STORY OF MARIE CELESTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15482, 13 December 1913, Page 5 (Supplement)

STORY OF MARIE CELESTE.

OCEAN MYSTERY RECALLED. Interest in the mystery, the Marie ' Celeste, a vessel which left New York in November, 1872, has been revived by the publication of-the diary, recently discovered, of a man said to bo-the only survivor, Abel Fosdyk. The Marie Celeste was found adrift in the Atlantic in full sailing trim, but with not a soul'aboard, and no indication of piracy, mutiny, or accident. Fosdyk's story, as published is that one day a dispute arose as to whether an ordinary man could swim in his clothes, and to prove that it could bo done that captain and some of the men jumped overboard. All the other people on ' board gathered on a platform which had been' erected in the bows as a playing space for the captain's child. The platform collapsed, and they were all thrown into the water. , Fosdyk clung to the platform, and after a time became unconscious.. The next thing he remembered he finding sonie black people bending over him, he having drifted near the north-west coast of Africa. Fosdyk had in his later years been in. the employment of Mr. J. Howard Linford, of Hampstead, and bequeathed him. his papers. _, Mr. Linford has given some interesting details of Fosdyk's life. He was a very reticent man, he said, and since his death they have discovered many, things about him as the result of persuing the papers he left. It was in 1874 that they first knew him, and ho was then a man of 34. He had been a steward on a ship commanded by my cousin, trading between Yokohama and London, and from that he passed into my father's service," said Mr. Linford. "When my father died he camo to mo twenty years ago, and remained with me till his death. We always knew that he was'decently educated, but it was only when we went through his papers that wo found lie was extremely well educated. This story of the Mario Celeste was contained in a diary, which in itself is an extraordinary document. After a record of a day's happenings he would resume this story, perhaps in the middle of a sentence which he had broken off a day or two previously. Consequently it has boon a difficult matter to pieco it together. We found also among his papers many short stories which he had written, and humorous poems. ' Ho had the gift of vivid writing, and a wonderful Dower of imitation." The interviewer suggested that this imaginative faculty might give cause for doubting tho veracity of Fosdyk's narrative of the Marie' Celeste. "Of course I cannot vouch for its accuracy," replied Mr. Linford, "but I believe it to be true. Fosdvk's works of fiction are purely imagination, and imitations •of other authors. The narrative of the 'Marie Clcstc' seems to me to bear the stamp of remembrance of events. It seems strangethat he should never have mentioned the ' story, but, as I have said, he was a singu- ', larly reticent man."