TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS OF A SHIPWRECKED CREW.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 102, 15 May 1901, Page 4

TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS OF A SHIPWRECKED CREW.

The Sydney underwriters have received information that two of the crew of the ship Angola, which left Newcastle with a cargo of coal early last year for Manila, after leaving which port she was not again heard of, have reached Singapore. The survivors, who are seamen named Johannsen (Swede) and Marticorna (Spaniard), tell the following story:—The Angola, under the command of Captain Crok, and the crew, numbering eighteen, left Cavite, Phillipines, on October 12. Six days a'ter she struck tha Barrier Reef. Two sailors were drowned when she struck. The remainder or the crew stuck to-the ship for four days," and then, fearing that the food was giving out, they put off on two rafts, one carrying twelve, including the survivors, and the other five men. After floating together for one day they lost sight of the small raft, which they never saw again. They drifted on day after day, with provisions getting shorter and shorter. On the 25th day things were absolutely desperate. They had no proper food, and were reduced to eating their boots and the barnacles from the raft, and also chewing sea weed. The salt flavour in everything made them bad; two became crazy and jumped into the sea suddenly. A French sailor seized an ave and cleft open the skull of the first mate, killing him instantly. He then tried to eat the body,'but they got it from him and threw it overboard. He immediately seized the axe again, wet with the • mafS's blood, and rushed the captain to strike him. The second mate felled him to the ground with the axe, despatching him on the spot. Johannsen admitted they ate part of the Frenchman's body. After this they drifted in a most awful plight for seventeen! days with suffering too horrible to describe. One after another become mad and died. The captain succumbed twenty-eight days after they started. Finally only two survivors were left, and they floated on to Soubi, a small island between Borneo and the Phillipines, in a terrible condition. Their bodies are covered with sores, and they were unable to lift themselves from the raft. The Malayan Salus found them and took them ashore, and tended them carefully. When they recovered they were sent to Singapore in a Chinese junk, The Angola was owned by Mr Mosser, of Nova Scotia.