SALTWATER YARNS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 43, 19 February 1908, Page 6

SALTWATER YARNS.

AN OLD SKIPPER'S REMINISCENCES. A "Star" representative who was at one time shipping reporter of this paper, discovered an old friend during a brief holiday spent at Ruth's Island, one of Auckland's most popular health resorts, which, it appears, takes its name from its owner, the erstwhile gallant skipper of the good ship Helen Denny. Six feet in height, and the picture of a Hercules, the Captain was discovered attired in pants and singlet, hatless and bootless, though the thermometer registered SO deg. in the shade. About (56 years of age, the Captain was seen to be as active as when he strode the quarter-deck of the Helen Denny and the Zealandia, and he bore the most ample testimony to the efficacy of the "simple life." He went to sea when a boy of twelve, and was at sea for 45 years in every capacity from boy to skipper. Thereby hangs a tale—many tales. Old friends will be pleased to know that Captain Ruth is at present luxuriating in his island home as a sheep farmer, and he is making the very best of the end of his days, with a very remote prospect of taking his departure from a world of which he has seen much, and whose civilisation he is not particularly enamoured of. He believes that men are over so much worse oft* than they were 50 years ago, before the days of modern labour-saving appliances. Though he admits that sailors are better fed now, he seems to think they were on the whole better treated twenty or thirty years ago. lie said, "We were fed on pea soup and weevilly biscuits, but we were as fat as pigs. When we turned out in the morning wo had to drink a pint of rice water, a gill of rum, and a little quinine. We carried a cow, and the doctor overhauled the men every morning." "Then look how ships were loaded in those days," added Captain Ruth, "three inches to every foot. Suppose a vessel's hold was 20ft deep, that would be 20 inches clear side. Now they load up to 2J or 2} inches, which only gives about 40 to 45 feet of side. Sailors now are worked like slaves; then all they had to do was to keep out of sight of the boatswain—play dominoes in the foretop or the main-top, and," he added, to clinch the story, "we always got into London as fat as pigs." BETTER THAN PHYSIC. Captain Ruth will never make a doctor's fortune. He believes iv the simple life, and his "cure all" is a sand bath or a glass of salt water, the former taken with the daily dip in the ocean beach, the latter, for preference, first thing in the morning. It is good to see him "taking his own physic." The open air life he leads renders the internal application unnecessary except at rare intervals, but the sand bath is an institution. After a plunge into the sea and a short swim, the Captain gets right into the sand, which he rubs all over his body, head, hair, and face: he scours himself with it, and he will tell you that i\ is the best thing he knows for cleansing your teeth. It is also good for rheumatism and a host of other things. You ask him how he feels, and he answers from his sandy envelope, "Oh, lovely; it is beautiful." Then he takes a final dip, rubs down with a rough towel, and spins you a good yarn. HIS FIRST SHIP. "My first shin," Captahn Ruth said, "was the Surrey, of London, and she was bound to Karachee, the other side of Bombay, carrying railway iron for the Indian Government, and beer for the troops. We were short of water, going out, and put into Maldive Island. The Indians would not allow anyone to land from the ship, except an Indian that we had aboard. The ship had to stand off shore while the Indians filled our breakers with water, and our boats with fruit. The captain gave them a lot of small silver, but he had not enough to go round, and they emptied the water out of two of our casks. PILOT JUMPS OVERBOARD. "From Maldive Island we went to Gazherat, and our captain got a pilot out of a native craft. She was a religious i>hip, and her crew were good Mohammedans. I had to take the pork and beef for'ad, and one of our crew suggested that I should show the pilot a piece of pork for fun. I said to the pilot, ' pork, Johnnie,' holding out a piece of pig. and he jumped right overboard and swam to his own vessel, about half-a-mile away. It was two days before we got him again, and the captain geve mc a good rating. WRECKED AND SAVED. "We loaded cinnamon and mustard at Bombay, and filled up with more

cinnamon at Colombo. Going <?ut we found the snip was top heavy. She sprang a leak at night. We were pickled up by the Emperor of Sunderland, and I abandoned our vessel. I never saw or heard of her again. ''When we got ashore at 'Algoa Bay we were bedded in the parks on bags of straw. We saw there about twenty men and women eaten away with lep,rosy, some with lingers missing, and others without noses. A RELIGIOUS SHIP. "We stayed there a couple of months, and then we shipped on the Kindrochat. Coming along the coast an Indian that we had on board died from the effects of smoking opium. Captain Peek —he was here many years ago in the Mary Shepa very religious man, and used to go down into the hold, with the crew and say prayers. We had a sailor named 'Jim.' One day Captain D eck saw Jim coming out of the hold. He said, ' Jim, have you been saying your prayers? Are you converted?" Jim replied, ' Yes, captain, I urn very much better.' Captain Peek said, 'Come down below with mc/ and they met Billy, another member of the crew with a big tin full of beer in his hands and a Bible under his arm. When he saw the captain coming he tried to hide the tin. The captain asked Billy if he had been converted, and Billy replied "Yes, , that he had not been the same man since. Then the captain's eye caught sight of the tin full of beer, and he asked, 'What's that?' Billy replied that it was water put down to catch rats, but the captain was suspicious, and looking into the can discovered the beer. The captain went on and found Billy's spile sticking , out of a cask, but all he said was, "Bill}-, I am very sorry you were deceiving the Lord and mc like that." "They used to pray three times a day in that ship," added Captain Ruth. CARRYING LUCKY DIGGERS HOME. "I went Home from Melbourne in the Wellesley about 185S, and a number of lucky diggers were returning in her. She carried a lot of beer and I was told off to keep a light burning. Every few minutes the light would go out, and up would come some bottles of beer. We had in the forecastle a young fellow who had £5,000 left to him, and he had gone through it in about a couple of years. He had £ 1,500 on the Sayers and Heenan fight. He told us that the first thing he saw in the morning was a squint-eyed woman and that he knew Sayers had lost. He had backed Sayers. This young fellow was so nervous that the least thing would frighten Mm. A sergeant died on board when we were going Home. Some of the crew got the body and put it on the carpenter's bench with two pillows belonging to the nervous young man's bunk under its head. When the young fellow went to get into his bunk he could not find his pillows, and hunted i around for them. He was told that ' Geordie' had taken them for a sleep on the carpenter's bench, and, going up to the corpse, he said, ' Here, what* are you doing with my pillows.' He made a grab at them, and then, catching sight of the dead man's face, he took a hop, step and jump down the forecastle. WRECKED AT YARMOUTH. "Were you . ever shipwrecked?" I asked. "Yes," replied Captain Ruth, "at Yarmouth, when I was mate in a new brig called the Edgar, bound to China. We brought up at Hamburg, waiting for the ice to break up. The brig was driven ashore about 4.30 in the morning, and was smashed up before night." "Were any lives lost?" "No. A line was sent from the shore by means of a rocket, and it went round, the main royal yard. The captain, who had been hurt, was insensible, and did not know what he was doing. He cut the line in half, and gave the carpenter one end of it, while he held the other. I jumped over the lee side of the brig, and with the help cf an apprentice boy, dragged the captain on board again. I hauled him into the rigging, and made him fast there. We had a crew of foreigners—Germans and Dutchmen—and they proved to be utter cowards, but ultimately, with the help of the apprentice boy, I got the life-line round the main mast. I thought we had got all hands off the ship, but just "as I was leaving her two men poked their heads out of the i-alley, and said, "Captain, we are here.' 'Then you had fetter stop there,' I said; 'you were too'lazy to do anything.' " "When I got ashore my feet were frozen, and the people had to cut my sea boots off my feet; I was taken to a sailors' home, and I was soon all right; I was down at the beach next morning, and found the wreckers bringing things' ashore. I got my chest, and about twenty or thirty pound notes in it for a mere song. The apprentice boy and myself got great credit in the papers, which said we saved the whole lot." "How many were there in the ship?" "There were eighteen, and we saved the whole lot." "Including the two men whom you told to 'stop there' ?" "Oh, yes," replied the captain, as if the saving of a life or the losing of it was a matter of the most trivial interest. "'When I got ashore I was asked if all hands were saved, and I said there were two men left. They sent out another line, and brought the beggars ashore. "I saw six ships ashore that night," he added. "They broke away from their moorings, and most of them were wrecked. When I was a boy I saw twenty ships ashore, burning tar barrels and torches all night—all ashore at one time, and hundreds of lives were lost." HUMAN BONES FOR MANURE. "What was the strangest cargo you ever carried?" the captain was asked, in the hope of lending variety to the story. "Well," he replied in an off-hand way, "I brought Home bones from Smyrna." "What sort of bones?" "Why, the bones of human corpses for manure. We had one hold full." "Where did you take them?" To London. We discharged them in the docks, but you don't know where they go. There are some queer cargoes that go into London, I can tell you. Things that you throw away here are worth money in London. What you lose for the want of cheap labour for the utilisation of your waste products is marvellous," SUPERSTITIOUS SAILORS. I left Oamaru bound for Cork or Falmouth one voyage Home. The night before we arrived at Falmouth a man named Farrell died. I buried him at 12 o'clock, and auctioned his clothes at 2 p.m. The night was a beautiful moonlight one, and we had a pig hung up on deck in a white tablecloth. Suddenly the ship gave a lurch, and the pi" fell down Tae whole of the craw rushed for ad m the greatest excitement, crying "It's Farrell come back; it's Farrell com! back"; till one of them remembered and he said, "Why, it's only the bloomin' pig."