Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1874 — A Terrible Story. [ARTICLE]

A Terrible Story.

Mr. Webster, Broughty Ferry, near Dundee, has received a letter from his son, who was second mate of the Clyde ship Arracan, burned at sea on her voyage from Shields to Bombay with coals. The Arracan left Shields on the 11th of September last. On the 14th of February her cargo ignited. On the 20th she was on fire from stem to stern and the crew were compelled to abandon her. They left in three boats. The first, under the command of the Captain, was picked up by the City of Poonah, and the men were landed at Aden; the gig, commanded by the chief officer, made the land at Cochin; but the pinnace, under the charge of the second mate, Mr. Webster, provisioned for only seventeen days, drifted about in the Indian Ocean for thirty-three days until fallen in with by the City of Manchester and landed at Calcutta. When picked up the poor fellows were 600 miles from the nearest land and were in a sad condition. Mr. Webster, in his statement, sajs: “ In addition to myself there were three men and a boy on board on the 10th of March. The men cast lots as to who should be killed, and the lot fell upon the boy. I would not allow them to kill him, and threatened to shoot the first man who should lay a hand upon him. Things went on in this way for two days, when one of the men tried to sink the boat, and said he would have the boy’s life in twelve hours. I presented my gun at him, and had no sooner done so than a bird flew over the boat. I fired and killed it It was instantly secured and devoured—feathers, bones and all. We subsisted after this on barnacles, which adhered to the sides and bottom of the boat, and on sea blubber, which was ravenously laid hold of as it floated past Delirious with hunger, one of the men, named Layford, asked to be killed. Another, named Davies, struck him on the head with a belaying pin. The blood was caught in a tin ana eagerly drank between the two. I threw the tin overboard. The same day these two men fought and bit one another, then shook hands and laughed and kissed each other like madmen. At last” (says Mr. Webster) “we were, through the mercy of God, picked up by Captain Hardin, of the City of Manchester, by whom we were very kindly treated, and brought to Calcutta.” The surgeon of the steamer which rescued the men says they were in a wretched condition. They could not stand on thejr feet, their eyes started from their sockets, and they were perfect skeletons. Altogether they presented the most painful sight he ever beheld. The most cautious treatment had to be employed in bringing about their recovery.— Manchester (Eng.) Guardian.