DOWN TO THE SEA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22259, 6 November 1935, Page 10

DOWN TO THE SEA

OLD SAILOR'S TALES

f LIFE fyOF ADVENTURE MUTINY ON A WINDJAMMER ROUGH JUSTICE IN EARLY DAYS 'i An old sailor of the days of windjammers, Mr. A. Bowen, of Boston, Massachusetts, who is at present living in Wellington, has roughed out the story of his life, and hopes, when it has been rewritten and revised, to publish it in the form of an autobiography, states the Dominion. It makes an enthralling and romantic tale, taking the reader to the farthest corners of the earth afad recalling the great days of eail.. Much that is seamy and crude has perforce found its way into these glimpses of the world through a forecastle porthole by a seaman serving before the niast, but thoy are convincing and obviously authentic. Mr, Bowen' says lie shipped in the square-riggers as a mere boy, his father being a noted Boston sea captain. On one of his early, voyages the crew of the ship, oppressed by a drunken master, mutinied,/and the vessel was taken into port by the chief mate. Another episodo narrated by tho seafarer describes- a, fight with Asiatic firemen of another ship berthed close to his at liosario, on the lliver Plate. According to Mr. Bowen's account, in heat of the moment, ho snatched a gun from the captain, who had come : to quell the riot, and shot one of the firemen dead. For this ho served two years in a South American penitentiary, without the formality of a trial. In those days, rough justice prevailed in South Araferica. In the South American Prison For a prison murder, committed while Mr. Bowen was there, another of the prisoners was executed out of hand by a firing squad in tho prison patio. In proof of the veracity of this part of his tale, Mr. Bowen exhibited an ugly scar on his forearm, stated to be a knife wound received in the fight with the firemen. Vlf you get in touch with the Rosario authorities," ho said, "they will tell you; they have my finger-prints and measurements on their files." ' During the war, Mr. Bowen says that he served with a line regiment in France, and after the Armistice again took to the sea. He spent some tinte in Mexico and had a narrow escape from death in desert country of tho interior, in tha ranges known as the Sierra Madres. Travelling across country on foot, he lost his way and ran short of food and water. Tormented by thirst and by clouds of mosquitoes in the daytime, unable to sleep for the howling of tho coyotes by night, he was in a bad way when at the end of a couple of days' wandering he stumbled on the adobe hut cf a Mexican wood-cutter. 11 Bootleggers' " Trick An amusing incident of the days of prohibition jn the United States is told by Mr. Bowen. At that time he waa picking prunes at San Jose, in California.' Numbers of tramps used to gather for the fruit-picking to earn money to tide them over the winter months, which they were accustomed to spend encamped in the bush. The usixal t diversion of these men during their leisure intervals in the picking season "was to gamble with dice on the pavements. While they were at this game one day, a lorry loaded with water melons drove past. As it did so, one of the melons fell off and cracked open near the footpath. An odd aroma attracted the gamblers and they found that the melon had been - filled -with liquor; this was one of the tricks used by "bootleggers" for the illicit transport of alcohol. Mr. Bowen remarked that he had seldom seen men so keen to get a slice of water melon.