GOOD STORIES OF THE.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8583, 9 September 1893, Page 2

GOOD STORIES OF THE.

PRESENT DAK.

—- -, ~» ■ •_■■.,.; Ths Drrblict Bitie Trompf and the Woman on Board of Hkr. New York Sun, lathe year 1872 an Austrian taxidermist named Drave had a contract to supply the Royal Museum ot Natural History with specimens of birds, reptiles, and aaimale found on the coast of Brazil. Hβ arranged with a certain Capt. Trompf, who owned a small brig, to make a partnership voyage, the vessel to pick up a saleable cargo, while the taxidermist gathered his specimens, lira Drave accompanied her husband as an assistant. All told, the people on the brig numbered fourteen. After spending a year on the coast she set sail from Cape St. Rogue intending to call at 1 the Cape Verde Islands. About midway between the island of St. Paul and the Verdes the craft encountered bad weather. About nine o'clock one evening, according to the story, they were run into by an unknown ship, which strnck the brig on her starboard bow and carried away her headgear. Four of tbe"cre.w of the Trompf, as the brig was called, scrambled on board the stranger duriug the moment of contact, and she disappeared in the darkness to be heard of no more. The unknown craft turned out to be an English bark homeward bound from the Hottentot coast. She had been badly damaged in a squall and was practically helpless when Che collision occurred. Those left on board the Trompt supposed she would soon go down and Were in a panic to get the boats oat. It did not occur to them that the cargo of the brig, which was mostly dye woods; wohld prevent her from sinking, nor could anyone remember that the carpenter even sounded the well to see if the hall had received injury. /There was a rush to get off, and the only good seamanship exhibited was ia getting away in the boats with a heavy sea rnnTiing. Everybody supposed that Mro Drave had taken her place in one of the boats, but as a matter of fact she was asleep in the cabin at the time of the collision, and was not awakened by if. No one went dowu to arouse her, and she wa« still asleep when the boats pull off. It was . queer enough, bafc'almoet every week you hear of mothers rushing out of a burning j house without thought of their children, or of wives end nusbands forgetting «ech , other in the fright of an accident. Drave was in the captain's boat, and he thought his wife was in the other, commanded.by the mate, and the real troth was not, Known until next morning. They were then picked up by a steamer and landed at Fogo Island, one ot the Verdes. I was there at the time and heard the story from their own lips. After having had time to recover their equanimity and compare notes, the Au«trians came to the conclusion that their brig was still afloat. l< staved ia she wonld waterlog, but even then might ■ drive for a year before wind and current set her ashore. They were thoroughly > ashamed of their action in deserting the 1 craft and the woman, and it was decided , to charter a craft and go ia search of the > derelict, Aα American barqaentine named the James R. Boss bad just come 1 up from the African coast in ballast, and , she was engaged for the search. It was , believed that the brig, if found, could be , sailed into port, and we bad a double crew ; aboard, as we left Fogo. - Sixteen days had 1 now elapsed, and there were other circa m- | stances to bother us as well. There had i been two or three heavy gales, with the winds shifting about to every quarter, \ and there was a goo&fleal of gaesswprk \ as to the position of the brig when she , was abandoned. Sue was scudding when > struck. She certaiuljf lost her bowsprit, •■ bub the crew was divided as to whether ■ the foremast went over the side or not. I She had certainly broached to whea the boats were lowered, and while one ! declared that the wheel was lashed, another ■ denied it. One eald the matotopmosl ' fell, while another was sure it was all , right. ' • The brig was too far to the west to be , affected by the coast current, and , we moat

: look for her in midocean and Iα tfee ■ broadest part of the North Atlantic, ij, 1 near as we could figure she would drift ta , the north-west, and between the Verde* ; and the American coast there is bat ob* ' little speck of land—the Bermuda*. 3«e n ' on an ocean chart it is bat a grain of sand i lost on a great prairie. If there were maaj ; drawbacks, there were were also a few coa. ■ soline features. The brig wa3 well bnilt ' and almost new. She had plenty rf , water and provisions on board. No [ matter how she drifted she would be ia * » the track of commerce, and Mrs Bravt k w»s described as a woman who had travelled about a great deal, and would know enough to fly a signal of distress by day or burn a flare at night if a craft was in sight. We flrat ran to the aouth 425 I miles and then stood to the north-west for about 500. A lookout was kept ac the 1 masthead from daylight till dark, and at night we lay to and drifted, and now and i then sent up a rocket or burned a flare. : We next ran to the north 350 miles, to the west 100, and then to the south 45Q, 1 During this time we SDoke to seven dif. ferent vessels but none of them had sighted the derelict. Most of us have aa ■ idea that the crew of a vessel at «ea maintain something of a lookout for ' wrecks. An incident that occurred ' on our ran to the sooth will prove . how erroneous this impression is. One day at noon, while we were driving along at tsn miles an hour, our lookout sighted ' a whaleboat with five men in it, and ws altered our course by two points to pick . them up. It was the mate of an EugUsh whaler, who had struct a wbale and beta towed out of sight of his ship. A gale came on and he had to run before it, and the men had been afloat live days when we ' , sighted them. They had sighted as many as twelve different sails and had bees within two or three miles without being , seen. Bat for our having a man aloft fee ; look for the brig we should have pasted them by. Having gone as far south as seemed wise, , we now ran fifty miles to the east aad tb«a ! headed north. This was to make a search i within the limits of the first. This time : we ran to the north to the latitude of the Azores, and on the way we spoke twelve I different vessels. From one of them, an : English merchantman, we got what wt 1 hoped would prove a clue. He reported j having sighted a brig three d«ya before which was apparently in trouble, though ' she bad no signal of distress set. A* a matter of fact he sighted the Trorapf, aad as a matter of tact she had a signal flyingHe simply didn't want to see it, know, ing that investigation meant detention. He had made a run of 243 miles since sighting the brig, and getting the latitude and longitude we changed onr course to the south-west. Before running the distauce we spoke four vessels, but none of them had seen the derelict. From Greenland on the north to Cape St. Boqae on the south there were hundreds of crafts crossing and recrosa. ing the Atlantic, but that derelict brig seemed to dodge them all. Having ran our course to the sooth-west, we figured on the direction of her drift and bore op for the north-west, with our bowsprit pointing for the banks of Newfoundland. We had run about a hundred miles when we spoke the Belle of Halifax, a brig bound for Liberia. Her Captain reported that on the night previous, jast before midnight, he had passed a brig drifting Off before the wind. Her jibboom and bowsprit and foretopmasfc were dragging In , the water at her bow, and he believed her to be abandoned. You will ask wby an Investigation vti not made? Iα spite of all 703 may have read and heard, it was none of tte Captain's bueiness to investigate. Hβ could not have spared men enough to sail her into port if he found her worth saviog, and be was sailing close hauled aad did not want to lose the ti vie. To pick op a shipwrecked ere.v at sea means to crowd the cabin and deckhouse of the In a sailing craft it may mean a shortage of provisions and water. To loaehalf ? day of fair wind at sea. may lengthen a : voyage by a week. Owners of vessels count boura and ship's biscuit. Iα thta , case not even a shout was raised to see if it would bring an answer. The captain satisfied his conscience and saved aa ' hour's time by quietly making up his mind that the wreck was abandoned. He had run about ninety miles since sighting tbs brig, and as the wind had held steadily, , she nm&fc have drifted from fifteen to , twenty. It took us twelve hours tc gain the point we sought, and then the lootcoat | reported a dt*r eea. After breakfast wt stood to the west for ten miles, then to tbe north for fifteen, thence to the east for twelve, thence to the south for tweaty, , It was cow within an boor of santet, tod the breeze was dying fast. At the captain* order I went aloft for a good leek around, and I had scarcely levelled ttat glass toward the west when I perceived tbe derelict about eight miles away. Sbe was right in the sheen of the sun, or shf would have been seen by the lookout. Wβ squared away for her, bat when within two miles the breeze failed us completely. I was then ordered off to her !u a boat ia which were the husband, C*pt. Trompi* and four sailors. Jast as we set off from the barquentine it was reported that Mre Drave could be seen waviua a signal from the derelict. While we were yefc half a mile away her husband hailed her and received & reply, and »* we reached the brig's side she looked down upon as asa , said : ** Why, • Gustave, I hare been real worried about you and the others I" If the above observation doesn't give you a fair Idea of the woman, I may add that she slept tbe night through oa the night of tbe collision, and the Orst she knew ot any thing out of tiic way was when she went on deck in the morning. Instead of fainting away she prepared breakfast for her* self, and ate ie with her usual ftoed. appetite. She saw the boats were gone* and there were evidences of the panic which had seized the crew. She had often seen tbe carpenter sound the well, cad after breakfast the got oat the rod and satisfied herself that the brig was Tight and tight. She cleared away the wreckage on the bow by heaving it overboard, and as the brig had no sail on this brought her bead to the wind acd kept It there. Mrs Drave knew that the brig was bearing up for the Verds when the acctdta* happened. She believed that the boat*? would be picked up or reach the islands, and she was sure that a craft would b* sent out In search. Within an hour she set a signal of distress, and it was never hauled down in alt those week*. The average woman would have gone madift such a situation, bat Mrs Drave rather enjoyed it. She pat in most of fee* rtß* preparing specimens which had bestf 1 packed away to .tvalfe- for, their return home, and the cabin looked like the workshop of a busy taxidermist. She bad alsc [ kepca dally journal, which was Interest- ! ingreidiijg. During her drift there had been five tempests cf more or less severity. She had watched the compass aad eer 1 rectly recorded the drift from day to day. On the fourteenth day, as recorded ia . tbe journal, or rather on the evening of that day, Mrs Drave witnessed a strange . thing. It was almost; a dead calm on the 1 surface, bnt a light breezo was stirring , aloft to act on masts and yards and rigging : and drift the brig slowly westward, s About nine o'clock she heard voices and i soon discovered a raft about a cable's , length away on tbe port quarter. Making • use oJt tbe nigbfc glass, she counted »▼«» , men and two women on tb« raft, afc* 5 ac once lighted a lantern and showed tt # i over the side and bailed them. They seL r up a great shouting in reply, but she cou^i- ■ not'understand the language. That most [ or aU of the men were sailors she was certain. The raft had been made » alongside of some snip, but had I neither mast nor oars. Tb* men gwttflw>

Jated and shouted, and the women held out their bauds* pk'.-uiinKly. Mrs Drave believed them to b?; Russians, and from their forlorn appearance *he thought they must hnT" nceu adrift several days. They kept calling and beseeching, and she wan helpless to «id them, and, as the brig drifted faster than the raft, she finally lost eight of them. She at ftrat wondered w hy eorue of the nan did not swim oil* to the brlß, but presently noticed the pre" »oocf" of several irroat shark* between the Teasel and the float. The man doubtless B »w then), and knew that it would be certain death to attempt the passage. Who the po° r shipwrecked people were has never been reported to my knowledge. As to the rbimage by the brig, we ii»d repair-* mmie in half a day. H,ir eateo trasull rij;ht. and two hours at the Dunips freed in-i of bil;;o water. H*r crew wa* P at ab-vrd, and ss.lie followed v-< back totlie inlands, no one the nor«a for the adventure, thounh I believe that Mr Druve and ."apt. Tro'upf were several thousand dolltr* out of pocket. As one got hU , eM tI end the other hi«i wif« back, there W n»n<>conip!r.i:jiiig, however. Wh«n the Mgluft for homo. Mrs Drave iv bidding njeillPod-by, addi'il! "Next lime I have ray i.-nitflng work along, nnd then 1 shall be quite content. Tuat was the only thing 1 was lone»ouie for.