Page:Recollections of a Rebel Reefer.pdf/202



The prize Bold Hunter, abandoned and on fire, runs down and seriously damages the Georgia—Mirage at night—Peak of Teneriffe—Santa Cruz—Battle with a Frenchman—Rescue French brig Diligente—Captain Maury ill—Sailors get at the spirit-room—Mutiny.

On October 9, 1863, in a light breeze and after a lively chase we brought to, with our guns, the splendid American full-rigged ship Bold Hunter, of Boston, from Dundee, bound to Calcutta with a heavy cargo of coal. We hove to to leeward of her and brought her captain and crew over to our ship, where as usual the crew were placed in irons and below decks. Being short of coal and provisions we proceeded to supply our wants from the prize. This was easy so far as the provisions were concerned, but when it came to carrying the coal from one ship to the other in our small boats, in something of a seaway, that was another matter. After half a dozen trips one of our boats came very near being swamped, and the wind and sea rapidly rising, we gave it up as a bad job. This was about two bells (1 P.M.} in the afternoon watch. We signaled our prize master to set fire to the Bold Hunter and also to come aboard the Georgia at once, which he did.

We had hardly finished hoisting our boats to the davits when a great cloud of smoke burst from the hatches of the Bold Hunter coming from the thousands of tons of burning coal in her hold. The wind had by this time increased to a gale and the sea was running very high. As before mentioned, the wind was very light when we captured the ship and she had hove to with all sail set, even to her royals. The flames leaped from her deck to her tarry rigging and raced up the shrouds and backstays and burned away her braces—her yards swung around, her sails filled, and the floating inferno, like a mad bull, bore down on us at full