WRECKE IN THE ARCTIC SEA. THE STORY OF THE RESCUE. The Sole Survivor of Eighteen Whalers Brought Back to His Kindred.

Te Aroha News, 26 November 1887, Page 5

WRECKE IN THE ARCTIC SEA. THE STORY OF THE RESCUE.

The Sole Surviv or of Eighteen Whalers Brought Back to His Kindred.

The story of J. B. Vincent, the sole survivoi of the whaling skip Napoleon, will remain one of the most thrilling 1 and eventful of an,y that has ever been r told . of the Siberian coasfc. The Napoleon left San Francisco in the early part of the year 1885. Her crew comprised thirty-six men, all told. After leaving JSan Francisco she proceeded to the Sandivich Islands, and thence to the Behring sea, where she arrived in April of i that year. On the sth of May the Napoleon was crushed in the ice, which came upon her in such fearful masses and so unexpectedly thac the crew were only ablo to divide themselves into gangs of nine each, and, ■without securing any food whatever, to leave the ship and trust themselves to the tender mercies of an Arctic sea. Ninety hours after the wreck the boats of the second and fourth mates were picked up by the barque Fleetwa^jj, and ,oi the eighteen men who were thus rescued, five died immediately after their rescue fiom cold and exposure. All of the boats remained together about twenty-four hours after the w reels, but were dually separated by the winds and currents. The boats of the first and third mates met again after the gale had subsided, and their occupants were found alive. Five da} r s after the wreck these boats drifted in the open sea, nine of the crew succumbing to the exposure, and finally landed upon the ice which skirted the coast. The survivors remainded upon the ice for twenty - six days, and on the Unity-sixth day after the wreck, on June 30, 1835, a landing was made about sixfcy-tAvo miles southwest of Cape Navarin, on the Siberian coast. The next day five of the survivors died from starvation and frost, and the rest remainded at the landing for a month afterward. In March Anton Lawrence, the boatsteerer, died, and one day after the first mate, Wilson Rogers, also died. After these the cooper, William Wallace, succumbed, and Vincent was left alone Vincent arrived in San Francisco after his two years of forced exile, having been rescued by the United States revenue cutter Bear. His story it- an interesting one. His recital of the manner in which his comrades dropped away one by one, crazed by their agonising suflerings, taxes the sensibilities of the most indifferent. It is a repetition of the experiences with which every reader of Arctic travel ib familiar. Tlie one bright feature of his story is the humanity of the Indians, who, as far as they were able, succoured the living and in every instance .buried the dead decently and with honours. Vincent owes hisJife to the fact that he was a man of extraoidinavy endurance and great vitality. He is of stalwart build and not over 2S years of age. He became one of the natives and was able, by his skill as a marksman, to make himself useful to them and they became greatly attached to him. Rogers, the mate, was violently insane for eight toys before he died, and his companions were compelled to secure him to j escape violence from his frantic exertions. For over & year Vincent remained with the natives, seeing no chance of a rescue, but early in January, 1887, he saw an oppoi - tunity of communicating with the outside world, and carried a. message on a piece of ; wood and gave it to a deer man to deliver it to the first whaler that could be sighted, and in Juno laal tho man was ablo j to deliver this billet to th 6 Captain of the ' whaler Hunter, offßebring Cape, of which Captain Crogan was master, The Indian was not intelligent, but the board was quickly inteipretod to mean that J. B. Vincent, a survivor of whaler Napoleon, was alive, and living about) ton miles southwest of Cape Navai in. A copy of the message was given to every whaler, and it camo at last into the hands of the Commander of the Bear, who lost no time in clearing for the point named, and happily rescued him. The experience of Vincent, as related by him, are most harrowing. Dining the twenty-six days that they were "upon the ice after being wrecked, the entire party of eighteen men had only two seals, ■which they killed and attempted to eat raw, but their stomachs refused to assimilate the unwonted food and it could not be retained, and for the entire thirty-six days their want of nourishment caused the most intense agony. The vitality of Vincent may bs guessed from the fact that for eleven days not a morsel of food passed his lips. When at last the crew reached the land they found the natives, or deer men, most anxious to assist them : but one by one the j crew passed away, and finally but he remained. The experiences from the time when Vincent was rescued by the natives until the happy and fortunate rescue by the Bear was a routine of fishing and hunting — a mere existence. His sufferings after this , time were not great, though nis deprivations required considerable stoicism to endure. The natives were invariably kind and repaid the efforts which he made for the common good by every kindness and sympathy which they, in their simple way, could possibly offer. Vincent expresses the heartiest gratitude to them. He describes them as brave and strong and the women as chaste and affectionate to their young. Their habits are simple and temperate and their manner of living an advance upon those natives of the higher latitudes of the Alaskan coast.