TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14600, 26 February 1913, Page 8

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

One of tho most astonishA ing voyages of steamPerilous ship history was made reVoyage, cently by the Snowdon Rango, a vessel of about 3000 tons. On November 22nd she left Philadelphia, and nothing w„s heard of her for some weeks, and it was feared she had foundered. Heavy premiums wero paid, even when she was eventually sighted, disabled, 700 miles west of Scotland. Her plight in tho meantime had been truly lamentable. Arrived at Daunts Rock at the opening of Cork Harbour, a terrific sea encountered the vessel. At six o'clock that night a Queenstown correspondent telegraphed that tho Snowdon Rango was in great danger. Her anchors wero let go in seventeen fathoms of water, scarcely threo miles off the coast. Her condition was regarded as so perilous that Admiral Sir Charles Coko offered tho services of a naval tug to tow tie lifeboat out to sea, in order to take off the crew. Tho vessel was driven before tho galo into Jouball Bay, dangerously near tho coast. From thero she was eventually driven by tho force of tho gale on to a soft bottom on Courland Bank, whore sho grounded. Somo of tho experiences of tho captain and crew during tho perilous voyage aro most remarkable. On December 24th the chief engineer reported that tho coal was running out, there being less than 100 tons in tho bunkers. To economise, a quantity of wheat was used in the furnaces to help tho coal out. Tho captain himself was forty-four days without going into his bunk; ho had no sloop to speak of during all that time, and had it not been for his grit and fino example, it is unlikely that the crew would havo held out. A cablo messago received a few days ago rocorded recognition paid to the bravo captain and crew for their unflagg : ng efforts in keeping the ship going. ' Tho late Mr Louis Beckc, An who died in Sydney last Island week, had an adventurous Novelist, life. He was born at Port ; Macquarrio, and went to I sea when only fourteen, shipping in a j schooner bound for San Francisco. Tho j ! vessel in which ho voyaged to Califor- j j nia touched at Rurutu in the Tubuai i group, and there ho got his first } 1 plimpse of the South Sea Islands, about j which afterwards ho wroto so ; well. On his return from j California ho obtained employment i in a merchant's office, but tho charm j of tho wild life had got into his blood, i and, falling in with an old skipper, he ! wenL with him on a trading venture to j -.ho Caroline and Pelew Islands. "My j partner was a grar.d old seaman," said Becke, in toiling this story of his early en roe- to somo friends not long ago, "but no navigator, and I was only a youngster and no navigator. It was j not long before tho skipper burst out j drinking, and went mad from delirium tremens. Although I was but a lad, the native crew (threo Hawaiians and one Manihiki sailor) begged me to tako charge and tie up the old man, who had jumped overboard three times. Wo made a strait-jacket and put him in it; and a day later sighted an uninhabited a toll." Becke brought the schooner in. and the skipper soon re-! covered. Becke left the schooner at Samoa, having made a good deal of j

money out of tho cruise, and returned to Sydney. Ho tried gold-seekin" at Charters Towers for two years, but tho islands called him, and he returned to Samoa, bought a cutter, and beca.no a trader again. Subsequently ho became supercargo on the brig Leniora, which belonged to tho notorious Bully' Haves, and camo to look upon his association with that sinister figure as the halcyon timo of his life. For some years after ho. parted company with Hayes Mr Becke wandered about tho islands, living on ono group and then on another, leading a lonely but not unhappy existence. Once ho was shipwrecked at Bern, one of the Gilbert Islands, losing everything he had in the world. He got a passage to Sydney, iv a vessel owned by a Chinese firm, and a few days after his arrival was induced by a trading colloaguo to try his luck in New Britain" It was tho then editor of tho ''Bulletin" who persuaded Mr Becke to write tho stories that made him famous. When tho editor heard some of Mr Bocke's stories ho advised him to put them on paper. - - I can't write," said ' tho rover. "Just write as you talk," said tho journalist, and the advico was taken.