat. One night, at ten o'clock, the Captain was called out of the hut with the interpreter, and taken before another Rajah, to whom the Chief of Pangah was subordinate. This was the Rajah of Tenom, with whom the Dutch had been at warfare for thirteen years, a man described as savage and bloodthirsty. He was of low stature, but his shoulders were twice as broad as an ordinary man's, and his teeth and nails, red with the use of the betel-nut, gave him a fierce appearance. His men were armed with muskets and swords, and wore the rangong, or short dagger. This interview yielded no result, and the next morning the captain and his men got out of the hut and went down towards the beach, where they found about two hundred fighting men. After some parleying, the chief officer was allowed to go on board the stranded steamer, rowed by four of the sailors, and accompanied by six of the Rajah's men, and he came back with clothes, some of which were given to the crew and some to the natives. The Rajah of Tenom took a box of two thousand cigars, giving ten to the captain, but saying they were not for such men as the sailors. Next day the captain visited the ship again, and found her rifled. This was his last visit to the Nisero, for the Rajah of Tenom said it was his property, and that if the Englishmen were found wandering on the beach again they would be killed. That day, when they were in their hut, six hundred men from the mountains surrounded it, declaring that they were Dutchmen, aad calling on the Rajah to turn them

adrift, so that they might butcher them. This was an anxious time for the seamen. Not a shutter was lifted, save when the Rajah of Pangah came to see them, and then they could see the dark-visaged mountaineers scowling at them through the window, longing to dip their daggers in their blood. This Rajah was more friendly than his superior, the Chief of Tonom. He would do little friendly acts by night, sometimes coming M'ith two chickens, which was hardly a feather apiece among twentyeight, but was still a great treat. Early on the ninth day of their captivity the crew were called out of their bamboo hut, and found in the village evident preparations for a march. About thirty fighting men were there, in charge of the chief's brother, and without word of any sort they were marched away, toiling for ten hours through the jungle. Once away from the little village, nestling among the cocoanut trees, they saw no hut and no new face until that weary day was over. Their progress was slow, for the vegetation of Acheen is luxuriant beyond description, and their movements were hampered by the dense undergrowth. Five j times they had to cross rivers, sometimes up to the waist, once up to the chin. No time was given them to rest for food. They marched, through groves of resinproducing trees, while around them rose stately palms, casting their shade on the flowering plants and shrubs that carpeted the fores path. Late at night they suddenly emerged from the forest, and found themselves in another village, a large one, close to a river, This they found to be the village of Tenom, five miles from the sea, and only twelve miles from Pangah, where they were last held captive, so that they must have been led by roundabout paths, to mislead them as to distance. There were many huts in this village, builfc on posts, and they were led into the largest of them, a hut with a double floor. Here they remained eight days. On the fourth day word came that a Dutch hawker was in the village, selling goods. The hawker turned out to be a spy, carrying letters to the Captain from the Assistant Resident at Olehleh, and from the commander of a Dutch man-of-war. The tenour of these letters was that they were in the hands of a ferocious savage, who was dead to all sense of honour, and that they must not be obstinate in anything, lest additional difficulties should be put in the way of their release. On the morning of the eight day they were again called out, and had to prepare for another march, and after a ten hours' journey they came to a place where five huts had been built by the river-side. Three centre ones, fifty yards apart, had evidently been prepared for their reception, while the remaining huts were evidently to be used as guardhouses. No sooner had the prisoners been placed in these huts than their gaolers commenced to run up bamboo stockades, making each hut a gaol by itself. Here, for the remainder of his term of capture, the Captain was confined, and here, so far as we know, the rest of the crew remain The time hung heavily on their hands. No labour was given to them, but absolute inaction was almost intolerable, and semistarvation added to their miseries. At Might they heard the cries of tigers, and knew that if they did escape from the huts, it would be to meet death in the jungle in a worse form than that which was hanging over them every day. The only chance was the river ; but they did not know its name nor where it led. As a matter of fact, it was the Tenom River, and if they had constructed a raft and got on to it, an hour or two would have taken them past Tenom, the village in which they had last been confined. Escape there would have been almost impossible, and if they had escaped that danger the raft would have been broken by the surf that lashes the bar at the mouth of the treacherous stream. Only practised boatmen can pass this bar, and the sharks, knowing this, are never absent. After another period of captivity, extending over thirty-one days, the Captain, Mr Kydd (the second engineer), and the Chinese cook were allowed to leave the huts to confer with the English Consul, who was on board a Dutch man -of war off the coast. Kydd was blind and almost dead at the time, and when the Captain asked permission to take him to see the ship's doctor, the Rajah kicked him contemptuously as he lay, and said he might as well go as die there. Emboldened by his success, the Captain asked for the chief officer ; but upon this the Rajah went into a passion, declaring that if another request were made no one should go at all. So the three men went alone, leaving the other twenty-five behind them, in charge of Mr Crichton, the chief officer. What else there is of the narrative is well-known — how, when once on board of the man-of war, the Consul would not let Captain "Woodhouse and his comrades return, how negotiations have gone on without intermission, how the Rajah declares that the capture of the crew was a special interposition of Providence in his favour against the rule of the Dutch, how he would w illingly give up his country to England, but how a sadden delicacy on the part of the Foreign Office makes them consider English interference impossible ,* with the result that the crew are still captives, and, for all the Foreign Office is inclined to do, may remain so for ever, or at any rate until the patience of the savage chief is exhausted and the word is given for the willing Acheenese to butcher them.