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of the poisonous thing beheld in that light and under such conditions crazed me. [ have a recollection of laughing wildly, and of defying the dark floating shape in insane language. I remember that 1 shook my fist and spat at it, and that I turned to seek for something to hurl at the body, and it may have been that in the instant of turning my senses left me, for after this I can recall no more,

The scquel to this tragic and extraordinary experience will be found 1n the following state- ment, made by the people of the ship [forfar- shire, from Cal- cutta to l.iver- pool:—*August 20, 1827. When in latitude 27 13 N. and longi- tude 70”7 go' K. wec sighted a barque under all plam sail,apparently abandonced. The breeze was very scanty, and though we immediately ~hifted our helm for her on judeing that ~he was in distress, 1t took us all the morn- ing to approach her vithin hailing distance. Everything looked right with her aloft, but the wheel was de- serted, and there were no signs of anything living in her. We sent a boat 1 charge of the second officer, who returned and informed us that the barque was the Justitra, of London. We knew that she was from Calcutta, for we had scen her lying in the river. The second oflicer stated that there were three dead bodies aboard, onc in a hammock in the forecastle, a second on a mattress on the

YA FIGURE 1

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ISE UNDER THE BOwS,”

THE STRAND MAGAZINT,

forecastle, and a third against the coamings of the mam-hatch ; there was also a fourth man Iyig at the heel of the port cathcad— he did not scem to be dead. On this Dr.

Davison was requested to visit the barque, and he was put aboard by the second oflicer. He returned quickly with one of the men, whom he instantly ordered to be stripped and put into a warm bath, and his clothes thrown overboard.

He said that the dead showed unmis- takable signs of having died from cholera. We pro- ceeded, not deem- mg 1t prudent to have anything further to do with the 1ll-fated craft, The person we had rescued re- mained 1msensible for two days; his recovery was then slow, but sure, thanks to the skilful treatment of Dr. Davison. He nformed us that his namece was Thomas DBarron, and that he was a passenger on board the Jfustitiu for Capce Town, He was the tra- velling represen- tative of a large Birmingham firm. The barque had on the pre- ceding Irriday week fallen n with a raft bear- ing a dead body. A boat was sent to bring away a parcel from the raft’'s mast, and it 1s supposed that | the contents of the parcel com- municated the cholera. There were fifteen souls when the vessel left Caleutta, and all perished except the passenger, Thomas Barron.”

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