AN EXCITING SEA STORY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XVIII, 2 May 1896, Page 488

AN EXCITING SEA STORY.

following exciting yarn of the sea is related in the Strand Magazine by Captain Banks, of the ‘ Waikato.’ At the time referred to, 1883, he was third officer of the * Piako,’ which was a sailing vessel of 1,075 tons, engaged in the emigration trade, and had for master, Captain W. B. Boyd, the first and second officers being respectively Mr Holbeach and Mr Hazelwood.

‘ We left London on the loth of October,’ said Captain Banks, • and took our emigrants on board at Plymouth. There were 317 of them in all, besides a crew of fotty. All went well until we had reached about 4 degrees south of the Equator, our west longitude being 30 degrees. The weather was very calm, and, as you may imagine so near the Equator, exceedingly hot. It was a Sunday— I remember it as though it were but yesterday. We had a clergyman amongst the passengers, and he had been reading service under an awning aft, when one of the crew going for’a’d noticed smoke rising from the forehatch. You may imagine the consternation there soon was on board among the passengers. We tried at first to keep the fact of the fire from them, but this could not be done long ; for when we raised the hatch to try and get at the fire, the flames leapt out of the hold to a height of fifteen or twenty feet. We poured in water to try to subdue the flames, but in vain, and we were compelled to batten down the hatch again. That was all that we could do to keep the fire under subjection.

' It is impossible for me to give you a consecutive narrative of what occurred. We never knew what caused the fire. We had a general cargo, and from the way it was packed we could not get near the fire. All we could do was to pour in water fore and aft to keep it from spreading as much as possible. By that means we checked the progress of the fire to some extent, but it gradually spread, nevertheless.

* When Captain Boyd perceived that we could not subdue the fire, he had all the boats lowered and as many of the passengers put into them as they would hold, the women and children being sent down first. It was at this point that some of the passengers behaved the worst, and it required all the captain’s coolness and determination to prevent a panic. Amongst the emigrants were 160 single men, and a lot of them, when they saw the boats being lowered, tried to rush them. Things looked

nasty for a minute or two ; but the crew were all staunch and cool to a man, and with the assistance of the married men and the better behaved of the unmarried, they soon put the unruly ones to the right-about. But while the rush lasted it was pitiful to see the terror of the women—especially the mothers, who would hold out their babies to the captain and the officers, imploring them to save the little ones.

' The boats were towed aloiljjside the ship, which we sailed as quickly as we could in the direction of the

nearest port. An officer was appointed for each boat, and they were given their courses and distance for Pernambuco, in case the “ Piako” was destroyed and the boats had to part company. We, at the same time, placed look-outs at the mast-heads to see if they could discover another ship to help us. About four o’clock on Monday, the day after the fire broke out, a vessel was reported on the starboard bow, which turned out to be the barque “ Loch Doon.” We immediately bore up for her. She was on the lee bow, as we were in the southeast trades.

‘ All this time the smoke and stench from the burning stores below, together with the paint and oil, were so bad that the crew had to put their heads over the ship’s rails to get a breath of fresh air. The smoke came up in volumes through the crevices of the planking—thick, black smoke, that caused the men to vomit a black slime-like stuff. At the same time the heat was so great that when the vessel made a lurch in sailing, the water seethed from her side. Of course all the while we had been letting water into the hold, and opening valves, to try to get at the fire—all over the place. • About three hours after sighting the “Loch Doon,” she came close enough to render assistance. We told them we were on fire, which they had been pretty sure of before, on account of the smoke they saw rising from the ” Piako.” We got all the emigrants on board the barque, with the exception of a few single men who volunteered to stand by and help the crew. The “ Loch Doon ” was loaded with grain, and had several feet of spare room between the upper deck beams and the cargo, so the emigrants camped out on the top of the grain. After the transfer of the passengers was finished, the “ Loch Doon ” and the burning ship both made sail for Pernambuco, where they arrived the next day, the “ Piako ” four hours before the barque. All this time we had nothing to eat but raw salt pork and biscuits, and the water was black with the smoke. * But with our arrival at Pernambuco our adventures were bynomeansover. Small-pox turned out to be raging so violently there that we could have no communication with the town. People were dying at the rate of 400 a day. When Captain Boyd discovered this, he hired an island about seven miles up the river, called Cocoa-nut Island, on account of being thickly covered in the centre with cocoa-nut trees. The ship’s doctor and I were sent in charge of the emigrants, who were carried up to the island in barges. When we landed, the thermometer was standing at 92 degrees in the shade, and there were four miles to walk over burning sand to reach the camp-

ing-ground. The horror of those four miles was something indescribable. Many of the people—especially the poor women—fell down fainting upon the sand. ‘ When we got to the camping-ground we had to build huts of bamboo canes and leaves. There was an old barn there, and that was all, and in it we had to lock up the unmarried women of nights. There were eighty of them, and the 160 unmarried men made love to them all the day, wandering among the beautiful cocoa-nut groves. Here we camped out for nine weeks, food being

sent up to us in boats from Pernambuco ; and if the life was not altogether idyllic, it was pleasant enough at times.

* While we were stationed on the island, Captain Boyd and the other officers found it necessary to scuttle the ship in order to put the fire out She went down under water all but the poop deck. When the fire was quite subdued she was, after several vain attempts, finally successfully floated. We then got out all the burnt cargo, which was sold by auction. Nearly all the emigrants' luggage was burnt, and many of the poor people landed with scarcely anything on. There was little damage done to the " Piako,” however, beyond the destruction of the cargo, the galley, and the donkey-engine, so that by the time we had got fresh stores from England, she was ready to proceed on her voyage, and we finally reached New Zealand two months behind time. In sp ; te of all the hardships and adventures the emigrants went through, not a life was lost, except that of a baby, which, however, died from the effects of violet powder, not from the effects of the voyage. ’