MISCELLANEOUS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 7499, 19 October 1895, Page 6 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE PERILS OF THE SEA

Collision in Mid-Ocean.

Sufferings of a Ship Wrecked

Crew,

The last voyago of the ship Dharwar from London to Port Phillip (says the Melbourne Argus') was brimful of incident, and as exciting as the liveliest sea romance that ever thrilled the heart of a schoolboy. There were heavy weather, gales, and hurricanes, exciting times when the ship appeared doomed to destruction, a shocking accident which caused the death of a seaman, and lastly the rescue of a half-famished shipwrecked crew who had survived a collision in mid-ocean.

The Dharwar, which is a well-known trader to these shores, commenced her voyage on the Bth of Juno, and passing Scilly on June 12 experienced light northerly winds until sho got the trades in lat. 38deg. north. These continued to lat. 9deg 4 north, where they hauled to the south-east, and the ship crossed the equator on the 12th of July. Four days later, when in lat. 12deg. south and lon. 32deg west, a ship's boat containing seventeen men was observed tossing about in the sea, and Captain Steven needed no second glance to realise the gravity of their

position. The course of the Dharwar was immediately altered to bear down on the boat, the distressed occupants of which were soon afterwards taken on board the Dharwar, and given every possible attention. When rescued they were suffering intensely from exposure, want of food, and thirst, and gave a thrilling account of their experiences. They belonged, they said, to the ship Prince Oscar, which was on a voyage (coal laden) from Shields to the west coast of South America, and which, on the night of the 13th of July, collided with an unknown vessel, and almost immediately went down stem first. The weather at the time was very dirty, and so rapidly did the Prince Oscar settle down that the captain, officers, and crew, 18 souls in all, had barely time to lower two boats and get into them before she disappeared. When the collision occurred the Prince Oscar was sailing along at a speed equal to about nine or ten knots an hour, and the darkness was intensified by a thick drizzling rain. Several of the crew were in bed, and upon feeling the shock rushed out in scant attire, just in time to make their escape from the fast sinking ship. Of the vessel with which the Prince Oscar collided nothing could be seen, and whether she escaped or shared a similar fate to that of the Prince Oscar could only be a matter of conjecture. Scarcely had the crew time to congratulate themselves on getting r away from the Prince Oscar without the loss of a life than they were filled with a dreadful apprehension, the boats being without water or provisions of any description, and the prospect of suffering from thirst and hunger was painfully strong. The want of clothes was likewise greatly felt, some of the men being almo3t naked. In the contemplation of these dangers, the absence of appliances to navigate the boats occasioned small anxiety, and nothing else being available a piece of canvas used as. a boat cover was divided in two, and answered somewhat indifferently the purpose of a sail. Under this impromptu spread the small craft bore away before the wind in the hopes of either falling in with a ship or of reaching the Brazilian coast but they had not proceeded far when one of the boats was overtaken by disaster. This boat, which contained the captain, tho gecond mate, and the steward, outran the other, and becoming filled with water in the heavy seas its occupants would probab'y have been drowned had not the second boat opportunely come to their aid, and they were transferred to the latter craft, which now held 18 all told. In making his escape from the Prince Oscar the steward sustained some injuries, and it become evident that ho would not survive. For three days after the collision, until they were picked up by the Dharwar on the 16 th of July, the men underwent considerable hardship, and the painful nature of their situation was increased by the death of the steward, which was no doubt accelerated by exposure. Several others, utterly worn out and exhausted, also threatened to succumb, and an almost unanimous feeling of despair had settled over the occupants of the boat ivhen the Dharwar sighted them.

Captain Steven did all in his power ;o relieve their sufferings, and under lis kind treatment the unfortunates oon recovered from the effects of their errible experience. As the Dharwar fas bound to Melbourne, and the shipwrecked crew desired to proceed to jondon if possible, it was somewhat ortunate that the ship fell in on the Ist of July with a steamer proceeding rom Montevideo to London, which ras spoken in lat. 17deg. south and on. 37deg. west, and to which they ftvere transferred by Captain Steven.

| This, however, did not end the exciting experiences of those on board the Dharwar. After passing the meridian of the Cape of Good Hope on the 13th of August, in lat. 40deg. south, the vessel entered upon a protracted and trying struggle with heavy weather. Asserting itself from the south-west, the wind blew with tremendous vigour, and bringing up a high sea necessitated the Dharwar being ' hove to' for 48 hours, at the end of which period, as the gale slightly abated, she was enabled to proceed without much difficulty or discomfort until the 22nd of August, when in lat. 41deg. south and lon. 26deg. east she was again beset by hurricane weather. Thinking that better auspices might prevail further noith, Captain Steven steered a more northerly course, but there was no improvement, and with her decks completely flooded by water the Dharwar passed a troublous time. For several days she was sorely pressed, and although the weight of water on deck caused some of her bulwark stanchions to slightly start the vessel sustained no serious damage until the 29th of August, when one of the heaviest seas that had yet visited her swept over the decks, breaking tbe carpenter's shop, smashing portion of the cabin, flooding that apartment to a depth of 3ft., and doing sundry other injury. The Dharwar was kept dead before the gale under whole topsails, and it was not until the night of the <Joth of August that the storm showed signs of abating. The seas which prevailed are stated to have been of immense height, and no little ability was required to bring the vessel through the ordeal. Subsequently the ship encountered westerly winds, but these also occasionally blew with fearful strength, and once or twice resulted in the Dharwar being ' hove to.' At length Port Phillip Heads were safely reached on Saturday, and the vessel is now at anchor in Hobson's Bay. During the voyage a seaman named Charles Young, a native of Glasgow, fell from aloft on to the deck-house and was killed. The Dharwar has a large cargo of general merchandise, and comes to the consignment of tho M'Culloch Carrying Company. The only ship named Prince Oscar mentioned in Lloyd's Register is an iron vessel of 1292 tons register, built at West Hartlepool in 1864, by Pile, Spence, and Co., and owned by A. Gibson and Co , her dimensions being as follows :—Length, 220 ft.; beam, 37ft. ; and depth of hold, 21ft. 7in.

A sporting Boer in the Transvaal has, according to the Cape newspapers, two racing ostriches one of which has a stride of fourteen feet, and can go twenty-two miles an hour. Charles Dickens, the younger, says that in his boyhood days his chief delight was to play with a toy theatre. His father wrote a spectacular play for him and also designed the miniature, scenery. It is estimated that the Kaffirs in the diamond mines at Kiniberley, South Africa, steal £250,000 worth of diamonds a year.