PHANTOM SHIPS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3378, 13 June 1927, Page 2

PHANTOM SHIPS.

Another legend of a phantom ship may he in the making, oven in our own day. Not long ago a cable from-Engln d told of the Norwegian steamer Baa. abandoned by the crew after a collision, still plowing on in the fog of the English Channel. Che chances are that some 1 lookout, sighting the derelict hulk in the moonlight, and seeing no sign of life on board, would think of the Flying Dutchman. Thus so, by word of mouth, has many a tale of ghost ships started. Every coast has its own story of a sbjp that sailed away, never to return, or of a vessel mysteriously appearing for a brief time, only to Vanish like a cloud. The American seaboard is no exception. Along New England talcs of lost ships are heard to tiiis day. Longfellow, in ‘‘The Ship of the Dead,” told" of a vessel that sailed, jadl-vigged, from New Haven in 1647 and was never again reported, except as a vanishing ghost. Whittier sang of the schooner Breeze, which became a phantom of the waters, and of the spectre ships of Salem, “with dead men in their shroud's.” Other legends persist. Henry Hudson himself is said to revisit occasionally his beloved Catskill haunts, while the Half Moon, with topsails showing silver in the night, drifts down the river. ( In the town of Medford, Mass., a, dark legend harking back to the clays df the Spanish Main, is told. When pirates still roamed the seas in search of plunder, runs this tale, a little ship laden with gold left Medford bound for the West Indies. When she had been a few days at sea the wind fell. Food and water dwindled, and finally all hands perished. Shortly afterwards a buccaneer found the craft. He lightly lashed the captive to big own vessel and was the first to jump aboard; No sooner bad he done so than a stiff wind whipped up, breaking the line and driving the ship of the dead away. In the gathering gloom it was impossible for the pirate ship to close with the lightless vessel. Alone on board with no escape in sight, the pirate captain went mad and was condemned to cruise the Caribbean in command of his valuable but gruesome prize. Greed for gold and other treasure often figures in these stories, which, as time goes by, are usually. interwoven with other realistic details.

Mariners conjure up all sorts of ill omens from the sight of a ghost ship. Woe to the vessel, that cuts across- its path. Death or hurricane is sure to follow.

The mystery of the American collier Cyclops, whose disappearance during the World War was never explained, is rapidly gathering legendary proportions —-in the shape of much imaginary data —among our seamen.

Few reports of sighting a spectre ship are as well attested as is that given in “The Cruise of the Bacchante,” (compiled from private journals of Prince Albert Victor arid the Prince of Wales) (now King George), who served as midshipman on H.M.S. Bacchante’s voyages between 1879 and 1882.

An entry of July 11. 1881,, tells of a “strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the masts, spars, and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief as she came up on the part bow.” Thirteen persons sV.v it, according to the report; and, of course, bad luck followed. The lookout man who first sighted the light fell from the foretopmast and, in the language of the log entry, “was smashed to atoms.”

At first it was thought that the Bacchante iiacl come across the Flying Dutchman, but if so that exemplar of phantom ships was off her course. She belongs around the Cape of Good Hope, not off Cape Horn. Of the many variants of her cumulative story the one most generally

accepted is that Captain Vanrlerdeckrn, striking unfavourable elements off the Cape of Good Hope in 1806, swore that he would round the Cape in spite of God and the devil.

A plague broke out among fhe crew. Vainly Vanderdecken attempted to approach shore. Everywhere lie went ports

were closed to his ill-fated craft, which i? still supposed to wander about like an ap parition, doomed to ho sea-tossed forever and never more to make port. Disaster, stalks all those who behold her. The story of the Flying Dutchman served as a spark to many imaginations. One of ."Wagner’s operas is founded on it. Short story writers have used it as a theme. Captain Marryat. in “The Plumtom Ship.” essayed a. sequel to it. in which he tolls of Philip Vnnderdecken’s successful hut disastrous search for his father.