A CAPE HORN TRAGEDY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11127, 16 November 1907, Page 6

A CAPE HORN TRAGEDY.

Details of terrible sufferings undergone by the crew of the American barque Prussia were available upon the arrival at Plymouth of tha White Star liner Oceanic from New York. As the liner was about leaving the latter port there were landed there six members of the crew of the American barque Prussia, who had been cast away oil a lonely island at the extreme south of South America for weeks (states the London Shipping Gazette), and reduced by hunger to the necessity of chewing, sealskins to keep themselves alive. The seamen owe their lives to the ingenuity of the ship's carpenter, Charrles Spark, a Norseman, who constructed a little sloop, and two others undertook m it a venturesome voyage for succour. The distance to New Year's Is land was aboufc 100 miles^by -boat as they had to skirt the shore running m and out along the coast line but they made the voyage successfully. It was -just one week later when, a whale boat, under the command of Lieutenant Delgadd, and manned by five volunteer life-savers, rounded the point of rocks, and was spied by the castaways.. Their troubles, however, were not at an end. The rescue boat had met adverse winds, and took five days to make the trip. The store of provisions tlie rescuers were • bringing for the men of the Prussia was more than half consumed. Then a gale sprang/ up, and it was six days later before the whaleboat could be launched .'and the start made. . In the interval^ the food brought : by the rescue party was consumed, an(J on the way back to the meteorological station all had to eat limpets.