EXPERIANCES ON THE PAPANUI.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 272, 18 November 1901, Page 2

EXPERIANCES ON THE PAPANUI.

One of the engineers on board the e.g.

Papanui, writing to his friends in New Plymouth, says: "We have had bid weithfr ever since we left New Zealand. Wa are now about 600 miles

from (Jape Horn—6oo miles behind where we should be. It has been

bitti rly cold all the time, and I have h nlly b en on deck, < xcepfc to get from my cabin to the engine room. The waves havd t'tfon bißiliing ovflr the top of our deck bow, «i h sl:et and sUow

every few days. For about five days we were among icebergs, some of them

like great churches, and others like sailing ships, while others-were like great flat slabs, rising 200 or 300 feet out of the watar, as flat as a billiard table. In ths first week after leaving

New Zealand, wa had two Fridays, in order to make our timie agree with Eurtpean time, and every day we put hj» cltck 'on half an h ur." Liter on

he writes: We were 24 hours at Monte Yideo, working hard all the time coaling, which was done fay a swarm or little Spaniards. For a week after that we steamed up the Brazilian cost nod crossed the line, when we had it 1110* degrees in the eDgine room, As a

number of things have gone wrong below, we have had long hour?. We

sleep with port and door wide open, and the h at is so great that we require no bed clothes, We g-t plenty of litne juice Berved out, and it is very acceptable. We have pissed numbers of porpoises-', whales and flying fish. Wo havfr bad' several accidents oh board; two of the firemen afad the third engineer were severely burned in the stoko hole; one of them is still in the hospit.il. Continuing; he says: Aft r passing Cape Verde Inlands we' came to Teneriffe, wh're we had to' work liku " grim death." A number, of Span ards c-tme aboai d selling fruit, cigar- - , tobacco, parrots, canaries, shawls, face, etc., which things are very cheap. I got 30 peaches for Is, | 24 pears forl s, nd thrt e Punches of grand grapes for 61. ®S<inta C.uz is a fins town, buils of what, from the ship, appear* to be whita stone, bho.'tly after leaving Teneiiffe fiie was dis-1 covered on board. That was on Satur- j day afternooD, but it was not till Sunday morning that they could locate it. In his efforts to find it the boatswain's mate was suffocated, and it was thres-pu<)r;er4 of an hour before his body could be got at. Three or four with life lines round their waists made an attempt, but had to be hauled back unconscious. Wa made for Vigo, in Spain, and I can tell you we were thankful to get there. The accident to the bra'swain's mate occurred while we were at anchor off Vigo; everything possible was done for the man. We had two doctors on board and they worked at him for some time. A German man-of-war aleo sent her doctors aboard as they saw something was wrong. I thought it was very nice of ttem; they also ran their flags up half-mast out of respect. We got a gang of men from the foundry ashore to cut holes in the bulkhead of the hold in which the fire was supposed to be, and through these holes water wss poured, but it faikd to reach the source of the fire. It was then resolved to flood the hold, so we steamed into shallow water, hoisted the boats out in caee of accident, and started to pump water into the bold, which work is going on at the present time-; but it takes a lot of water to fill it. The damage to the cargo is about <£40,000, besides the'damage to the ship. Vigo is a very pretty place, and has a grand harbour. We all feel about knocked , U P'