Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/321

Rh starting-point. Then she drifted south to the islands off Florida, became mixed up in a storm, and went zigzagging across the ocean. She crossed her own path a number of times, and was sighted by forty different shipmasters, who made haste to report her manœuvres to the Hydrographic Bureau. She was a particularly dangerous specimen of the genus derelict, and there was great relief in marine circles when it was reported that some enterprising craft had picked her up and towed her to Abaco, New Providence.

The honor of being the most remarkable derelict probably belongs to the Fred B. Taylor, the craft that was run into by the Trave in 1892. The sharp bow of the transatlantic liner cut the sailing-vessel squarely in half, and by all rules of marine procedure should have sent her to the bottom. Strange to relate, however, the two parts remained afloat, and each started off on its own hook to become a member of the profession of derelicts. The stern was blown north, and finally brought up on Wells Beach, and the bow, guided by an inshore current, went south and came to grief opposite the Carolinas.

The following extracts from the Hydrographic Bulletin, published weekly by the Hydrographic Bureau, will give a clear idea of the method used in keeping track of derelicts. It will be noted that each abandoned vessel has a number by which it is recorded:

"3197-11—May 12—Lat. 47°, lon. 42°, passed the derelict and dismasted bark Record.—Jupiter (Nor. bk.), Danielson (Report by Mr. T. Gourdeau, Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries, Ottawa, Canada.

"3197-12—May 27—Lat. 46° 52′, lon. 35°, passed the waterlogged derelict bark Record; decks awash and foremast gone.—Bristol City (Br. ss.), Barclay.

"3197-13—May 27—Lat. 46° 56′, lon. 34° 44′, passed a derelict with decks awash and foremast gone.—Noordam (Dutch ss.), Bonjer; report by Fourth-officer Yonge.

"3197-14—May 30—Lat. 47° 13′, lon. 33° 20′, passed the derelict bark Record, with foremast gone at deck.—Teutonic (Br. ss.), McKinstry; report by Officer Mason.

"3197-15—May 31—Lat. 47°, lon. 33°, set fire to the derelict bark Record.—Rappahannock (Br. ss.), Buckingham. (New York Herald.)"

Here is the concluding history of a derelict which had been reported fifteen times, and which had haunted the transatlantic steamer lane for weeks. Fourteen different craft had sighted her, and it was not until the Rappahannock, a freighter, came along that this most dangerous of menaces to marine commerce was removed by fire. Waterlogged, with decks awash, and only a part of her masts showing above the surface of the sea, there was no human possibility of sighting her from the lookout of a swiftly moving passenger-boat on a dark night.

There are romance and the imagery of the sea in the picturesque derelicts that go rolling and drifting at the mercy of the wind and the wave, but there is tragedy too.