Among the earlier measures to prevent loss of life are fog-bells, fog-horns, and lighthouses, to warn the sailor of dangerous shoals. In earlier days, wreckers sometimes silenced the fog-bell. Southey has given us a ballad upon the poetic justice said to have been meted out to a famous pirate who removed the bell placed by the abbot of Arberbrothok upon the Inchcape Rock, off the Scottish coast. One year later, with a rich booty, the pirate nears home once more,
“They hear no sound, the swell is strong;
Though the wind hath fallen they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,—
‘Oh, Christ! it is the Inchcape Rock!’
Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair;
He curst himself in his despair;
The waves rush in on every side,
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.”
With this notice of the extent to which man may be responsible for disasters, the subject must be dismissed. Ere leaving the topic of storms, the reader shall know of one of the most notable naval disasters of the century, which will illustrate the difficulty with which even powerful war ships face high winds at sea.
CHAPTER XI.
GREAT SAMOAN HURRICANE.
“Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue Ocean, roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain.
Man marks the earth with ruin: his control
Stops with thy shores: upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed; nor doth remain
A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.”
URING the fall of 1888, no little interest centered in one of the little inland groups of the Pacific. In 1887, German officers in the Samoan group conceived that the king, Malietoa, was so prejudiced toward their interests that he should be deposed. So without much ceremony they laid hands upon and carried him into exile, placing him on an island some thousands of miles distant.
There seems no reason to doubt that Germany’s ultimate design was to formally occupy the islands. It is the old story of the civilized man’s dealings with the savage; of the man who has ten talents, obtaining the property of the man with one.