TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS AT SEA

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1052, 7 March 1873, Page 4

TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS AT SEA

The steamship More Cattle, which arrived at New York Intely, brought four more survivors i/f the illfated steamship Missouri, which was burnt at sea, while on her parage from New York to Havanuah. 80 lives being lost. Mr David North qives the York Sun tho following story of their escape from the jaws of death : When the boat touched the water thn'e were at least thirty persons in her, many of whom were passengers. She was freed all right from the stem davit, but she fouled in the stern davit in somo way that she could not be instantly freed. A heavy sea coming

at this time, she was plunged under an<J, on emerging, but nine persons were left on board. All tho rest wore washed off and drowned almost instantly. The plunge freed the boat, and tho ship, with one sail set, moved away from her. The sea had filled the boat to the edge, and in the excitement of the tirno no effort was made at once to. bail her. It was about this lime that the other boat that had got ashore came up to us; we asked them to take us aboard, but they refused to do so, and persons who were floating around on life-preservers implored them to save them, but they turned a deaf ear to everything but the promptings of their own escape. On taking an inventory of the boat's outfit, we found we had four oars and a boathook. We stayed around the ship until she went down, and then took in our oars and began the first night of suffering. All our efforts to bail the boat were unavailing, as every wave filled her again, so we had to sit waistdeep in water. The boat lay in the trough of the sea, with every wave breaking over us. We had to lock our legs under the seat and clasp our arms round each other's necks, as every sea threatened to wash us overboard. When morning broke the sea was still running mountain high. We could not keep the oars in the rowlocks. The uoan had by this time grown careless, and there was no semblance of discipline. Mark Anthony, the oiler, became crazed in the afternoon of this day. The second night was like the first, only intensified by the complaints of the starving men, and by the ravings of Anthony. When the moruing broke, no prospect of land or a sail could be made out. A shoal of sharks swam around the boat, seemingly certain of their prey. The barber, Wm. Steer, became delirou3 towards afternoon. He was terribly emaciated with hunger and thirst. About dark he died, and a sea swept him off. Before morning Shea, the porter, and Mark Anthony, jumped overboard in a fit of frenzy. • It was on the morning of the fourth day that our hunger seemed to have left us- The tortures of thirst were intensified so as to be almost unendurable. M'Cutdon gave into it, and he threw himself over backward into the sea. Thomas Eagan, one of the five left alive on the morning of the fourth day, while describing a spleudid entertainment to which he was engaged, suddenly fell forward and died. He was thrown overboard, and a shark took him from before our eyes. STOEY OP ANOTHER etTKVIVOE. ; The steamship Columbia arrived at New':York on December 14th, and among her passengers was one Richard Smith,' a fireman <• of the Missouri. Smith, and a man named Stewart, were left to a capsized boat, and the following thrilling story is told by the New York Herald of their adventure: — The two men at length succeeded in righting the boat. One sat at* one end of the boat, the other at the other end. They had no shoes, aud the boat was full of water. They lashed the oars acrost the boat to prevent her from again-capsizing. The storm was terrible. The waves ran mountains high, and tossed the-boat as though it were a football. Every moment they thought the little craft would again be capsized. The sun rose at last. The two ocean waifs broke the seats of the boat aud made paddles of them. They kept paddling all day, and when night came Smith filled the plug-hole with broken pieces of rope. He tore up his drawers aud wound them round the rope. They had not seen a soil all day, and Stewart prophesied that they both would perish in the boat. Stewart was afraid of the sharks. They followed tho boat constantly, and Smith frequently hit them with his car. At night, when trying to get a moment's sleep, he would look down into the water, and out of the dark W3ves the eyes cf the sharks would look at him and the monster jaws would open, and as it seemed to his excited imagination, grin at him. On the morning of the third day the two friends succeeded in bailing the boat They rigged a sail. They tore the canvacs off one of the life-preservers, and made a sail out of that. They felt very thirsty. The salt water, in keeping their faces constantly wet, had parched their mouths. What would they not have given for a drop of fresh water to wet their dried withered lips with ? The keen sense of thirst made them insensible to hunger. Smith went down on his knees and prayed again. But one drop of water ! No, there was no hope. It seemed as though they must perish of thirst. The third night came. No sail in sight, not a morsel of food, not a drop of water, no human aid near. They could not sleep. Smith was sitting at one end of the boat, when he suddenly heard a noise. "Help! Help!" a voice cried. It was Steward, who had failed into the ocean. Smith jumped into tho water and saved him. He was just in time; a shark had seen Stewart from afar, and, like a flash of lightning, the monster darted at the boat. As the shark opened its jaw, Steward rose out of the water. Smith was already in tho boat. They were saved from a horrible death. The shark remained all night alongside the boat. Smith hit it with his oar, but the hideous monster always returned, and the boat was soon surrounded by huge sharks that seemed to be waiting for their prey. Steward was very much excited. He fell round Smith's neck a dozen times, and thanked him for having saved his life. Ho said ho

was not afraid to die, but did not want to die so horrible a death. This night seemed to last an age. At daybreak they saw a sail. They rowed towards the ship, they shouted and signalled, but it was all 'in vain ; nobody could heir them, and the ship sailed out of sight. A rainstorm came, and the two friends could at last wet their dried lips. What pleasure it was to feel the cool, fresh water once more on their parched lips! The boon was dearly paid for. The rain poured down in torrents, the -wind whirled the boat around every minute, and clouds and waves seempd to be one mass of dashing, foam. In the simple language of Mr. Smith, "it bio wed and stormed as though heaven and earth were coming together." Four days and four nights passed away. Every hour was in itself a story of suffering, of sorrow. The sharks and the thunder, the spray and the howling wind, the bitter cold and the dark, threatening sky —these were their only comrades. At last they saw land. :It was on the eight day. Land ! What a sight! They embraced each other ; they shed tears of joy ! Land ! What magic in the simple word ! It transported them from sadness and despair to a paroxysm joy. They had struck a reef about a mile and a half from Abaco. It was three o'clock in the morning, and they kept the boat back as much as they could. At six o'clock they climbed the rocks. It was a wild, lonely spot. There were no signs of vegtation. Both were exhausted from climbing, and Smith -crawled on his hands and feet on the rocks looking for something to eat. How his heart beat when he found some crabs (he call them "spider crabs") and a few prickly pears ! He ate some of the crabs, the first food he had tasted for eight days. He brought the pears to Stewart, who said he would eat them, even though they were filled with poison. "Never in my life has anything tasted so sweet," he said to Smith after he had eaten the first pear. Smith ate some too, and thought they were delicious. A dozen of these prickly pears lasted them three days. They built themselves a small hut out of one oar and a muss of weeds which Smith found among the rocks. Steward had suffered terribly from hunger. He said, " I know I shall starve to death; I have been saved from the sharks to die of starvation." kA.t night he raved ; the hunger had etd.iven him to madness. He raved iiabout his family, his wife, and his dear, dear children, and hugged Sm;th to ■iiis heart in the belief that he was his •son. One night'"they were sleeping together in their miserable tent and : all of a sudden Steward's breath seurned to cease. Smith felt his body -It wan warm. But in the next moment his friend's pulse had stopped, and that true and kind heart had ceased to beat. Not a breath ! It waß as still as death in the hut. Smith felt his friend's body again. It was cold. Smith pushed out into the night. "My best friend," he thought "died of starvation, and what will become of me ?" He sat on the roci-s all night. He could not bear to sleep in the hut where lay the corpse of his best, truest friend ; but-next morning, after a sleepless night, he had to fulfil his duty towards his dead comrade. He went into the hut and looked at his features which had once shone with friendship and goodness. Smith buried him. He dragged him to the rocks. There was no earth. All was solid rock. He took some seaweed and some sand, and under this he buried his dead friend. As put the sand and seaweed over his face, he remembered many a kind word the dead man had spoken ; many a favor he had done him who now was burying his benefactor; many a pleasant hour they had spent talking of their dear ones at home. Smith had given up all hope of ever seeing a human face again. His feet were sore from walking on the rocks He had tied pieces of cork out of the life preserver to his ft-et, aud the rope with which be bound them chafed terribly. He found some oil in the crabs, and it healed the sores on his feet " I thought it was pretty hard to be left there and die alone," he said yeaterday to the Herald reporter. He had become so weak that he was unable to crawl on the rocks, and still there was no sign of salvation. Fifteen days he had passed ou the rocks. On the sixteenth day a schooner came in sight. He raised a signal, using the pantaloons which the dead friend had left. He saw the schooner 24 hours before anybody noticed his signal. What agony he sutfered, thinking every moment that the schooner would sail away and leave him to die. " I heard a voice," Smith said to the reporter ; "it appeared to me almost like a dream." A human voice! He had not heard a human voice sinee his friend died. He was lying on the rock, sick, unable to move. " Here is a man," the voice said, but I don't know whether he is dead or alive." Smith heard another voice : —" No, Captain, this man is not dead, I see him move." No, he was not dead. The words he had heard had revived him. He jumped up and liiinted into the arms of the Captain and the mate, who had come to take him on board the schooner. Yesterday hie brother and his wife received the brave fireman at his home here in New York. While on the dreary rocks of Abaco he had dreamed of them every night, and now bo was sitting before a hright, blazing fire hugging them to his heart.