THE SHIP RAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 167, 18 July 1938, Page 6

THE SHIP RAT.

DESERTION A BAD OMEN?

(By J.C.)

Tht> modern sailor is reversing or debunking some of the aneiont traditions. The crew of the collier which objected to put to sea until the last rat on l>oard had been eliminated by process of fumigation must be a very different set of men from the old-time seafarers who dreaded to eail in a ship whose rat passengers bad deserted her.

Every old' seaman of the days of sail can recall a. ship that never returned after ite rats had walked off her. Why the ereaturee should have deckled to jump their ship in a body ie a mystery. Some sailors believed, that notoriously hungry ships became unpopular with the rodents, who deserted in a body .when the vessels were about to depart on long voyages. This would seem a most reasonable and natural explanation; the rats kept close tally of the ration*, and of the nature iof the cargo. Yet ships whose crews were well fed were frequently abandoned by their \ rate, and thie was remembered when veesels were posted "Missing."

The late Captain Tom Bowling, when commanding the Shaw Savill ship Invercargill, •rave me a tragic illustration of the ancient belief and the mysterious animal instinct. In 1805) he was. at Lyttelton, he said, a<s officer in a London clipper, and one of his younger brothers was there at the same time, an apprentice" in the ship Matoaka. loaded with wool for London. The la<l eanip to him a day or two before sailing date and told him that on the previous night he had seen the rate leaving the Matoaka. walking ashore on the hawsers ae she lay at the wharf. There seemed to be hundreds of them, all going off in an orderly army.

"Your ship will never reach port," eaid Torn Bowling. "That ie an omen that never fuile. The rats know something that we don't. ,1 He earnestly advised his brother not to eail in,the ehip.

"No," eaid the youngr fellow, "I can't leave her. I- must, stick by the ship, and take my chance with my mates."

Tom Bowling eaw hie brother go to sea in the Matoaka; he said, good-bye to him ■greatly fearing he would never eee him again.

The sailor'e premonition proved only too true a forecast of the ship'e fate. The Matoaka sailed in May, 1869; she was never heard of again. Ice, fire, etorm, accounted for many ehipe lost on the Cape Horn voyage; no one ever knew how the Matoaka disappeared with all her crew.

Discussing «ome of these sea myeteriee with a veteran master mariner in eail and steam, I was told of a certain barque which sailed from Onehunga for Melbourne loaded with timber, in the 'nineties, and went missing; lost with all her crew. On the night before she left her loading place the rats were seen leaving her in a body, scrambling ashore by her mooring linect. She wae as clear of rats when ehe put to eea as the present-jlay crew of the Canopus could have desired. ■ v -