A FILIBUSTERING EXPEDITION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 208, 1 March 1912, Page 8

A FILIBUSTERING EXPEDITION

| ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AMERICAN I WATERS. A Brussels newspaper publishes a remarkable account 'of a filibustering expedition Vhich set sail from Antwerp in i October. A steamer flying the Belgian ; flag was announced to proceed to th» Falkland Islands with a mixed cargo-, | and rumor had it that she*was reallygoing to take assistance to the Portuguese Royalists.- The authorities mad* enquiries without discovering anything suspicious and the steamer was allowed to leave. Some members of her crew returned to Antwerp at the, end of Dej cember and told a story of adventure in South American waters.. The veßSel had gone first to Lillo, on the Scheldt, said, and had taken on board 250 ton* of explosives and seven passengers, tw» of them being Britons. One of the passengers, a Spaniard named Arricos, took command when the high seas were reached, and the crew then learned that tb* steamer had been' chartered by Paraguayan rebels. Arricos was a prominent revolutionary, three of the passengers were Argentine pilots, and th« cargo consisted of war material, including four quick-firing guns, 0000 rifles, a»d many uniforms. When the Sfcuth American coast was sighted the gun» were mounted and at the mouth of tn« Rio de la Plata the Brazilian flag wa» substituted for the Belgian. The crew had become nervous by this time; but they were kept at work at the muzzk of the pistol and after Monte Video and Buenos Aires had been passed the steamer was repainted and.given a new. name. At the point where the Rio de la Plata forms the- frontier between Argentina and Paraguay, the members of the crew were paid off and invited to enlist aa fighting men. Only one man responded and the others made their way to Buenot Aires and took ship back to Europe. Arricos had lived for some time in Belgium' and appeared to have plenty of money at his command. The story told, by the sailors obtains some color from the fact that a revolution is at present in progress in Paraguay.