EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE SEA.
A Queenstown correspondent telegraphs that the National Line steamer Spain, from New York, which arrived at Queenstown recently, brings intelligence that an aged gentleman, named Murtagh, residing in Brooklyn, received a letter on October 11th, from one of the uninhabited islands of the South Sea group, Ojee, written by a friend of his, named Captain Green, who was supposed to have been lost at sea in 1858, in a vessel commanded by him, called the Confederation. She sailed from New York, in February of that year, for Australia, and not having been heard of afterwards, it was presumed that she had foundered with all on board, numbering sixteen, including two women. The letter, written on a soiled leaf of a ship's log, was dated July, 1887, and had been put aboard a whaling barque which passed near the island about that time. The writer observes that no doubt all hands aboard the Confederation had been given up as lost. He then relates how the vessel foundered in a gale after being nine weeks at sea, and how her crew, including himself and two women, having taken to the boats, after forty days, landed on the coral reefs of the Island of Ojee, there being no signs of habitation, but an abundance of game, fish, fruits, and water. No vessel came near the place until one evening in December, 1862, when eight of the crew put off in a boat to intercept her. The weather being very stormy, they never returned to the island, and Captain Green thinks they were lost. He further states that the women became the wives of two of the remaining castaways, and that although there had been several deaths on the island, the population at the time he wrote consisted of twelve persons, who felt quite contented. They were, however, badly in need of clothing. During thirty years, they had communicated from the island with only three vessels, and this letter had been four years written and ready to be sent by some ship. Captain Green adds that he is sixty-eight years of age, and in good health.