AROUND THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 4

AROUND THE WORLD.

GOSSIP OF THE PORTS. STRANGE CARGOES. (By LEE-FORE-BRACE.) Since the day when the first adventurer put out from the land to sail on the deep waters many strange cargoes have been carried over the seven seas. The sailors' poet, Maeefield, gives a romantic eetting to these cargoes when he wrote the poem of the same name: Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, , Dipping through the Tropics by the palm green shores With a cargo of diamonds, Emeralds, amethysts, Topazes, and cinnamon, ana goia moidores. Dirty British coaster, with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days, With a cargo of Tyne coal, Road-rail, pig-lead, Firewood, ironware and cheap tin trays. In the manifest of practically every cargo liner arriving at Auckland any and every article of commerce may be found. But such cargoes cause no comment, either among landsmen or eeamen. As a matter of fact, he must be shipmates with a most unusual cargo before a sailorman will raise his eyebrows in surprise. The queerest shipment that the writer ever had to deal with was a cargo of dead Chinese from Singapore to Amoy, in South China. There were over four thousand of them on the manifest. The loading could not be hurried, because certain mystic rites were recited over each coffin as it was swung high on the derricks by the Buddhist priests assembled on the dockeide. As each casket was hoisted aboard lamentations were loudly chanted by the relatives of the deceased, aided and abetted by a deafening clatter of bursting fire-crackers and banging of cymbals. The writer was stationed in the hold to superintend the stowage. His job was an easy one, as the male relatives, with proper filial affection, did all the stowing. Between each tier of coffins layers of costly bamboo matting were laid, and each one was separated from its neighbour by bundles of rattans' swathed in cotton cloth. The remains of the poorer Chinese were stowed in the lower tiers, and the higher the position of the coffin indicated a late higher social position of the inmate. It took over a month- to load the ehip, and on the completion of the gruesome task our worthy skipper caused a guffaw of laughter to ring throughout the ship by insisting that the charterers should insert the usual cargo clause in the bill of lading, "Weight and contents of each package unknown." The ship's 'tween decks were fitted up with rough living quarters, and over a thousand relatives made the voyage with us to Amoy. At certain hours of the day and night we were reminded of the cargo in the lower holds by loud and regular outbursts of wailing and weeping from the relatives, which was always echoed by loud cursing from the watch below. The voyage confounded the superstitious among our crew by being uneventful, and we landed our cargo in the land of their forefathers in prime order and condition, and there was no general average. In the early part of. 190 C the British India liner Rajput loaded a cargo of two hundred and three elephants. at • Colombo for the Burmah Teakwood Company at Rangoon. Before each animal was hoisted aboard he was branded on various parts of the body with a white painted number, and the description and eex of the elephant was inserted in the manifest. Massive pens were erected in the holds and strong chains were fastened from the legs of the aiiimals to the keelson- On arrival at Rangoon the cargo was discharged, and the agents were thunderstruck to read in the master's report: "One elephant, bull, No. 92, short landed. Ship has been searched and no trace of animal can be found." If consternation was manifest at the agent's office, it was nothing to what happened on the ship. As the vessel was searched, again and yet again, bv the bewildered officers, e»ih and everyone puzzled his brains as to what had become of the mksing elephant. A careful check when loading had been made by the ship's officers, ably assisted by the of the purser's department. The third officer had signed for each elephant as it was token from the pens on the wharf. The fourth officer checked it ae it was being lifted by the ship's derrick aboard the veseel, and the routine, was completed by the second officer, who was stationed - at the hatchway, noting the number and sex of each animal as it was lowered into the hold. Despite all these precautions, however, Jumbo could not be found. And as the description of the missing beast proved it to be a regular man-eized he-elephant, the mystery deepened. The skipper was ashore when the c.u'go was being loaded, and as the agente had placed the entire responsibility on his shoulders he, in his perplexity (as has been the custom of the sea since the dawn of time), had to throAv the blame on to someone else. He chose the chief officer,as the culprit, and as that gentleman had nothing whatsoever to do with the loading, he passed the curses on co the second. The second blasphemed the third." The third poisoned the air when he met the fourth, and the latter, to ease his feelings, stood outside the purser's cabin and called that' official and each member of his staff every nasty name that can be found in a sailor's vocabulary. To make matters worse, the engineers joined in the fun. From deep down in the bowels of the ship could be heard sundry voices advising each other to look for the elephant at the back end of the tunnel or among the grease and filth of the crankpits. It was a dumbfounded company of sailormen who sat at dinner that night in the ship's saloon. The third officer remembered No. 92 quite distinctly. "He Was a big bull and had a splendid pair of tusks and his right ear was slit from top to bottom." "That's right, third; I remember him now when you mention the slit in the ear. He was the big fellow you told me to keep an eye on when we were getting him into the derrick slings," remarked the fourth, "Aye, that's him," said the second. "He was about the first to come aboard, and he screamed with fury as he was being hoisted up., I remember the mahouts giving him a whale of a .hiding when we lowered him to the floor of the hold." "Very good," eaid the captain, who had been listening attentively, "but can any of you remember him being hoisted out of the hold after we arrived at Rangoon? And did any of you inspect the hold before we started loading? Were the wing bunker doors closed?" "You've got it, captain!" excitedly answered the chief officer. "That's the only place he can be. I'll get the serangs and have a look." It was an excited band of sailormen who made for the hold, and as soon as thejport bunker was opened an infuriated elephant, maddened with hunger and thirst, rushed out, scattering his rescuers to air parts of the hold. Some of them climbed the stanchions, c-thera managed to reach the ladders, and never before did any mariners make such records in going aloft. The mahouts were sent for and No. 92, after being coaxed with a bucket of mangoes and a, tubful of water, was removed to the wharf pens, to everyone's sat jgf action. Even to this day, if anyone wants to near language that is soft and clinging, erne has only to whisper the word elephants" into the ear of a British India Company's ship's officer.