to Coyba. But the sufferings of his men, in returning, were extreme, for
want both of water and provisions. The streams were most of them dried
up, and provisions could not be found. Gold they indeed had, almost as
much as they could carry, and the Indians kept bringing them more; but
this they could not eat or drink, and it would not buy what was not to
be bought.
He arrived at Darien after about two months' absence, having lost nearly
all his men, by war and sickness. His discovery made a great noise, and
procured him much honor, but he did not live to enjoy it.
A new governor was appointed in his place, who, having a mortal hatred
to Balboa, threw him into prison, and, after a mock trial, had him
beheaded, in 1517, in his 48th year.
[Illustration: ADMIRAL KEPPEL.]
ADMIRAL KEPPEL AND THE DEY OF ALGIERS.
When Admiral Keppel was sent to the Dey of Algiers, to demand
restitution of two ships which the pirates had taken, he sailed with his
squadron into the Bay of Algiers, and cast anchor in front of the Dey's
palace. He then landed, and, attended only by his captain and barge's
crew, demanded an immediate audience of the Dey. This being granted, he
claimed full satisfaction for the injuries done to the subjects of his
Britannic Majesty. Surprised and enraged at the boldness of the
admiral's remonstrance, the Dey exclaimed, "that he wondered at the
English King's insolence in sending him a foolish, beardless boy." A
well-timed reply from the admiral made the Dey forget the laws of all
nations in respect to ambassadors, and he ordered his mutes to attend
with the bow-string, at the same time telling the admiral he should pay
for his audacity with his life. Unmoved by this menace, the admiral took
the Dey to the window facing the bay, and showed him the English fleet
riding at anchor, and told him that if he dared put him to death there
were men enough in that fleet to make him a glorious funeral-pile. The
Dey was wise enough to take the hint. The admiral obtained ample
restitution, and came off in safety.
[Illustration: LOSS OF THE CATARAQUE.]
LOSS OF THE CATARAQUE.
The Cataraque, Captain C.W. Findlay, sailed from Liverpool, on the 20th
of April, 1849, with three hundred and sixty emigrants, and a crew
including two doctors, (brothers,) of forty-six souls. The emigrants
were principally from Bedfordshire, Staffordshire, Yorkshire, and
Northamptonshire. About one hundred and twenty of the passengers were
married, with families, and in all seventy-three children.
On the 3d of August, at seven o'clock in the evening, the ship was hove
to, and continued lying to until three A.M. of the 4th. At half past
four, being quite dark, and raining hard, blowing a fearful gale, the
ship struck on a reef, situated on the west coast of King's Island, at
the entrance of Bass's Straights.
Immediately after the ship struck, she was sounded, and it was
ascertained that there was four feet of water in the hold. An awful
scene of confusion and misery ensued. All the passengers attempted to
rush upon deck, and many succeeded in doing so, until the heaving of the
vessel knocked down the ladders, when the shrieks from below, calling on
those on deck to assist them were terrific. The crew were on deck the
moment the ship struck, and were instantly employed in handing up the
passengers. Up to the time the vessel began breaking up, the crew
succeeded in getting upwards of three hundred passengers on deck. But a
terrible fate awaited the greater part of them.
The day dawned. The stern of the vessel was found to be washed in, and
numerous dead bodies were found floating round the ship; some clinging
to the rocks which they had grasped in despair. About two hundred of the
passengers and crew held on to the vessel, although the raging sea was
breaking over her, and every wave washed some of them to a watery grave.
In this manner, kindred were separated, while those who remained could
only expect the same fate to reach them. Things continued in this
condition until four in the afternoon, when the vessel parted amidships,
at the fore part of the main rigging, and immediately between seventy
and a hundred persons were thrown into the waves. Thus the insatiable
ocean swallowed its prey piece-meal. About five, the wreck parted by the
fore-rigging, and so many persons were thrown into the sea, that only
seventy were left on the forecastle, they being lashed to the wreck.
Even these were gradually diminished in number, some giving out from
exhaustion, and others anticipating fate, by drowning themselves.
When day dawned, on the following morning, only about thirty persons
were left alive, and these were almost exhausted. The sea was making a
clean breach into the forecastle, the deck of which was rapidly breaking
up. Parents and children, husbands and wives, were seen floating around
the vessel, many in an embrace, which even the ocean's power could not
sunder. The few who remained alive could only look up to heaven for a
hope of safety. Soon after daylight, the vessel totally disappeared, and
out of four hundred and twenty-three persons who had been on board the
vessel, only nine were saved by being washed on shore, and these were
nearly exhausted.
[Illustration: LOSS OF THE FRANCIS SPAIGHT.]
LOSS OF THE FRANCIS SPAIGHT.
On the morning of the 7th of January, 1848, the barque Francis Spaight,
lying in Table Bay, at the Cape of Good Hope, parted her anchor, and in
attempting to beat out, grounded, broadside on the beach. The gale at
the time she struck was furious, and the surf tremendous, making a clean
breach over the vessel, carrying away the bulwark, long boat, main
hatch, and part of the deck, with one of the crew.
The shore was thronged with the inhabitants of Cape Town, anxious for
the fate of the vessel. An attempt was made to send a rope from the land
to the wreck, but the rope broke. Rockets were fired with lines
attached, and one was thrown across the foremast stay, where none of the
men could reach it, on account of the fearful rolling of the sea. After
some extraordinary delay, a whale boat was brought from the town, and
manned by six daring fellows, who dashed through the surf, and were soon
alongside the vessel.
All except the carpenter, fifteen in number, got into the boat, and
pushed off. At this moment a terrific sea upset the boat, and twenty-one
persons were struggling in the surf for life. The people on the beach
were horror-stricken; and men on horseback were seen plunging into the
sea, risking their lives to save their fellow-creatures; but eighteen
sunk to rise no more. The masts of the vessel fell with a tremendous
crash, but the carpenter still clung to the wreck. At length a
surf-boat, towed by a smaller one, proceeded towards the wreck. One of
these boats was capsized, and two lives lost. But the carpenter was
rescued. This man, (James Robertson,) and John McLeod, seaman, were all
of the crew that reached the shore. The inhabitants of Cape Town were
all anxiety in regard to the fate of the vessel; and those daring heroes
who sacrificed themselves for the sake of their fellow men were worthy
of a monument as lofty as those erected to the bravest warriors.
The place where the Francis Spaight went ashore had been, a short time
previous, the scene of a far more terrible disaster. This was the wreck
of the ship Waterloo, by which two hundred persons were lost, in spite
of the most extraordinary and heroic exertions on the part of the
inhabitants of Cape Town.
The bay is very much exposed to storms, and its shores are particulary
dangerous, on account of their shelving character. The Francis Spaight
had just put into the bay for the purpose of obtaining a supply of
provisions, and it was intended that she should sail the next day. But
the Ruler of the elements intended it otherwise. Her cargo was nearly a
total loss.
LOSS OF THE GOLDEN RULE.
The ship Golden Rule, Captain Austin, sailed from Wiscasset, with a
cargo of timber, September, 8, 1807.
On the 29th, she experienced a severe gale from the south-east; and at
eight o'clock, A.M., they discovered that she had sprung a leak, and
had four feet of water in her hold; at nine it had increased to eight
feet, notwithstanding they had two pumps going, and were throwing her
deck load overboard, which they were enabled to do very slowly, from the
sea driving the planks about the deck, and wounding the crew.
About ten o'clock, the water had risen to twelve feet, and the gale had
also evidently increased; the crew and all on board were quite
exhausted; and on going into the cabin they found she was welling fast.
The main and mizzen masts were now cut away, to prevent her upsetting,
and she was quite clear of her deck load. At eleven o'clock she was full
up to her main deck, and all her bulk heads were knocked away.
It now occurred to some of the crew, to endeavor to save some bread; and
Mr. Boyd, the first mate, with great resolution, went into the cabin and
gave out some bread, and two bottles of rum; but so rapidly did she
fill, from the timber of her cargo shifting, that he was forced to break
through the sky-light to save himself. Their small stock of provisions
was now put into the binnacle, as a secure place. It had been there but
a few minutes, when a tremendous sea struck them, and carried away the
binnacle.
They had now little hope left--the wheel was broken, and they proceeded
to secure themselves as well as they could, some in the fore-top, and
the rest were lashing themselves to the taffrail; before they could
accomplish the latter plan, another sea, if possible, more heavy than
the former, hurried them all from their places, and washed two of the
men overboard; they were seen swimming for the ship, a short time, when
a wave hurried them from the sight of their lamenting comrades.
They now endeavored to keep the ship before the wind, which they were
partially enabled to do through the night. The next day another man died
from cold and hunger.
The deck was now blown up, and her side stove in, all hands had given
themselves up, when, on the 30th at noon, they were roused by the cry
of "a sail!" and they had the satisfaction to see her bear down for
them. She was the brig George, of Portland; and Captain Wildridge sent
his long-boat to take them from the wreck.
DANGERS OF WHALING SHIPS AMONG ICE BERGS.
The masses of ice by which the ocean is traversed assume a vast variety
of shapes, but may be comprehended in two general classes. The first
consists of sheets of ice, analogous to those which annually cover the
the lakes and rivers of northern lands. They present a surface which is
generally level, but here and there diversified by projections, called
_hummocks_, which arise from the ice having been thrown up by some
pressure or force to which it has been subject. Sheets of ice, which are
so large that their whole extent of surface cannot be seen from the
masthead of a vessel, are called _fields_. They have sometimes an area
of more than a hundred square miles, and rise above the level of the sea
from two to eight feet. When a piece of ice, though of a considerable
size, can be distinguished in its extent, it is termed a _floe_. A
number of sheets, large or small, joining each other, and stretching out
in any particular direction, constitute a _stream_. Captain Cook found a
stream extending across Behring's Straits, connecting eastern Asia with
the western extremity of North America. Owing to the vast extent of some
fields of ice, they would undoubtedly be conducted to a lower latitude
in the Atlantic before their dissolution, under the influence of a
warmer climate, but for the intervention of other causes. It frequently
happens that two masses are propelled against each other, and are both
shivered into fragments by the violence of the concussion. The ordinary
swell of the ocean also acts with tremendous power upon a large tract,
especially when it has been so thawed as to have become thin, and breaks
it up into a thousand smaller pieces in a very short period. The danger
of being entrapped between two ice-fields coming into contact with each
other is one of the perils which the navigator has frequently to
encounter in the northern seas; and fatal to his vessel and his life has
the occurrence often been, while in a vast number of instances escape
has seemed almost miraculous.
"At half-past six," says Captain Ross, relating to his first voyage of
discovery, in the Isabella, to the arctic regions, with Captain Parry,
in the Alexander, "the ice began to move, and, the wind increasing to a
gale, the only chance left for us was to endeavor to force the ship
through it to the north, where it partially opened; but the channel was
so much obstructed by heavy fragments, that our utmost efforts were
ineffectual; the ice closed in upon us, and at noon we felt its pressure
most severely. A large floe, which lay on one side of the Isabella,
appeared to be fixed; while, on the other side, another of considerable
bulk was passing along with a rapid motion, assuming a somewhat circular
direction, in consequence of one side having struck on the fixed field.
The pressure continuing to increase, it became doubtful whether the ship
would be able to sustain it; every support threatened to give way, the
beams in the hold began to bend, and the iron tanks settled together.
"At this critical moment, when it seemed impossible for us to bear the
accumulating pressure much longer, the hull rose several feet; while the
ice, which was more than six feet thick, broke against the sides,
curling back on itself. The great stress now fell upon our bow; and,
after being again lifted up, we were carried with great violence towards
the Alexander which had hitherto been, in a great measure, defended by
the Isabella. Every effort to avoid their getting foul of each other
failed; the ice-anchors and cables broke one after another; and the
sterns of the two ships came so violently into contact, as to crush to
pieces a boat that could not be removed in time. The collision was
tremendous, the anchors and chain-plates being broken, and nothing less
than the loss of the masts expected; but at this eventful instant, by
the interposition of Providence, the force of the ice seemed exhausted;
the two fields suddenly receded, and we passed the Alexander with
comparatively little damage. A clear channel soon after opened, and we
ran into a pool, thus escaping the immediate danger; but the fall of
snow being very heavy, our situation still remained doubtful, nor could
we conjecture whether we were yet in a place of safety. Neither the
masters, the mates, nor those men who had been all their lives in the
Greenland service, had ever experienced such imminent peril; and they
declared, that a common whaler must have been crushed to atoms."
Captain Scoresby relates a similar narrow escape from destruction owing
to the same cause. "In the year 1804," he observes, "I had an
opportunity of witnessing the effects produced by the lesser masses in
motion. Passing between two fields of ice newly formed, about a foot in
thickness, they were observed rapidly to approach each other, and,
before our ship could pass the strait, they met with a velocity of three
or four miles per hour. The one overlaid the other, and presently
covered many acres of surface. The ship proving an obstacle to the
course of the ice, it squeezed up on both sides, shaking her in a
dreadful manner, and producing a loud grinding or lengthened acute
trembling noise, according as the degree of pressure was diminished or
increased, until it had risen as high as the deck. After about two hours
the motion ceased, and soon afterwards the two sheets of ice receded
from each other nearly as rapidly as they had before advanced. The ship
in this case did not receive any injury; but, had the ice only been half
a foot thicker, she might have been wrecked." Other navigators have not
been so fortunate; and the annual loss of whaling vessels in the polar
seas is considerable, the Dutch having had as many as seventy-three sail
of ships wrecked in one season. Between the years 1669 and 1778, both
inclusive, or a period of one hundred and seven years, they sent to the
Greenland fishery fourteen thousand one hundred and sixty-seven ships,
of which five hundred and sixty-one, or about four in the hundred, were
lost.
Every one will remember the intense and mournful interest occasioned by
the loss of the President steamer which left New York in the year 1841
to cross the Atlantic, but perished in the passage, without leaving a
survivor to tell the story of her fate. It has been deemed highly
probable that this vessel got entangled in the ice, and was destroyed by
collision with its masses; for during that year, in the month of April,
the Great Western steamer encountered a field extending upwards of a
hundred miles in one direction, surrounded with an immense number of
floes and bergs, and had great difficulty in effecting its passage by
this floating continent in safety.
Another form under which the ice appears in the ocean is that of bergs,
which differ from the ice-fields in shape and origin. They are masses
projecting to a great height above the surface of the water, and have
the appearance of chalk or marble cliffs and mountains upon the deep.
They have been seen with an elevation of two hundred feet--a
circumference of two miles: and it has been shown by experiments on the
buoyancy of ice floating in sea water, that the proportion above the
surface is only about one-seventh of the thickness of the whole mass.
During the first expedition of Ross, he found an ice berg in Baffin's
Bay, at a distance of seven leagues from the land, which was measured by
a party under Lieutenant Parry. Considerable difficulty was experienced
in the attempt to land, as, in rowing round the berg, they found it
perpendicular in every place but one. When they had ascended to the
top, which was perfectly flat, they discovered a white bear in quiet
possession of the mass, who plunged into the sea without hesitation, and
effected his escape. The party found the ice berg to be four thousand
one hundred and sixty-nine yards long, three thousand eight hundred and
sixty-nine yards broad, and fifty-one feet high, being aground in
sixty-one fathoms. Its appearance was like that of the back of the Isle
of Wight, and the cliffs resembled those of the chalk range to the west
of Dover. The weight of this mass was calculated to amount to one
billion two hundred and ninety two millions three hundred and ninety
seven thousand six hundred and seventy-three tons.
[Illustration: A WHITE BEAR.]
An ice berg examined by Captain Graah, on the east coast of Greenland,
rose one hundred and twenty feet out of the water, had a circumference
of four thousand feet at the base, and its solid contents were estimated
to be upwards of nine hundred millions of cubic feet. When viewed at a
distance, nothing can be more interesting than the appearance of a
considerable number of these formations, exhibiting an infinite variety
of shape, and requiring no stretch of imagination to convert them into a
series of floating towers, castles, churches, obelisks, and pyramids, or
a snowy range of Alpine heights. No pencil, an observer has remarked,
has ever given any thing like the true effect of an ice berg. In a
picture they are huge, uncouth masses, stuck in the sea; while their
chief beauty and grandeur--their slow stately motion, the whirling of
the snow about their summits, and the fearful crackling of their
parts--they cannot give. The ice of the bergs is compact and solid, or
of a fine green tint verging to blue; and large pieces may be frequently
obtained, equal to the most beautiful crystal in transparency. It is
stated by Scoresby, that with a portion of this ice, of by no means
regular convexity, used as a burning lens, he has frequently burnt wood,
fired gunpowder, melted lead, and lit the sailors' pipes, to their no
small astonishment, the ice itself remaining in the mean while perfectly
fixed and pellucid.
MASSACRE OF THE CREW OF THE ATAHUALPA.
The Atahualpa, of Boston, left that port in August, 1803, bound to the
north-west coast of America, for the purpose of trading with the
natives. She arrived on the coast in the month of January, 1804; and,
after visiting the several islands, and purchasing skins, on the 5th of
June, 1805, weighed anchor from Chockokee, on the north-west coast, and
made sail. On the 8th, arrived at Millbank sound, and came to an anchor
within musket-shot of the village. Soon after her arrival, the chief of
the Indians, by the name of Keite, came off to the ship, with some of
his tribe, and informed the captain that the Caroline, Captain Sturgess,
had sailed from thence ten days before.
On the 11th, the chief came off again, with his tribe, and another tribe
that was there, and traded very briskly till towards night, when
becoming very insolent, they were all turned out of the ship.
On the 13th, Keite and his tribe came on board in the morning, and
seemed much more desirous to trade than before, which Captain Porter was
very glad to see. The chief mate and two of the ship's company, were
then engaged in ripping the main-sail in pieces, on the quarter-deck;
the second mate with two hands was repairing the top-sail; two on the
starboard side of the main-deck, spinning spun yarn; two more on the
forecastle, making sinnet; two more on the larboard side of the
main-deck, running shot in the armorer's forge; the cooper was making
tubs; the cook, and captain's steward in the galley, at their duty; and
all hands, as usual, employed on the ship's duty; the armorer was in the
steerage, and the boatswain in the cabin; Captain Porter, Mr. Ratstraw,
his clerk, and Mr. Lyman Plummer, (nephew of Theodore Lyman, Esq. of
Boston, ship owner,) were standing on the larboard side of the
quarter-deck, abreast of the cabin hatchway.
The chief, Keite, stood leaning on the rail, and called Captain Porter
to look at the skins that were in the canoe, alongside the ship; the
captain accordingly went to look over the side, when the chief, with
some more Indians, laid hold of him, and gave a shout. Immediately all
the Indians alongside of the canoe, and those on board, armed with
daggers, pistols, pikes, and other weapons, seized every man on deck,
who were totally unprepared for so sudden an attack. A most dreadful and
sanguinary contest immediately took place; when, after a short but
bloody engagement of about five minutes, the deck was immediately
cleared of them.
There were about two hundred Indians, it is supposed, on board at this
time; they first daggered Captain Porter several times in the back, put
him in a canoe alongside, and carried him on shore; and, as we were
afterwards informed by Captain Smith, of the ship Mary, of Boston, who
was informed by the New Hecta tribe, was by them tied to a tree, in
which unhappy and miserable situation he languished fifteen days,
refusing every species of nourishment offered him by these savages,
occasioned by his grief at this unfortunate accident.
Previous to this fatal business, there were twenty-three hands on board;
ten of whom were barbarously killed, and nine wounded. Among the killed
were, Captain Oliver Porter, Mr. John Hill, chief mate; Daniel Gooding,
second mate; John D. Katstraw, captain's clerk; Mr. Lyman Plummer, Peter
Shooner, Luther Lapham, Samuel Lapham, seamen; Isaac Lammes, cooper; and
John Williams, cook. Mr. Lyman Plummer survived about two hours after
he was wounded. The cook, who was most shockingly cut and mangled,
languished till about six o'clock the next morning.