Boards By a Wine Cask

New York, 1895

A Strange Incident While Lying to In a Storm Off Cape Horn.

City Physician Wheeler has two bottles of claret of uncertain age and still more uncertain flavor, which he delights in offering to his friends, not because of the fine quality of the wine, but because it gives him a chance to tell again a story of the sea that is a little out of the ordinary. The claret is put in lime bottles, such as may be found aboard any long voyage vessel, and while its most pronounced flavor is a cross between lime juice and salt water there is still a "smack" in it that reminds one that it must have been at one time prime "stuff." Dr. Wheeler was presented with the bottles by Captain Dexter of the British ship Samaritan, which recently left this port in cargo for Liverpool, and the captain told the following story of how he came by them:

"In the fall of 1893 we were bound from Liverpool to Shanghai in ballast and were nearing the Horn when a big storm overtook us. We hove to and drifted about 1,000 miles offshore. The storm was one of the worst I have over experienced in 20 years of seafaring life, and one dark night, when big seas were breaking over us, a big, burly fellow from the forecastle came aft, knife in hand, and walked directly up to me. I thought for a minute that mutiny was aboard, and drawing my revolver ordered him to stand back. But I soon saw he was terribly frightened, and, with chattering teeth, he told me that a frightful looking object was floundering about amidships.

"I went with him to see it, and, sure enough, whenever a wave struck us a huge black body, glowing in the phosphorescent blaze of the tropics, could be seen floundering about on deck. I soon ascertained that it was lifeless and then proceeded to investigate. It proved to be nothing but a huge wine cask, every stave of which was incrusted with barnacles, and it had probably been left on dock by a receding wave. Visions of dead bodies buried at sea in casks loomed up before me as I lashed the trophy to the rigging to await daylight before investigating.

"When the storm cleared away, I tapped the cask, and by means of a long iron rod ascertained that there was nothing but liquor in it. I drew off some of the stuff and tried it on two Portuguese sailors aboard. They pronounced it prime, so we all took a taste. After that I drew off all the wine and stored it in these lime bottles, the only thing I had handy. The cask I placed in the British museum at Shanghai, for it was a real curiosity. The chances are that cask of claret was thrown overboard from some wreck, and it must have floated about in midocean for three or four years at least before it came aboard of us. Barnacles do not form on floating wood in less time than that, and the cask was so covered with them that not a bit of the wood was visible." — Portland Oregonian.