A MARITIME MENAGERIE.

Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 103, 3 May 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

A MARITIME MENAGERIE.

The overdue British barque Margaret (Captain Sargent), from the West Coast of Africa, arrived iv Boston on February, after a voyage which for incidents is the most remarkable that has been chronicled outside the realms of fiction for a long time. She was so long overdno that she had been given up as lost. Captain Sargent, on his arrival, said that between the gales ami the nature of his cargo he had an experience he does not wish again to nipet. Besides a regular cargo, there were 12 snakes, 400 cockatoos and parrots, an ouraugoutaug, two small monkeys, two crocodiles, and a gorilla, which he was bringiug from Durban, Africa, to a mubGum. Theie were two stowaways on the bai quo too. Ruts caused the death of all but four of the cockatoos and parrots by eatin. 1 up all tho com which had been provided for them. During a gale tho snakes and crocodiles broke out of their boxes in the hold, and invaded the forecastle, so that for five days the men could not venture into their quarters, but had to live in the cabin. These reptiles, along with the rats, kept up a continual warfare until the surviving crocodile killed the last snake aud completed the chain of vengeance by being killed during a fierce southwest storm by some of the cargo shifting and falling on it. During the scrimmage among the reptiles the monkeys took to the rigging and stuck there, despite all efforts to dislodge them j aDd they could not venture above the cross-tree.-', the result being that gales carried away all the barque's toj" hamper and spars. They finally were all washed away, except four which were captured. The worst passenger was a five -foot gorilla, which was imprisoned in a stout wooden box lashed near the galley. The top of this the animal forced off, but though held by a chain he had considerable play, and getting possession of an irou bar, he swept the decks. He wound up by partially scalping the negro cook one day, and only letting go after he had been nearly killed with an axe. All the men were more or less hurt by the beast, and he led them a life of terror. The museum collection is now reduced to the gorilla, three monkeys, and four parrots.