The Marine Corps participated with brilliant results in the Florida Indian War, and in the siege of Vera Cruz and the march to the City of Mexico their services were of the first order. In fact, General Scott is authority for the statement that at all times during the Mexican War they were placed where the hardest work was to be done. At thestorming of Chapultepec, Major Levi Twiggs, of the marines, led the assaulting party and was killed. This fortress having been captured, the marines in General Quitman's division moved directly on the City of Mexico, and were accorded the honor of first entering the palace and hoisting the American flag.
The marines who accompanied Commodore Perry to Japan, in 1852, took an important part in that expedition. A force of a hundred marines was landed, and, together with a like number of soldiers and two brass bands, marched through Yeddo to the palace of the Mikado, creating a most favorable impression on the foreign officials. A similar display was made by Perry when he returned to Japan in 1854, to receive the answer of the Japanese Government to his representations previously made regarding the advantages of foreign trade.
It was a force of marines who captured John Brown at Harper's Ferry, in 1859. While the militia of Virginia was assembling by the thousand to attack the little band ofabolitionists, a force of one hundred marines was sent from Washington, and a squad of eight of them battered down the door of John Brown's fort, and captured his party, to the chagrin of the hundreds of other military men near by who hoped to have a hand in the affair.
Again and again during the Civil War the marines proved themselves brave and stubborn fighters. In the encounter between the Merrimac and the Cumberland, the marine division was under Lieutenant Charles Heywood, later commander of the corps. The first shot from the Merrimac killed nine marines, yet the division was so little demoralized by the loss that it not only continued fighting, but actually fired the last shot discharged from the Cumberland at the Merrimac. For services rendered between 1861 and 1865, thirty-seven officers and men of the Marine Corps received the thanks of Congress, medals or swords, and twenty-eight were brevetted for gallantry.
In the brush with Corea in 1871, themarines, as before stated, were in the assault on the Salee forts, and Lieutenant McKee, in carrying the works, fell, as his father fell in Mexico, at the head of his men, and first inside the stormed works.
Commander, afterward Admiral, Kimberly stated in his report that to the marines belonged the honor of "first landing and last leaving the shore. Chosen as the advance guard on account of their steadiness and discipline, their whole behavior on the march and in the assault proved that the confidence in them had not been misplaced."
The marines again distinguished themselves in 1885, when an insurrection in Panama compelled the landing there of a force, which stayed until all danger was over, and several times, in more recent years, the officers and men of the corps have plucked a fresh branch for their laurels. When the big railroad strike in California was in progress in the summer of 1894 the marine guard stationed at the Mare Island Navy Yard was called out to serve with the regular troops atSacramento, Truckee, Stockton and other towns. In alertness, activity and general soldierliness they showed themselves quite the equals of the army troops, and the colonel of artillery who commanded the entire brigade, did not fail to dwell upon this fact in his report to the War Department. One of the marines at Truckee bent the stock of his rifle in clubbing a violent rioter, who afterward was convicted as an accessory in ditching a train and causing the deaths of four soldiers. The marine was reproved by his company commander, and narrowly escaped a court-martial, on the charge of destroying government property. "Bullets," said the commander, "are cheaper than rifles."
The American marine has never been known to show the white feather, no matter what the odds against him. When, some years ago, Antonio Ezeta, the Central American agitator, was being chased by the government authorities of the Republic of Salvador, he took refuge in the residence of the American consul at La Libertad. The populaceraged around the consulate, and word was sent to the garrison on the outskirts of La Libertad of Ezeta's hiding-place. An American gunboat was lying in the harbor, and the marine guard of twenty men, under command of a sergeant, was sent ashore by the commanding officer at the request of the consul, to protect the latter's residence and the refugee within it, for Ezeta was a citizen of the United States. The marine guard reached the consulate at the same moment with a battalion of 250 Salvadorean soldiers. The marines, not a whit dismayed, surrounded the consulate, and for eight hours stood off the swarthy Salvadoreans. Then, by a ruse, Ezeta, in disguise, was slipped to the beach and taken to the warship, which carried him to San Francisco to stand trial in the United States courts for violation of the neutrality laws. He would have been torn limb from limb by the citizens and soldiers of La Libertad, had it not been for the score of marines. The captain of one of the Salvadorean companies was an American free-lance fromWestern New York. He raved over the cowardice of the dark skinned soldiers he commanded, and profanely declared that, with half a dozen marines of the United States at his back, he would undertake to whip the entire Salvadorean army. His men, it may be stated in passing, did not understand English.
Finally, in the war with Spain and the more recent operations in China, the Marine Corps added another moving and glorious chapter to its history. At Guantanamo the marine battalion, commanded by Colonel R. W. Huntingdon, fought the first serious land engagement of United States forces on foreign soil since the Mexican War. The fact that this battalion was attacked by the enemy in overwhelming numbers, and for over three days and nights was under constant fire, and that on the fourth day a portion of the battalion attacked and repulsed a superior force of Spaniards, shows, to quote the words of their chief, "that Colonel Huntingdon and his officers and men displayed great gallantry, and that allwere well drilled and under the most effective discipline." One of the men under Huntingdon's command was Sergeant Thomas Quick, a lithe and fearless native of the mountains of West Virginia. At a critical stage of the operations, while the marines were engaged with the enemy firing from ambush, it became necessary to dislodge them, and it was desired that the Dolphin should shell the woods in which they were concealed. Quick volunteered to signal her, and standing on a hill wigwagged her, while bullets backed the dust about him. For his action, described as "beautiful" by his commander, he, in due time, received a medal of honor and a lieutenant's commission.
The headquarters of the Marine Corps are at the barracks in the City of Washington, where are located the commandant and his staff. Besides those previously mentioned, there are marine barracks at Portsmouth, Boston, League Island, Norfolk and Annapolis. But the fouled anchor running through a hemisphere traced with the outlines of thetwo American continents, which adorns the front of the marine's fatigue cap, tells that he is at home both on sea and land, and when on either, shrewd, sharp blows are to be struck he is ready for them. Nowhere in the world, size taken into account, is there a more efficient organization than this corps of 6,000 brave fighting men.
The revenue cutter, though perhaps the least known, is one of the most useful branches of the Federal service. Its creation antedates by several years that of the navy, and it boasts a glorious history. It polices the coast as the navy polices the ocean, and its duties are as varied as they are weighty and important. It cruises constantly from the fever infected regions of the Gulf to the icebound shores of the Arctic Sea. It is the terror and constant menace of the smuggler and poacher. It sees to it that the quarantine is strictly maintained, and that the neutrality laws are not violated by the greedy and lawless of our own and other lands. It is prompt in the prevention of piracy, andsuppresses mutiny with a heavy hand. It looks after emigrant ships and enforces the license and registry statutes. Last, but not least, it gives timely succor to the shipwrecked and annually preserves hundreds of lives and millions of dollars' worth of property. And so, wherever one familiar with its history falls in with its trim white cutters, whether in the sunny courses of the Gulf, or on the borders of the great Atlantic highway, off the bleak New England coast, in the crowded harbors of our lake ports, or in the still waters of the Pacific, he is sure to give them glad, respectful greeting, as modest, graceful emblems not alone of our country's greatness, but better still, of duty bravely and nobly done.
The Revenue Cutter Service celebrated the centennial anniversary of its existence sixteen years ago, having been organized in 1790. The credit for its creation belongs to Alexander Hamilton, that great first Secretary of the Treasury, to whom we owe so much, and whose memory in these days of self-vauntingmediocrity we too often neglect to honor. His was a vision that saw clearly all the needs of the future, and as early as 1789 he earnestly advised the employment of "boats for the security of the revenue against contraband." A little later he submitted to Congress a bill providing for a fleet of ten boats, to be thus distributed along the seaboard: Two for the Massachusetts and New Hampshire coast, one for Long Island Sound, one for New York, one for the waters of the Delaware Bay, two for the Chesapeake and its environs and one each for North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Congress accepted the Secretary's recommendations, and in a few months ten swift cutters were built, armed and equipped, each vessel being manned by a crew of ten men.
Thus was born the Revenue Cutter Service, a modest fleet of small, speedy vessels only a little larger than the yawls of the present time. In addition to their pay, the officers and crews received a part of the amounts derived from fines, penalties and forfeitures collectedin case of seizures and for breaches of the navigation and customs laws, but later the officers were given larger salaries and the payment of prize money abolished. At first only a small force was required to adequately protect the commerce of an extensive yet thinly populated coast, but our foreign trade grew so rapidly, and the importance of our shipping interests increased so steadily, that it soon became clear that a strong cordon of well equipped and speedy cruisers would be necessary for their effective protection. For this reason, Congress, in 1799, gave the President authority to equip and maintain as many revenue cutters as he should deem necessary for the proper policing of our coast-line.
And thus the Revenue Cutter Service grew in size and became more efficient with each passing year. During the first quarter century of its existence, it was almost constantly in the eyes of the public, and its daring deeds frequently afforded welcome material to the novelists of the period. Among its duties it was charged with the suppression of piracy,even so late as the opening of the last century, a serious menace to commerce; and it also waged a constant and relentless war against smugglers and smuggling. Those were the palmy days of the smuggler, who often made reckless hazard of his life in the illegal race for gain. Steam vessels had not yet come into use, and speed and safety then lay in trim lines and mighty spreads of canvas. Smugglers' schooners, sharp built, light of draught, and with enormous sails, were constantly hovering in the offing, biding some favorable opportunity to discharge cargoes upon which no duty had been paid.
It was the business of the Revenue Cutter Service to keep watch upon these vultures of the sea, spoiling them of their quarry, and in this way sprang up hand-to-hand encounters both by sea and land, sudden, sharp and terrible, in which many a gallant life was lost and fame and honor won. Now, however, the pirate and the smuggler, at least of the bold life-risking sort, have passed to the limbo of forgotten things, and the officers andmen of the Revenue Cutter Service no longer win glory and a reputation for bullet-chasing courage in their suppression. The new field which they have built up for themselves, is daring and full of danger, but it has not the same interest for the general public, and so their deeds of heroism are now performed in out-of-the-way corners, with no herald present to trumpet them to the world, and with the pleasant consciousness of duty well done as their only reward.
The Revenue Cutter Service in time of war has always co-operated promptly and effectively with the navy against the foe. Indeed, the cutters belonging to the Revenue Cutter Service have taken a gallant and active part in all the wars of the United States save one. In 1797, when war with France threatened, the Revenue Cutter Service was placed on a war footing, and by its promptness and vigilance, did much to uphold the dignity and prestige of the Federal Government. In the following year a number of cutters cruised with diligence and daring in West Indianwaters, and the record of the Revenue Cutter Service in guarding the seaboard and preventing the departure of unauthorized merchant ships, while the embargo act of 1807 was in force, was also a fine one.
Its services during the War of 1812 were as varied as they were brilliant. Not only did its vessels successfully essay perilous missions, but they also took a gallant part in many of the most hotly contested naval actions of the war. In fact, to the cutter Jefferson and its gallant crew belong the credit for the first marine capture of that contest, for within a week of the proclamation of war the Jefferson fell in with and captured the British schooner Patriot, with a valuable cargo, while on her way from Guadeloupe to Halifax. And this proved only a fitting prelude to a hundred illustrious deeds performed by the officers and crews of the Revenue Cutter Service during the following three years. In the second year of the war the revenue cutter Vigilance overhauled and after a sharp engagement captured the British privateerDart, off Newport, while the cutters Madison and Gallatin carried many rich prizes into the ports of Charleston and Savannah.
When in 1832 South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union, several cutters cruised off the Carolina coast, ready to assert by force the supremacy of the Federal Government. During the Seminole War revenue cutters were not only actively engaged in transporting troops and munitions, but were also of great service in protecting the settlements along the Florida coast. During the Mexican War eight revenue cutters formed a part of the naval squadron operating against the southern republic and participated gallantly in the assault on Alvarado and Tobasco, while the revenue cutters McLane and Forward contributed materially to the success of Commodore Perry's expedition against Tobasco and Frontera in October, 1846.
AN OFFICER IN THE REVENUE CUTTER SERVICE
AN OFFICER IN THE REVENUE CUTTER SERVICE
Finally, a volume would be required to adequately record the work of the Revenue Cutter Service during the Civil War. Its cutters were employed as despatch boats, joinedin the pursuit of blockade runners, did guard and scouting duty, and often shared in engagements with Confederate batteries and vessels. In truth, it was a revenue cutter, the Harriet Lane, which, in Charleston Harbor, in April, 1861, fired on the Union side, the first shot of the Civil War. The Harriet Lane was long the pride of the Revenue Cutter Service, and had a notable career. Named after the beautiful and gracious niece of President Buchanan, she participated in the naval expedition to Paraguay, and during the Civil War was often under fire. Again, during the war with Spain, the Revenue Cutter Service achieved an enviable and heroic record.
The proper patrol of our long coast line requires a large number of vessels, and the Revenue Cutter Service at the present time has a complement of thirty-seven vessels, all splendidly adapted to the work in hand. During the last sixty years steamers have slowly but steadily replaced the top-sail schooners of the old days, and the vessels now employed by the Revenue Cutter Service are, with oneor two exceptions, small, compact, well-built steamers, which, save for the guns they carry, might easily be mistaken for swift steam yachts. In size they range from 130 to 500 tons burden. The majority of them have been built under the direct supervision of officers of the service and are perfectly adapted to the varying wants of the several stations. Nearly all of them are armed with from two to four breech-loading rifled cannon and carry small arms for the use of their crews. Most of the vessels bear the names of former secretaries and assistant secretaries of the Treasury, but the Andrew Johnson, the William H. Seward and U. S. Grant are also among the names to be found on the list. The U. S. Grant, which does duty at Port Townsend, is a bark-rigged steam propeller, and a model of its size and type. Strange to say, it is the only ship of the United States that bears the name of the greatest captain of his age.
The vessels of the Revenue Cutter Service are always ready for instant duty in the mostdistant quarters. When, in 1867, Alaska became a part of the United States, within a week after the ratification of the treaty, the revenue cutter Lincoln was steaming northward, and was the first to obtain accurate information regarding the geography, resources and climate of our new possession. Three or more revenue cutters now cruise every year in Alaskan waters, guarding the seal fisheries and often giving much needed relief to the whaling fleet that yearly sails from San Francisco for a cruise in the waters above the Behring Sea.
Officers and crews of the cutters doing service in the waters of Alaska have remarkable stories to tell, and the log-books of the cutters Corwin and Bear have been filled during the last twenty-five years with a record all too brief, of many thrilling adventures in the frozen North. The Corwin left San Francisco for the Polar Sea in May, 1881, charged with ascertaining, if possible, the fate of two missing whalers, and to establish communication with the exploring steamer Jeanette.Five times during the previous year the Corwin had attempted to reach Herald Island, and failed each time. On this voyage better success attended, and after braving the perils of the drift ice, a landing was made, while at the same time the bleak coast of Wrangel Land was sighted to the westward. On August 12, 1881, the Corwin having pushed its way through great masses of floating and grounded ice, into an open space near the island, effected a landing on Wrangel Land, this being the first time that white men had ever succeeded in reaching that remote corner of the Arctic waste.
The cruises of the Corwin in 1880 and 1881 covered over 12,000 miles, and the officers and crew, while carefully preventing illegal raids upon the sealing interests, also found time to prosecute important surveys and soundings, to make a careful study of the natives of Alaska, and to collect a great mass of important data relative to the natural features and mineral wealth of the country. The cruises of the Corwin in the succeeding yearsof 1882, 1883, 1884 and 1885, were of scarcely less importance. One of these cruises was to St. Lawrence Bay, Siberia, where timely succor was given to the officers and crew of the burned naval relief steamer Rogers, which had gone north in the spring of 1881 in search of the Jeanette. During the Corwin's cruise in 1883 a considerable portion of the interior of Alaska was carefully explored and an outbreak among the natives on the mainland promptly quelled. During its two succeeding cruises the Corwin saved from death nearly 100 shipwrecked whalers and destitute miners.
Since 1885 the cutter Bear has patrolled the Alaskan waters, making a record equal to that of its predecessor. Its work in protecting the sealing fisheries is well known, and it has also suppressed in large measure the illegal sale to the natives of firearms and spirits. Its record as a life saver is also a long one, and some of its experiences have been more thrilling than those to be found in the pages of any romance.
When the Bear reached Alaskan waters in 1887 the captain of the whaling ship Hunter handed its commander a most remarkable message, which had been delivered to him a few days before by the natives of Cape Behring. This message consisted of a piece of wood, on one side of which was rudely carved: "1887 J. B. V. Bk. Nap. Tobacco give," and on the other "S. W. C. Nav. M 10 help come."
The riddle offered by the message was speedily solved by the officers of the Bear. The bark Napoleon had been wrecked in 1885 off Cape Navarin, and only fourteen of the crew of thirty-six men had been rescued. Of the unlucky twenty-two a few reached the Siberian shore, but nothing had been heard of their subsequent fate. The officers of the Bear reasoned that the sender of the message was a member of the Napoleon's crew who had found refuge with the natives to the southwest of Cape Navarin and was now anxiously awaiting rescue. This reasoning proved correct, and a few weeks later theweary two years' exile of James B. Vincent, of Edgartown, Mass., boatswain of the Napoleon, had a happy termination.
The story Vincent told his rescuers, was of tragic and absorbing interest. The Napoleon, caught in a storm, had been wedged in the ice and its crew compelled to take to the boats. The boats, four in number, were soon separated, and thirty-six days of fearful suffering passed before the one containing Vincent and his companions reached shore. In the meantime nine of the eighteen men in the boat had died and several others had been driven insane by their sufferings. Vincent was the only one who could walk when they reached land. Five more soon died and three of the survivors were helpless from frost bites and exhaustion when they fell in with a party of natives. A portion of the latter lived inland, and these took Vincent with them when they returned to their homes. The following Spring when the natives visited the shore to fish, Vincent found his three shipmates barely alive, and they died soon after.
When the fishing was over Vincent went back to the mountains with his new-found friends, and during the following winter carved and entrusted to wandering natives from Cape Behring the message which later brought about his rescue. When spring of the second year opened Vincent, with the natives, again started for the seashore to fish. Great was his joy a few weeks later when he was attracted by the shouting of the natives and looked up to see a white man and to find himself rescued at last. The Bear conveyed him to San Francisco, whence he made his way to his home in Massachusetts.
While among the Eskimo, Vincent was kindly cared for by an old native, whose wife received him as her son. After a year the husband died, but his last instructions to his wife were to care for and keep their guest until he was rescued. When relief at last came the old woman with tears in her eyes, said that she was ready to die, for she had done as her husband wished. Warm andtender hearts can be found even in Siberian wastes.
The Revenue Cutter Service is part of the Treasury Department, and comes under the direct jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Treasury. Subordinate to him are a chief and assistant chief of division. Each vessel of the service patrols the district to which it is assigned, and forms a picket line at the outer edge of government jurisdiction, which extends four leagues from the coast. Every vessel arriving in United States waters is boarded and examined, and its papers certified. If a vessel liable to seizure or examination does not bring to when requested to do so, the commander of a cutter, after discharging a warning gun, has authority to fire into such a vessel, and all acting under his orders are indemnified from any penalties or action from damages. On each cutter there are a captain, three lieutenants, a cadet, an engineer and two assistants, and a crew of a dozen or more men.
The service includes in its several gradesabout one thousand men. Strict discipline is maintained, and its crews receive constant instruction and exercise in the use of great guns, rifles, carbines, pistols, cutlasses and the like. An officer of the Revenue Cutter Service must not only possess considerable executive ability, but must also be a man of varied and accurate information, having a knowledge of gunnery and military drills, and be thoroughly familiar with the customs and navigation laws of the country.
Rank is obtained by promotion, the latter being governed by written competitive examinations, from three to five of the senior officers of a lower grade being selected for any vacancy occurring in the higher grade. A young man wishing to join the service as an officer undergoes a rigid examination held annually at Washington, and then serves for several years aboard the revenue schoolship, where he learns sea mathematics, sea law and seamanship. His period of apprenticeship ended, he joins a regular cutter as a juniorofficer and waits for promotion at a salary of $85 per month.
Life on board a revenue cutter during the months of summer is usually an easy and pleasant one, but in the winter there is another and different story to tell. From December to April of each year the cutters cruise constantly on their stations to give aid to vessels in distress, and are, in most cases, forbidden to put into port unless under stress of weather or other unforeseen conditions arise.
Few stormy winter days pass without the revenue cutter seeing a signal from some vessel in distress, and aid is never sought in vain. The cutter steers straight for the signal as soon as it is sighted, and when a quarter of a mile distant lowers a boat. Often a boat is launched into a sea where death seems certain, but officers and men never shrink from their duty. When the boat gains the side of the vessel seeking aid, the master whom misfortune has overtaken, requests, as a rule, to be towed into port. When such a requestis made, a line must be got to the distressed vessel and from the boat to the cutter, a task often performed with infinite difficulty and at the risk of life and limb.
When a vessel is found drifting helplessly and about to dash itself upon rocks, the peril is even greater. Then the cutter must stand further away, and its boat is in constant danger of being dashed upon the rocks. But, thanks to the skill, experience and coolness of the officers and crew of the cutter, a line is generally got into the boat and to the steamer, and the imperilled vessel hauled away to safety.
One of the finest feats of life-saving ever performed by the Revenue Cutter Service was that credited to the cutter Dexter, some years ago. On January 17, 1884, the iron-built steamer City of Columbus left Boston for the port of Savannah, carrying eighty-one passengers and a ship's company of forty-five persons. Her commander was a capable and experienced seaman, and though by nightfall the wind, which had been blowing all day, hadincreased to a hurricane, and a heavy sea was running, he had no serious apprehension of danger. The vessel, following her usual course through Vineyard Sound, had left behind nearly all the dangerous points which thickly bestrew those waters, and would soon be safely in the open ocean. It was at that luckless moment that the captain left the bridge and went below, first directing the helmsman how to steer.
Within an hour the steamer struck on Devil's Bridge, and an awful fate was upon the hapless passengers and crew, who were sleeping soundly, all unconscious of danger. The weather was bitter cold, the darkness intense, the wind blowing a hurricane and the waves rolling mountain high. In the twinkling of an eye a hundred poor creatures were swept to their death in the icy waters. A few of the stronger ones took refuge in the rigging, but many of these, benumbed by the cold, dropped one by one from their supports and disappeared in the sea, while suchboats as were cleared away were either dashed to pieces or instantly swamped.
The wreck occurred about four o'clock in the morning, and soon after daylight the Dexter reached the scene of the disaster. Her commander at once dispatched two boats to the rescue of those still clinging to the rigging of the Columbus, and thirteen men, jumping from their refuge into the sea, were picked up as they came to the surface, and conveyed to the Dexter. To reach the wreck in small boats through an angry sea was an undertaking so perilous as to make even the boldest pause, and called for courage of the highest order. However, the Dexter's crew proved equal to the test, and Lieutenant John U. Rhodes made himself famous by an act of the noblest heroism. Two men, rendered helpless by cold and exposure, still clung to the rigging of the Columbus after all their companions had been taken off. To board the ill-fated vessel was impossible; Rhodes essayed to reach it by swimming. He gained the side of the vessel after a gallantbattle with the waves, but was struck by a piece of floating timber, and had to abandon the attempt. Bruised and half fainting, he insisted upon making another trial, reached the vessel and brought away the two men, both of whom died a few hours later. The Legislature of Connecticut, Rhodes' native State, passed a resolution thanking him for his gallant conduct, and he received many medals and testimonials.
Rhodes has since died, but the Revenue Cutter Service still numbers among its officers scores of men endowed with the flawless bravery of which he gave such shining proof at the wreck of the City of Columbus. One of these is Lieutenant James H. Scott. This brilliant young officer—I cite his case as a typical one—was born in Pennsylvania thirty-seven years ago, and while still in his teens shipped as a boy on a merchant vessel in commerce between Philadelphia and Antwerp. Tiring of this trade, he sailed as an able seaman from New York to Bombay and other East Indian ports, making the lastvoyage as boatswain of the good ship Ridgeway, after which, declining proffer of a second mate's berth, he entered the Revenue Cutter Service as a cadet.
Graduated in 1890, and made acting third lieutenant on the cutter Woodbury, it was then that young Scott, who while attached to the revenue schoolship had jumped overboard in Lisbon harbor and rescued the quartermaster of his vessel, again gave proof of the sterling stuff that was in him. On a cold, clear day in January, 1891, the Woodbury, which is stationed at Portland, Me., was cruising to the eastward of that port, the thermometer below zero, and the rigging covered with ice. The Woodbury was about half-way over her cruising ground when the officer of the deck discovered a large three-masted schooner hard aground on a ledge of rocks which stood well out from the shore. A high sea was running at the time, though the cutter rose and fell to every wave with apparent unconcern, and breaking clean over the schooner, the crew of which had taken refugeon the rocks and were now frantically signalling for help. It was clear that unless help reached them they would quickly perish from the cold.
Captain Fengar, commanding the Woodbury, ran in as close as he could without peril to his vessel, and carefully surveyed the ground before giving an order. His practiced eye told him in a moment that to send in a boat of the cutter type would mean its certain destruction against the rocks, even if it could live in the sea then running. However, the captain suddenly recalled that a fisherman's village was only a few miles distant, and that there he could obtain a couple of dories admirably adapted to the task in hand. Shouting to the men on the rocks to hold on and not lose hope, the cutter, at a word from its commander, headed about, and went plunging and rolling at top speed in the direction of the village. Two hours later the Woodbury was again on the scene, with a good-sized dory on one of her davits.
Closing in on the wreck, Captain Fengarcalled for volunteers. Almost to a man the crew responded, but among the foremost were Cadets Scott and W. S. Van Cott. Captain Fengar allowed the two young men to go, but not without some misgivings. Both insisted on pulling oars, the dory being in charge of Lieutenant W. L. Howland, an experienced and capable officer. As the dory left the ship it was observed that a life-saving crew from a station well down the coast was approaching. It would never do to let the Woodbury be beaten, and her dory crew pulled with all the vim they could command. The race was to be a close one, but at the outset the Woodbury's boat gained the lead, and such a run, in such a sea, was never perhaps pulled by opposing boats.
Lieutenant Howland in getting close in, dared not run up too close to the rocks, and after a couple of ineffectual attempts to heave a line was about to despair of success, when suddenly Cadet (now Lieutenant) Scott, securing the line around his waist, sprang overboard, before any one in the boat knew whathe was about. Shouting to Lieutenant Howland to pay the line out, young Scott was dashed upon the rocks and seized by the imprisoned sailors. The brave young fellow was badly stunned, but he had gained his point by getting the line to the rocks. Communication was now effected with the dory, which all this time was riding the seas at a safe distance. Another line was hauled up from the boat, and one by one the sailors jumped clear of the rocks and were hauled to the dory, whence they were conveyed without delay to the deck of the cutter. When rescued they had been fourteen hours on the rock. Since the incident just related, Lieutenant Scott, though still one of its youngest officers, has held every position in the Revenue Cutter Service.
The present chief of the Revenue Cutter Service is Captain C. F. Shoemaker. He has climbed to this position from the lowest rung of the ladder, and is a man whose success would have been notable in almost any calling. Many of the other captains of theservice are men of mark and achievement, for the Government has no nobler, better, braver servants than those who officer and man its revenue cutters.
The ocean pilots and deep sea divers of New York have one thing in common; both object to taking apprentices, and in the case of the former, at least, there is good reason for this, since they have been, for generations, the aristocrats of their calling. The pilots who sail out of Sandy Hook are no hardier than their rugged and fearless fellows of the North Sea, but they subject themselves to greater dangers by their long cruises, and rough, indeed, must be the weather that can keep them in port. They cruise night and day, in search of incoming craft; their torches' flare lights up the snow and sleet of winter storms and contends with the darkness of summer fogs; and they speak and boardin all sorts of weather and at all seasons the fleet liners that cross the western ocean in less than a week. And these pilots of the New York and New Jersey shores are a revelation to the tourist, who, having never heard of them, sees them for the first time. The latter, in most cases, expects to watch a rough-and-ready sort of fellow in homespun, with a swaggering air and a boisterous manner, climb from the pilot's yawl up the black hull's towering side. Instead, he sees a man of modest and pleasing address, about whom there is little to indicate his calling, and much that bespeaks the merchant or clerk one meets of a morning on lower Broadway. There was a time when our pilots indulged in the luxury of a high silk hat when boarding vessels in sunny weather, but they are not so fastidious nowadays, and use derbies instead.
Prosperous as a class, the pilots of New York pay dearly for their prosperity by the most arduous sea labor. Since 1853 more than thirty-five boats have been sunk and wrecked in various ways, and twice thatnumber of pilots have lost their lives. There are at the present time upward of 160 pilots cruising from the port of New York. They are subject to the supervision of a pilots' commission of five members, named by the Governor of New York, and each pilot is appointed after a long and severe apprenticeship. He must first serve, boy and man, before the mast until he masters every problem in the management of every form of rig. Then he must contrive to obtain the position of boat-keeper or pilot's mate. In that capacity he must serve three full years before he can be admitted for his examination for a license. After this he must pass a most rigid examination on all points of seamanship and navigation before the Board of Pilot Commissioners, and show complete and exact knowledge of the tides, rips and sands and all other phenomena for many miles out from the piers of the East and North Rivers.
But even after the candidate has received his license, he is sometimes forced to wait years, until some pilot happens to die andleave a vacancy for him. The first year of pilotage he is granted a license to pilot vessels drawing less than sixteen feet. If he gives satisfaction, the following year he is permitted to take charge of vessels drawing eighteen feet. If he passes a satisfactory examination the third year, he then receives a full license, entitling him to pilot vessels of any draught, and is then first called a branch or full pilot. On receiving his license, the pilot must give bonds for the proper discharge of his duty, and he is liable to heavy fines if he declines to fill a vacancy or board a vessel making signals for a pilot. Pilots are paid for their work by the foot, the charges varying according to the draught. For a ship drawing from twenty-one to twenty-eight feet they receive $4.88 a foot, and for one drawing six to thirteen and one-half feet $2.78 a foot, these rates being slightly increased in winter.
A cruise on a New York pilot-boat, however brief, is an experience sure to be remembered. When a pilot-boat starts out on a hunt forships, it is decided in what order its half-dozen pilots shall take the prizes, and the man who is to board the first one is placed in command. The other pilots, meanwhile, take their ease as best suits their taste, the seaman's work being done by a crew of sailors hired for the purpose. One pilot, however, is always on the lookout for sails, and a landsman is compelled to marvel at the certainty with which these ocean scouts discharge the task of sighting vessels, for often they are able to tell the name of a steamship before unaccustomed eyes can discern aught but a waste of waters and a wide expanse of sky. Still, a part of this skill may be due to the fact that pilots are always posted before going out as to what vessels are expected, and from what direction they are coming, the watch being made all the keener by the fact that the bigger the ship the bigger is the pilot's pay. A ship, moreover, must take a pilot going out from the same boat that furnishes the pilot going into port, while if a captain refuses a pilot he must pay full pilotage,and thus contribute his tithe to the support of the system. This latter rule seems, at first glance, a curious provision, but it is defended on the ground that without it the business would not be remunerative enough for really competent men to engage in it, and that with unskilled pilots the annual losses would be greatly in excess of what they are at present.
When a ship is sighted by daylight, a long blue burgee is hoisted to the peak of the pilot-boat, which means, "Do you want a pilot?" If there is no responsive signal, it is taken for granted that the answer is "Yes," but if a jack is hoisted the watchers know that the vessel has already been boarded by a pilot from some boat that has sailed farther away from port in the hunt for a ship. When a ship is sighted at night she is signalled by means of a torch charged with benzine and giving forth an intense light. Seen from the other vessel the effect is startling, the white light illuminating every sail and spar of the pilot-boat, so that it stands out, its numberclearly visible upon the mainsail, a gray specter against the night's background.
Should the answering signal be favorable, there follows a scene of great excitement on the deck of the pilot-boat. At first sight of the ship, the pilot due to take the prize dives down to the cabin, sheds his working clothes and dons a suit of sober black, and by the time it is known he is wanted, he is ready to be transferred to his charge. Taking on a pilot is not without its perils. The yawl nearly always pitches and tumbles in most uncomfortable fashion, while the ship is rarely if ever brought to a full stop, and the pilot, watching his chance, must grasp the rope ladder let down its side, and scramble aboard as best he can. Sometimes he gets a ducking, and if the weather is tempestuous he is pretty certain to be drenched, but for that he cares not a jot, and he is sure to show a smiling face to captain and passengers when finally he sets foot on deck. Dropping a pilot from an outgoing vessel is often more hazardous, especially in stormy weather, than histransfer the other way. Then he must descend the rope ladder and jump for the boat in the nick of time, for to miscalculate in the least the position of the little shell means a ducking almost certainly, and possibly a watery grave.
PILOT SIGNALING A VESSEL
PILOT SIGNALING A VESSEL
A peril, however, more feared by pilots than the one I have been describing, is the dreaded lee shore; and with reason, as a story told by a veteran ocean pathfinder will show. On a still afternoon in midsummer the crew of a pilot-boat sighted a ship off Fire Island, some five miles away. In the dead calm prevailing the only way to board her was to row over the distance. There would be little danger in doing this if the wind did not spring up and the ship sail away, so the yawl was lowered and headed for the distant merchantman. But as night was closing in, and ere the yawl had come within hailing distance of the ship, of a sudden the breeze sprang up, and the vessel making sail, glided slowly over the horizon line. The breeze grew into a gale, and in the gathering storm and gloomthe men could no longer discern the whereabouts of the pilot-boat. Nor, there being no compass on board the yawl, could they determine the direction in which they were being blown. The nearest land was miles away and the only thing that could be done was to keep the boat's head to the wind and wait. Thus the minutes lengthened into hours. Toward dawn, when the night was darkest, they heard the thunder of surf on the reefs, and a little later felt the yawl lifted up on the crest of a mighty breaker rushing swiftly toward the land. There was a deafening roar, a crash, a whirl, and a torrent of foam. In a twinkling the boat was capsized and the poor fellows were struggling in the surf. One struck a rock and was killed. The others, freed from the receding wave, ran up the beach, and by digging their hands into the sand to escape the deadly undertow, finally got ashore, drenched and exhausted.
In the main, however, the system I have been describing has now become a thing of the past. Potent causes have contributed tothis result. Formerly pilot-boats had no particular stations assigned to them, and boats have been known to cruise as far north as Sable Island, a distance of six hundred miles, in order to get steamers taking the northern courses. In the same way pilot-boats cruised long distances to the southward and straight out to sea to meet the incoming steamers and sailing vessels. Thus, unrestrained in its movements and left to seek out its own salvation, each boat sought to outdo the other in securing work, and all sorts of strategic devices were brought into play in order to first gain the side of an incoming vessel. Pilots took advantage of fog and night in order to slip by a rival, while jockeying for winds and position was indulged in to an extent that would be counted extraordinary in a yacht race.
Competition, however, cut down earnings to such an extent that there came a time when many of the boats were no longer able to pay expenses. Then it was that some of the long-headed among the pilots, casting about for aremedy for this evil, came to the conclusion that one steam pilot-boat would be able to do the work of three or four sailboats. It was accordingly decided some years ago that steamboats should gradually replace the existing fleet of sail. With this innovation came restrictions regulating the cruising grounds of the boats. Instead of cruising about indiscriminately as formerly, each boat is now assigned a certain beat. An imaginary arc has been described extending from Barnegat to Fire Island, a distance of seventy-five miles, and all pilot boats are expected to confine themselves within this line. Four pilot-boats patrol this line, each covering a beat of about nineteen miles. Inside of the circle are stationed two more pilot-boats, while still further in is a boat known as the inner pilot-boat. Just off the bar another boat is stationed to receive the pilots dropped by outward-bound vessels. When a boat in the outer circle becomes unmanned or disabled, a boat from the inner circle takes its place, while a reserve boat occupies the beat left vacant on theinner circle. In this way all the beats are constantly patrolled in an efficient and economical way. Each pilot takes his turn at the service, and is on board a boat cruising on the stations three days in seven, a moving contrast to the offshore service of other years, when a boat and crew were frequently compelled to remain at sea for weeks at a time.
Indeed, under the new system of pilotage, battles with cross-seas and gales and exposures to snow, cold and sleet, while cruising for vessels hundreds of miles off coast, are fast becoming things of the past, and for stories of collisions, wrecks, narrow escapes and strange mishaps, one must now hark back to the records of former days. Here, however, he is sure to encounter many a tale that quickens the pulse and stirs the blood. Take the case of the Columbia, run down by the steamship Alaska, off Fire Island. When the Alaska was sighted, the pilot-boat was head-reaching to the north on the port tack. The wind was blowing a gale from the northwest,and an ugly sea was running, with the weather clear, but cold. She plunged deeply into the heavy sea, and heeled to the force of the wind until her lee rail was awash. The wind whipped off the top of the waves and filled the air with spray. When the steamship sighted the boat off Fire Island, her course was changed to make a lee for the boat's yawl. She seemed to stop when the yawl was launched and two men and a pilot went over the side of the boat and dropped into her, but ere the yawl had fairly started on her way the liner, of a sudden, and without warning, forged ahead. The surge from the port bow of the Alaska, as she pitched into a big wave, capsized the boat, and threw the men into the water. Before anything could be done to save them the bows of the steamship rose and fell again, and, hitting the pilot-boat, cut it in two and crushed the decks and beams to bits, the broken timbers being swept under the bows and along the sides as the steamship again forged ahead and passed over the spot. Not a man on the Columbia was saved.
The Sandy Hook pilot, however, never quails in the face of danger or even death, as was proved at the stranding of the packet boat, John Minturn, almost within a stone's throw of the New Jersey beach during a frightful hurricane in February, 1846. There were fifty-one souls on board the Minturn, and of that number only thirteen escaped to tell the story of that fearful night. Its hero, according to the evidences of all, was Pilot Thomas Freeborn, who to the very last struggled manfully to succor the hapless women and children who clung to the deck around him. It was bitter cold, and every wave that washed over the stranded ship left its coating of ice on deck, rigging, passengers and crew. Freeborn and brave Captain Stark, who was forced to see his wife and children freeze to death without being able to render them assistance, gave up their own clothing in a vain attempt to protect the weaker sufferers, and when days afterward the pilot's body was found washed up on the beach it was almost naked, while that of a woman, whichlay near-by, was carefully wrapped in his pea-jacket.
It has been three-score years since the wreck of the Minturn, but in every year since then there has been numbered among the members of the Sandy Hook Pilot's Association scores of hardy men, who, should need come to them, stood ready to risk their lives and die as bravely as did Thomas Freeborn. Pilot Henry Devere proved that he had the same heroic fiber in his makeup when he sailed in the James Funck, before the Civil War. A brig under shortened sails was sighted one day, and when the yawl of the pilot-boat drew alongside, Devere hailed a boy at the wheel. The boy seemed to be stupefied, and the pilot was obliged to hail him several times before he started up, leaned forward into the companionway, and called feebly to somebody below. Then a gaunt man came on deck and said that the crew had been stricken by fever. Most people in the face of a menace of this sort would have turned back, but Devere was not that kind ofman. Instead, he went on board, and, with the help of the mate, headed the vessel toward Sandy Hook. The captain was ill in his stateroom. The body of a dead sailor found on deck was tied in mosquito netting and dropped overboard. The boy died in the lower bay, and the captain off the Battery, leaving the mate as the sole survivor of the crew. The pilot helped to furl the sails and make the lines fast, and only left the stricken vessel when she had reached her moorings.
The stranding of the Jesse Carll in 1889, illustrates another of the dangers with which pilots sometimes have to contend. The boat, having discharged one of her five pilots, was standing off shore near Fire Island, when she began to feel the force of an advancing southern cyclone, and early in the evening was in what sailors call "nasty weather." At midnight a violent thunder-storm burst overhead, and the increasing wind raised a furious sea, but Pilot Gideon Mapes, in charge of the vessel, had her under double-reefed sails, and standing up against the wind and waves infine shape. Then came a deluge of rain, and the wind increased to hurricane force. Soon a thick mist covered the water and shut out everything in sight. The boat reached off and on, expecting to keep out of shoal water, but all efforts failed. Her signals of distress were seen by the life-saving crew on the beach, and before daylight the ten men on board were taken ashore in boats. When morning came an effort was made to pull the boat off, but as she shifted into deeper water she filled, a hole having been made in her bottom. Then the pilots abandoned her, but she was raised and repaired a few weeks later.
Stories like these are what the pilots tell in their idle hours. Searching for them at such a time, one is most likely to find them at the Pilots' Club, a flourishing social organization, which has roomy quarters just under the roof of a big office building within hailing distance of the Battery. Here at all hours of the day a score or more of pilots are sure to be sitting about spinning yarns, playing cards and checkers and reading thenewspapers and magazines. Their well-furnished clubrooms contain a great number of precious curios—relics from all quarters of the globe. There are firearms of curious antique pattern; autograph letters by such famous sea-dogs as Macdonough and Porter; a tiny chest of drawers carved from one of the timbers of John Paul Jones' ship, the Bon Homme Richard; a portrait of Washington by Stuart, surrounded by two large American flags, and a model of the pilot-boat Stingaree, which was built in 1810, and was one of the most famous crafts of her day.
This model shows that the years have wrought great changes in the building and rigging of pilot-boats. In old times the boats simply carried mainsail, foresail, and forestaysail and jib. They had no foretopmast, and on their maintopmast carried a flying gaff-topsail, which was hoisted from the deck. Now the boats have both fore and maintopmasts, and each carries a mainsail, foresail, forestaysail, jib, jib-topsail, maintopsail and staysail and fore and main standing-gafftopsails, which give them an immense spread of sail, compared with that used by the boats of earlier times. A schooner-rigged pilot-boat costs from $15,000 to $16,000. That was about the cost of the Caldwell H. Colt, a good example of the typical pilot-boat. She is eighty-five feet long with twenty-one feet beam, 61.43 tons, custom-house register, and a rig as trim and jaunty as that of an ordinary yacht. The pride, however, at present writing, of the New York Sandy Hook fleet is the New York, built of steel, propelled by steam, and able to stand as much buffeting in cyclonic seas as the stanchest of the liners. She was built on the Delaware from designs by A. Cary Smith, is 155 feet long, 28 feet beam, 19 feet 7 inches deep, and is driven by a compound surface-condensing engine of 100 horse-power. Her pole masts are of steel, and she spreads on them enough canvas to steady her. The New York has accommodations for twenty-four pilots, who fare more luxuriously than they ever did on any of the old sailing craft. They have a smoking-room in a separate steeldeckhouse, aft of the engine-room, fitted up like a similar room on an ocean steamship, while the lifeboats in which they leave the New York to board incoming vessels are hoisted and lowered by a steam derrick in less than a minute. It is intended that in a few years the entire fleet shall be made up of vessels equal if not superior to the New York.
There is something about the occupation of the diver that strongly appeals to the imagination, and with reason, for working fathoms below the surface of the water, in semi-darkness, dependent upon a rickety pump for the breath of life, his trade is at best a perilous and precarious one. Perhaps, that is why divers as a class are opposed to taking apprentices, and that a majority of the men who drift into the calling do so by accident. Most divers, if you question them, will tell you that the best, if not the only way to acquire their art is to put on a diving suit, go down into the depths, and learn the business for yourself.
That was what a diver who was preparingfor work in the East River said to me, and, fitting the action to the word, I asked him to loan me his suit, and permit me to try my 'prentice hand at the business. He protested goodnaturedly, but finally yielding, brought out his suit, and helped me to put it on. The outfit in which I speedily found myself accoutred, consists of two suits, one within the other, and both of india-rubber. The stockings, trousers and shirt are all made together as one garment, which the wearer enters at the neck, feet first. The hands are left bare, the wristbands of the rubber shirtsleeves tightly compressing the wrists. There is a copper breastplate, bearing upon its outer convex surface small screws adjusted to holes in the neck of the shirt, which by means of nuts fastened upon the screws, is held so securely in place as to render the entire dress from the neck downward absolutely air and water-tight. Fitting with equal closeness to the breastplate is a helmet, completely inclosing the head and supplied with three glasses, one in front and one on eachside, to enable the diver to look in any direction. Finally, for his feet there is a pair of very thick leather shoes, made to lace up the front, and supplied with heavy leaden soles to prevent him from turning feet uppermost in the water.
When, with my friend's aid, I had donned this curious-looking dress, he placed across my shoulders ropes sustaining two leaden weights, one hanging at my breast and the other at my back. Sometimes in very strong currents it is necessary to make the weights which the diver carries extraordinarily heavy. Such was the case with those hanging over my shoulders on the occasion of my first dive. While the diving dress I wore weighed of itself nearly two hundred pounds, yet, much to my surprise, when once below the surface, I did not find the burden I sustained in wearing it any more than I did that of my ordinary clothing when out of the water. It also seemed marvelous to me, after daylight had swiftly merged into the twilight of the depths, that though I was several fathoms underwater my breathing was free and unconstrained, for an air-pump worked by two men supplies the diver with air, which passes into his helmet through a hose at the back. Near the place of its entrance is a spring valve for its escape. This can be controlled by the diver, but he usually sets it before going into the water and seldom disturbs it afterward, since the pressure of the air being greater than that of the water a surplus of the former readily escapes.
When the valve proves insufficient to permit the escape of all the dead air the diver can open in his breast-plate a similar spring valve intended only for such an emergency. He can also regulate the amount of air pumped to him by signals on the air-hose to the men engaged in pumping, one pull meaning more and two pulls less air. These signals by means of the air-hose are generally used by all divers, but each diver has also his own private code of signals upon the life-line, which is always fastened to his waist, and by which he is drawn up out of the water. Thesesignals each diver writes down very carefully and gives to the man in charge of the life-line. By means of these he can, without coming to the surface, send for tools, material or anything needed for the work he has in hand. When a lengthy communication is to be made the diver often sends up for a slate and writes what he wishes to say. Old divers declare that it is just as easy to read and write under the water as it is out of it, all objects being greatly magnified.
The only unpleasant sensation of my stay below was a slight drumming in the ears—walking under the water I found an easy matter—and when hauled to the surface I declared my first attempt at diving a wholly successful one. However, the man whose suit I had borrowed, smiled at my enthusiasm, and declared with something akin to contempt that there was a good deal of difference between deep-sea diving and grubbing about the East River for a lost anchor. I learned before we parted that he was a deep-sea diver forced for the moment to accept whatever taskcame to hand, but there was truth in what he said; and I am also convinced, after talks with a dozen members of his fraternity, that neither a single descent nor even many descents into the depths, can give one an adequate idea of the weird strangeness of a diver's life. That can come only from the cumulative experience of a lifetime.
Almost all the submarine work on the Atlantic coast is done by divers living in New York or Boston. There are about as many skilled divers in Boston as New York—perhaps twenty in each city. The pay of a skilled diver is five dollars a day of four hours or less. In that time a man may descend half a dozen times, or he may descend once and stay four hours, but be his period of labor long or short, it counts as a day. If at the end of four hours he descends again that descent counts as another day's labor. The diver's assistant receives three dollars. He is a skilled man, whose business it is to manage the life-line and the hose, and who sometimes becomes a diver. The pumpers, whorun the pump that keeps the diver supplied with air, are each paid two dollars a day. They are not skilled workmen and seldom develop into divers.
Probably a third of the New York divers do not work for wages. These are men who own their outfits and prefer to work by the job. Some of the self-employing divers enjoy good incomes from their labors. As a rule, a diver of this class goes down, looks at a sunken vessel, and then states what he will charge to raise her. Diver Victor Hinston was paid $150 a day for locating the sunken steamship City of Chester, and Captain Anthony Williams, having raised the schooner Dauntless in two days, received $750 for his time and trouble. The same diver, having repaired with iron plates and raised in four days the steamer Meredith, ashore near Jeremie, in Hayti, demanded and was paid $7,500 for his work. The divers of New York live much as other citizens of the metropolis. A majority of them are native Americans, with homes, wives and children. They are, ofcourse, absent from home a great deal and on short notice, for divers from New York are not only sent all over the eastern coast of the continent, but even to the Great Lakes and the interior rivers, most of their work lying beyond the city.
Abram Onderdonk, when he died not long ago, was the oldest deep-sea diver in this country. During forty of the nearly seventy years of his life he was continuously engaged in the pursuit of his calling, and it carried him to nearly every part of the globe. Captain Abe, as his friends called him, counted the swordfish as the gravest danger members of his craft have to fear. This fish, which has a short bony sword almost as strong as steel, protruding from its head, speeds along through the water, charging dead ahead and never veering from its course for anything save a rocky ledge or the iron hull of a steamship. If it strikes a wooden craft, its sword seldom fails to cut clean through the vessel's side. Should a man be attacked by it certain death awaitshim. Diver Onderdonk himself never encountered but one of these creatures, and that was a young one whose sword had not yet hardened. He was at work on the deck of a sunken vessel, when he saw the fish coming from a distance, and heading straight toward him. He took a tighter grip upon the ax which he held in his hand, and made ready for attack, but, to his surprise and relief, the fish, never swerving from its course, glided past him out of his guard's range, and a moment later disappeared.
Captain Abe often encountered sharks under water, but declared that, as a rule, there is little to be feared from them. A former mate of his named March, however, once had an ugly experience with these creatures. The diver in question was at work in a wreck which had been loaded with live cattle. When she had been at the bottom for a month or so the cattle became light and began rising to the surface. The locality was infested with sharks, which quickly gathered round the hatchway, seizing the carcasses as they cameout and following them to the surface. Some of the cattle had been tied, and these floating out to their ropes' end, were torn to pieces by the sharks, which soon began to fight among themselves, with the diver an unwilling witness to their struggles. March, hesitating to ascend for fear he might be attacked, and afraid to remain below lest the snap of a shark's mouth should sever his air hose, in the end gave the signal to be hauled up, and the next instant was jerked into and through the school of sharks. He came out of the water maimed for life, as in his upward passage a shark snapped at him and took off his right hand, thus rendering him incapable of further service as a diver.
Another of Captain Abe's old mates, McGavern by name, while at work in New Zealand waters, had an equally harrowing, although fortunately less harmful, encounter with that most formidable of all marine monsters, the devil fish. The diver was laying some wharf-blocks when suddenly surprised by his uncanny foe. Despite his struggles—and he was a giant in stature and strength—the monster quickly and completely overpowered him. He was locked in the tremendous claws of the devil fish, and fastened helpless against a submerged spile. McGavern realized his peril, and kept quiet until his assailant, whose arms measured nearly nine feet, loosened his hold. Then he signalled to be drawn up, and came to the surface with the writhing creature still clinging to his back.
Captain Abe served before the mast in his youth, and I find that, other things being equal, sailors make the best divers of all. Their former experience is apt to render them cool and quick-witted in the presence of danger, and their knowledge of a ship's rigging and construction proves of untold value to them in their work. To his training as a sailor Captain Charles Smith, a well-known Boston diver, probably owed his truly marvelous escape from death when overtaken by accident while at work on the sunken hull of the Clara Post, in the harbor of Bridgeport, Conn., a few years ago. The wreck laysixteen fathoms deep, and when Captain Smith descended to examine it, he found that the masts had gone by the board, and that the deck had been torn off by the waves, while the cross timbers strewed with the wreckage, hung over the decks and into the hold. Captain Smith began to cut them away, when suddenly the tangled mass shifted and fell part way in the hold, catching him with it and prisoning him as in a vise. The diver could not see far in the deep water in which he was at work, and finding himself pinned in, how he could not tell, he pulled the life-line three times—the signal that his life was in peril. He felt himself rising a few feet; then all the wreckage fell in upon him, pinning him more securely than before. Worse still, when he tried to free himself, he found that the air-pipe had encountered some unseen obstruction, and that to attempt to move about would shut off his supply of air. The peril was one that made each moment seem like eternity.