DREADFUL SUFFERINGS OF A SHIPWRECKED CREW.
The Florence Nightingale left Bathurst, G-ambia River, for Sierre Leone, on the 21th December, with seven women, two priests, two Koomcn, and nine seamen. On the night of the 20th the barque unexpectedly struck on a sandbank not marked in the charts, and which was not, at the time, surrounded by broken water. In attempting to get off, two boats were stove in and one of the Kroomen drowned. All hands then set to work and made a raft, on which some provisious, brandy, and sherry were placed, but the captain in the hurry forgot water and his charts and instruments. After trying for some time to tow the raft by the aid of a small boat (17 by 6 feet), they were forced to leave it and crowd into the boat. The provisions were soon exhausted, and under a hot sun, without water, they all took to drinking salt water. This soon made one seamen named Brown crazy, and so violent that he had to be forcibly kept at the bottom of the boat. The captain bled him twice, and each time he did so, the blood was greedily sucked up by the others, who were very quarrelsome and violent. They at last resolved to draw lots who should kill Brown before he died. The lot fell upon a colored boy from Bathurst, who, however, refused to act. Just then the captain providentially caught a fish 31b weight, having made a fishhook from a woman's hair pin, and baited it with a small crab he caught in some floating seaweed. This was eagerly devoured, as were also some crabs and butterflies, which showed that land was near. In fact they soon reached the Isle de Los, where Captain Curren, of the whaler S. A. Paiue, of Provincetown, Massachusetts, not only treated them with the greatest kindness, but took the crew on to Sierra Leone, whence they were sent home in the Biafra as distressed British seamen. Those twenty persons were nine days in an open boat under a tropical sun, with only 201bs of provisions, and no water. They drifted, in that time oyer 200 miles.
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Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 509, 27 May 1869, Page 3
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363DREADFUL SUFFERINGS OF A SHIPWRECKED CREW. Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 509, 27 May 1869, Page 3
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