II[ToC]
THE WRECK
With the homeward-bound pennant flying from the mainmast head and with the contractor's working party on board, we sailed from the Midway Islands on Friday, October 29, at 4 P.M. for San Francisco. We had dragged high up on the beach the scow from which the divers had worked, secured the house doors, and taken a last look at the blinding sand with thankful hearts for leaving it.
As Doctor Frank, our surgeon, and myself were walking down the beach to the last boat off to the ship, there occurred an incident which I will relate here for psychological students.
He remarked, as we loitered around the landing, that he felt greatly depressed without being able to define any cause for it and that he could not rid himself of the impression that some misfortune was impending. I tried to cheer him up; told him that the "blues" were on him, when he ought to be rejoicing instead; that we had a fair wind and a smooth sea to start us on a speedy return to the old friends in San Francisco. It was in vain, however; he expressed a firm belief that we should meet with some disaster on our voyage and I dropped the subject with a "pooh pooh."
As soon as we reached the open sea, the captain ordered the ship headed to the westward and the pressure of steam to be reduced, as with topsails set we sailed along to a light easterly breeze. It was his intention, he stated, to come within sight of Ocean Island about daylight and to verify its location by steaming around it before heading away for San Francisco.
It should be noted that it is in the direct line of a naval commander's duty, when he is in the neighborhood of such dangers to navigation, to confirm by observation their position on the charts as well as to rescue any unfortunate persons that fate may have cast away upon them. Our own subsequent situation gives proof of the wisdom of such a regulation.
Ocean Island is about fifty miles to the westward of the Midway Islands, is of similar formation, and is the last one (so far as our chart shows) in the chain of ocean dangers that I have referred to as extending more than a thousand miles to the westward from the Sandwich Islands. It was on this reef that the British ship Gledstanes was wrecked in 1837, and the American ship Parker in September, 1842, the crew of the latter vessel remaining there until May, 1843, when they were taken off.