MUTINIES ON COOLIE SHIPS.
Several coolie ships were never heard from after their departure from China for Peru. Sometimes it happened that the coolies mutinied; and when defeated in the attempt to take possession of the vessel, the entire party jumped overboard, and were drowned in the sea.
In several instances the attempted mutiny was successful, and the vessels were burned, sunk, or abandoned, at some of the islands.
In 1857 a cargo of coolies murdered the officers and crew of the ship, and then drifted helplessly about the ocean until two thirds of them were dead through starvation, and the remainder were scarcely alive. The vessel was stranded on a sand-bar, near one of the Fiji Islands. Another ship was captured by the coolies and carried southward, where she went ashore on one of the islands, and all that remained alive on board at the time of her destruction were eaten up by cannibals. Horrible stories are told of the fights between the coolies and crews of ships. In case of a mutiny both sides fight with desperation, as they know it is a matter of life and death. If the coolies are overpowered they are killed or commit suicide. If the officers and crew are overpowered, they are killed, and their bodies thrown into the sea.
HUMAN MINCE MEAT.
In one instance the bodies of officers and crew of a coolie ship were literally cut into mince meat before being thrown overboard. One of the survivors afterwards stated that there was not a piece of any one of the murdered persons that weighed more than two or three pounds, when the mutiny was ended.
COOLIES PLANNING A MUTINY.