A STORY OF THE SEA.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 81, 20 December 1884, Page 6

A STORY OF THE SEA.

Adventures of a Party of Shipwrecked Men. New York, November 17. — The " Tribune " says :— The American ship Pactolus, which arrived at this port yesterday from Yokohama, brought as second and third mates H. W. Drohan and H. G. Percy, who formerly filled the same berths on the ship Eeindeer, wrecked on the Marshall Islands. The story of the wreck and sub&equent adventures of the officers and crew, as told by the mates to a reporter, is as follows :— The ship .Reindeer, an American vessel of 1,900 tons, sailed from Philadelphia, August 1, 1883, bound for Japan with a cargo of oil. She was commanded by Captain Morrison. There were three mates and a steward in the cabin, and twenty men before the mast. She had fair winds around the Horn, and on entering the South Pacific laid her course for Japan. The night of January 2, 1884, was a dark and stormy one, and the ship being out of her course, struck on a reef near one of the Marshall Islands. Taking to the boats, the officers and crew escaped to an island, upon which they landed, It is called Ejal, and lies in latitude 7deg. 30min. N., longitude I73deg. 30min. W. When morning broke, the shipwrecked men found themselves on an island covered with palms and other luxuriant vegetation of the tropics. A party of natives, whose skin was of the colour of a new saddle, and whose only clothing was a piece of matting tied around the waist, came out of the palm groves and down to the white coral beach to welcome the sailors. A stalwait native of middle age and commanding presence was the leader. He was king of that and all the adjacent islands, and called himself Lijah Balock. This name he evidently derived from American traders, whose vessels, he said, came at rare intervals to his island kingdom. Ling Lijah treated the ehipv recked men of the Reindeer with great courtesy, even giving his own palace for their accommo dation. The royal abode is 30 x 20 feet, and is possessed of many comforts wanting in the humbler huts of King Lijah's subjects. Every day fresh yams and cocoanuts wore brought to the palace by the King's order for the use of the Americans. On the island of Ejal lived fifty natives, and on the thirteen small islands surrounding it 200 more. From all the surrounding islands these came in their canoes to visit the guests of the King. For over a month the shipwrecked sailors waited for a ship to visit the islands, but no ship came, King Lijah told them of an island far to the northwest called Ulan, where ships (stopped frequently. It was, he thought, 280 miles away. Finally the second mate, Drohan, started, with four men in the long boat of the Reindeer, which had been saved from the wreck, to find the island of Ulan. The diet of fruit, on which the sailors had subsisted since the wreck, had decreased their Btrength, and the men were in bad physical condition. Before the second mate left the island of Ejal, the cook, Frank Smith, died of dropsy. Drohan took with him in the boat a supply of water and fruit, and sailed away. Day after day the men toiled at the oars, for only an occasional wind blew over the tropic sea to propel the boat or temper the heat of the burning sun. Day after day the men strained their eyes to see some palm-clothed island rise from the sea, or to catch sight of a sail. The shipwrecked sailors watching for a sail, but seeing no sail from day to day, felt their strength gradually failing, and one of the men, Peter Dawson, died from exhaustion. After being in the boat for eleven days, and having gone 900 miles in search of the island of Ulan, a vessel was sighted She proved to be the barque Catallina, of London, Captain Williams, from Newcastle, N.S. W, t bound for Saigon, Coohin China. The wanderers of the sea, with their boat, were taken on board and well-cared for until their arrival at Saigon. There the French Consul, ' discharging the duties of American Consul, the United States having no. representative in the port, was afraid to send the men to Hongkong, whither they wished to go to. get shipped to ,

this country. Mr Tranlett, the British, Consul, however, believing that; "blojjd ; is thicker, than water, f took the men in charge, and forwarded, them to; Hongkong, with a letter to Colonel Mosby. , Mosby, the mates both declare, refused to assist them. They went then on board the American man-of-war Essex, which was in the harbour, and laid their case before Captain McCormiok. He communicated with Admiral Davis, commandingjthe Asiatic squadron, who ordered the Essex to go immediately to the Marshall Islands and rescue the rest of the Reindeer's crew. The Essex took the two mates and their men along, and arrived at the island of Ejal three months and ten days after the wreck. It was found that Captain Morrison and ten men left the island one month before for Jeluit in a schooner which they had built. The rest of the men were taken on board, and the Essex went to Yokohama. There the second and third mates secured berths on the Pactolus, and the sailors shipped on other vessels.