The Survivors of the Chancellor

CHARLESTON, September 27, 1898.--It is high tide, and three o'clock in the afternoon when we leave the Battery quay; the ebb carries us off shore, and as Captain Huntly has hois...

SEPTEMBER 28.--John Silas Huntly, the captain of the Chancellor, has the reputation of being a most experienced navigator of the Atlantic. He is a Scotchman by birth, a native o...

I, John Silas Huntly, of Dundee, Scotland, commander of the ship Chancellor, of about 900 tons burden, now at Charleston, do purpose, by the blessing of God, at the earliest con...

SEPTEMBER 30 to October 6.--The Chancellor is a rapid sailer, and more than a match for many a vessel of the same dimensions. She scuds along merrily in the freshening breeze, l...

OCTOBER 7.--This is the tenth day since we left Charleston, and I should think our progress has been very rapid. Robert Curtis, the mate, with whom I continue to have many a fri...

OCTOBER 8 to October 13.--The wind is blowing hard from the northeast, and the Chancellor, under low-reefed top-sail and fore-sail, and laboring against a heavy sea, has been ob...

OCTOBER 14.--At last we are free from the sea of vegetation, the boisterous gale has moderated into a steady breeze, the sun is shining brightly, the weather is warm and genial,...

OCTOBER 15 to October 18.--The wind is still in the northeast. There is no change in the Chancellor's course, and to an unprejudiced eye all would appear to be going on as usual...

OCTOBER 19.--Everything, then, is clear. The uneasiness of the crew, their frequent conferences, Owen's mysterious words, the constant scourings of the deck and the oppressive h...

OCTOBER 20 and 21.--The Chancellor is now crowded with all the canvas she can carry, and at times her topmasts threaten to snap with the pressure. But Curtis is ever on the aler...

WHAT my feelings were I cannot describe; but it was hardly in terror so much as with a kind of resignation that I made my way to Curtis on the forecastle, and made him aware tha...

OCTOBER 22.--Curtis has told the captain everything; for he persists in ostensibly recognizing him as his superior officer, and refuses to conceal from him our true situation. C...

OCTOBER 24 to 29.--For the last five days the sea has been very heavy, and although the Chancellor sails with wind and wave in her favor, yet her progress is considerably impede...

OCTOBER 20.--Night.--The scene, as night came on, was terrible indeed. Notwithstanding the desperateness of our situation, however, there was not one of us so paralyzed by fear,...

THE night of the 29th continued.--It was not yet midnight; the darkness was most profound, and we could see nothing. But was it probable that we had stranded on the coast of Ame...

OCTOBER 30.--At the first gleam of daylight we eagerly scanned the southern and western horizons, but the morning mists limited our view. Land was nowhere to be seen. The tide w...

OCTOBER 30.--Once again I talked to M. Letourneur about our situation, and endeavored to animate him with the hope that we should not be detained for long in our present predica...

OCTOBER 31 to November 5.--Our first proceeding on the morning of the 31st was to make the proposed tour of the reef, which is about a quarter of a mile long. With the aid of ou...

NOVEMBER 6 to November 15.--For the first five days after the Chancellor had run aground, there was a dense black smoke continually rising from the hold; but it gradually dimini...

NOVEMBER 15 to 20.--The examination of the hold has at last been made. Among the first things that were found was the case of picrate, perfectly intact, having neither been inju...

NOVEMBER 21 TO 24.--There was assuredly no time to be lost before we ought to leave Ham Rock reef. The barometer had been falling ever since the morning, the sea was getting rou...

NOVEMBER 24 to December 1.--Here we were then once more at sea, and although on board a ship of which the stability was very questionable, we had hopes, if the wind continued fa...

DECEMBER 2 and 3.--For four hours we have succeeded in keeping the water in the hold to one level; now, however, it is very evident that the time cannot be far distant when the...

DECEMBER 4.--The first attempt at mutiny being thus happily suppressed, it is to be hoped that Curtis will succeed as well in future. An insubordinate crew would render us power...

NIGHT of December 4.--Curtis caught young Letourneur again in his arms, and, running with him across the flooded deck, deposited him safely in the starboard shrouds, whither his...

DECEMBER 5.--The day was very hot. December in latitude 16 deg. N. is a summer month, and unless a breeze should rise to temper the burning sun, we might expect to suffer from a...

DECEMBER 6.--I must have fallen asleep for a few hours, when, at four o'clock in the morning, I was rudely aroused by the roaring of the wind, and could distinguish Curtis's voi...

DECEMBER 6 continued.--The Chancellor no longer maintained her equilibrium; we felt that she was gradually going down, and her hull was probably breaking up. The maintop was alr...

DECEMBER 7.--The ship was sinking rapidly; the water had risen to the fore-top; the poop and forecastle were completely submerged; the top of the bowsprit had disappeared, and o...

WILL this frail boat, forty feet by twenty, bear us in safety? Sink it cannot; the material of which it is composed is of a kind that must surmount the waves. But it is question...

"My friends," he said, "listen to me. Here on this raft, just as when we were on board the Chancellor, I consider myself your captain; and as your captain, I expect that all of...

DECEMBER 8 to 17.--When night came we wrapped ourselves in our sails. For my own part, worn out with the fatigue of the long watch in the top-mast, I slept for several hours; M....

DECEMBER 18 to 20.--On the 18th the wind freshened a little, but as it blew from the same favorable quarter we did not complain, and only took the precaution of putting an extra...

DECEMBER 21.--No further disturbance has taken place among the men. For a few hours the fish appeared again, and we caught a great many of them, and stored them away in an empty...

DECEMBER 21, night.--The boatswain rushed to the halliards that supported the sail, and instantly lowered the yard; not a moment too soon, for with the speed of an arrow the squ...

DECEMBER 22.--Daylight came at length, and the sun broke through and dispersed the clouds that the storm had left behind. The struggle of the elements, while it lasted, had been...

DECEMBER 23 to 30.--After the storm the wind settled back into its old quarter, blowing pretty briskly from the northeast. As the breeze was all in our favor it was important to...

JANUARY 1 to 5.--More than three months had elapsed since we left Charleston in the Chancellor, and for no less than twenty days had we now been borne along on our raft at the m...

JANUARY 5 and 6.--The whole scene made a deep impression on our minds, and Owen's speech coming as a sort of climax, brought before us our misery with a force that was well-nigh...

JANUARY 7.--During the last few days, since the wind has freshened, the salt water constantly dashing over the raft has terribly punished the feet and legs of some of the sailor...

Before daylight dawned, the body was quite cold, and as I knew there must be no delay in throwing it overboard, I asked Curtis to assist me in the sad office. The body was frigh...

JANUARY 9 and 10.--On the 9th the wind dropped, and there was a dead calm; not a ripple disturbed the surface of the long undulations as they rose and fell beneath us; and if it...

JANUARY 11 to 14.--Owen's convulsions returned with increased violence, and in the course of the night he expired in terrible agony. His body was thrown overboard almost directl...

JANUARY 15.--After this further shattering of our excited hopes, death alone now stares us in the face; slow and lingering as that death may be, sooner or later it must inevitab...

JANUARY 16.--If the crew of any passing vessel had caught sight of us as we lay still and inanimate upon our sail-cloth, they would scarcely, at first sight, have hesitated to p...

JANUARY 17.--As a natural consequence of the alleviation of our thirst, the pangs of hunger returned more violently than ever. Although we had no bait, and even if we had we cou...

JANUARY 18.--After this excitement I awaited the approach of day with a strange anxiety. My conscience told me that Hobart had the right to denounce me in the presence of all my...

JANUARY 19.--All through the day the sky remained unclouded and the heat intense; and night came on without bringing much sensible moderation in the temperature. I was unable to...

JANUARY 20 to 22.--For the day or two after the horrible repast of the 18th those who had partaken of it appeared to suffer comparatively little either from hunger or thirst; bu...

JANUARY 23.--Only eleven of us now remain; and the probability is very great that every day must now carry off at least its one victim, and perhaps more. The end of the tragedy...

JANUARY 24.--I have inquired more than once of Curtis if he has the faintest idea to what quarter of the Atlantic we have drifted, and each time he has been unable to give me a...

JANUARY 25.--Last night was very misty, and for some unaccountable reason, one of the hottest that can be imagined. The atmosphere was really so stifling, that it seemed as if i...

JANUARY 26.--All heard and understood the proposition; in fact it had been in contemplation for several days, but no one had ventured to put the idea into words. However, it was...

M. Letourneur was no longer a human being in the eyes of the famished creatures who were now yearning to see him sacrificed to their cravings. At the very sight of the victim th...

JANUARY 27.--I did not close my eyes all night, and was keenly alive to the faintest sounds, and every ripple of the water, and every murmur of the waves, broke distinctly on my...

JANUARY 27 continued.--A change came over me as if by miracle. No longer had I any wish to die, and already Curtis, who had heard my cries, was throwing me a rope. I seized it e...

JANUARY 27 continued.--Curtis, no doubt, was right. The discharge from the mouth of the Amazon is enormously large, but we had probably drifted into the only spot in the Atlanti...