SINGULAR TRAGEDY AT SEA.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 461, 4 February 1869, Page 3

SINGULAR TRAGEDY AT SEA.

Panama, papers received by the last mail contain accounts of an extraordinary mutiny at sea of some Chinamen, off the coast of Peru, and the horrid butchery of the officers and crew of the barque Cyaltil. The barque left Ca.lao for a port distant only two days' sail, having on board fifty Chinese", (who had been engaged for a plantation in in that neighborho d,) and rice and other supplies for the plantation. The owner of the barque, with his Chinese servant, were passengers, and there was also 820,000 in specie on board. The next day after leaving Callao the Chinese rose upon the crew and gained possession of the ship. They killed the man at the wheel and the second mate at once, and drove the crew below. The Captain and mate attempted to escape by jumping overboard from the cabin windows, having first thrown over some chairs, or other floating articles, but they were soon despatched in the water, the wretches lowering a boat for the purpose. The owner, with his revolver, making his stand in the cabin to sell his life as dearly ns possible, kept them at bay, and finally was promised his life on condition of giving up his weapon. The crew, nine in number, were brought into the waist of the ship and lashed to a hawser, to which a kedge anchor was bent, and all were tumbled overboard, to perish beneath the water. Having accomplished their cruel design and freed themselves of officers and crew, they headed the ship out upon the broad Pacific Ocean, with the purpose of reaching China. With no knowledge of navigation, or the variation of the compass, and only the idea that they must stretch out westward to reach China, they brought up, after seventy-three days, among the Kurile Islands, passed through into the Ochotsk Sea, and got into ice. They lay_ in the ice six days, and filled up their water - casks, having suffered greatly upon the passage across from shortness of water. They still kept to the northwards, evidently having no distinct knowledge of where they were, and finally came to anchor off the " Sand spit," in Northeast Gulf. They here put the owner and his servant who had been confined all the time to cabin, ashore, and afterwards got under way and stood to the westward. For several weeks the owner and his servant escaped starvation and the rigor of the climate, by friendliness of the Indians, and by their means, finally get on board the barque Sea Breeze. The last news is that the vessel had -reached Japan, having been- successfully navigated into port from the Ockotsk Sea. When she arrived, there were only forty-two out of the fifty original coolies left" on board, and the barque was almost a wreck, with no sail left. The American Consul made complaint, and claimed possession of the vessel, while the Chinese were taken possession of by the Japanese authorities and placed "in confinement. In the meantime the pirates were spending their money very freely, and will probably make away with most of the twenty thousand dollars they stole. The whole forms rather a chequered adventure, and when fully written out, will prove among the most remarkable piracies on record.