LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 379, 30 August 1875, Page 4

LITERATURE.

AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BOYTON, BY ARCHIBALD M‘NEILL. [From the Gentleman's Magazine .], Continued. ‘ The first diving I did was in the season 1864-5 in the Delaware Bay, This was hi Hell’s Gate, just outside New York. An old British ship, the Huzzar, is said to be down there. I believe she was sunk'just ai we were parting company with the old country. At any rate she’s there safe enough now, but 1 could find nothing worth hoisting from her, excepting by way of curiosities, and there isn’t much pay-dirt in those things excepting when a big public goes mad on some silly streak, ‘ Once when I was diving in the Delaware Bay a little old paring of a man came up and asked me if I believed in spiritualism 1 said ‘Not much,’ He said if I would go down and see him he’d show me by spiritualism where X could find a treasure-ship, When I

got there, and we’d had supper, and a liquor or two, he reached down his charts and diagrams 'nul asked me if I was ready to listen. Then the knocks came as he pointed out along the map, and such a lively row that I half began to believe him, I got bitten at last with the idea that the spirits meant it, and I said for 50 dollars a day I’d throw in with the other world and see if we could raise something. However, that was too much. The old spiritualist would only give me 25 dollars, so at last we settled at that, Ito have part of any treasure recovered. ‘We started down the bay next morning, the old gentleman carrying a shipload of mouldy charts. At two in the afternoon we got sounding and touched at about eighty feet. Then I got the armour on and slipped overboard. The bottom was blue mud, swept as clean by the water as a log hut iloor of pine planks. I signalled, after looking all round carefully, and came up, The old fellow was death-terrible disappointed when I told him ‘Nothing down there!’ We tripped the anchor and ran a little way under the Delaware shore. This time I found a grey sand bottom very firm, but bare as the back of my hand. After examining right about every way I came up and said I would’t go down again that day. At ten next morning I dropped over again, but it was evident from the way the current swept the bottom that a wreck could’t have laid there. The old man looked so cut up when I told him, that I determined to make another try. I got the pump put into a small boat and rowed over a likely place where I meant to drop. Then we let go the anchor and down I went, ‘ About three o’clock I came against something that made me feel excited. By Jehoicks! thought, that’s her. I felt so allfired rich at the mount, I seemed to own creation. I’d a notion I would go up and get the 50 dollars a day, making fresh terms with the old man ; but when I looked closer and saw it was really the hull of the old treasure ship, just as the Spiritualist had described her, I jumped so wild-lively at once that I could only signal to go up. ‘As soon as I could get my head out of the water I yelled ‘l’ve got her.’ The old man was wonderfully excited. He promised everybody fabulous presents. I got a block rigged, and a chain-line run from it, and went down with an adze and a shovel.

* I dug a good way about the wreck, cut a groove round the bow with the adze, rigged the line to it, and gave the signal to haul away. It was so deeply imbedded that nothing seemed to stir it. As I stood down there and looked at that strain on the rope, T couldn’t help thinking what a bank-safe weight of treasure was keeping it down. Suddenly they let go the anchor and stood down stream with the wind and the current. Then she gave a slight move and a tremble all over. I stepped back to be out of the way. Slowly the great piece of old bow rose out of the sand, and then my feelings dried up completely. I saw the timber was only part of a drift wreck. I sounded all round, but there was only sand. It had come down stream and lodged there, and I went up slower than I came down —a few.

‘ When I told the old man, there was part of a scene flying round. He threw up his arms and went into the cabin and cried like a child. I never sailed across him again. * Soon afterwards I worked down into the Gulf of Mexico, The first coral I raised was at Catoche. Knocking round above there I heard of the loss of the schooner Foam. The first mate and three men got saved, but the captain, his daughter, and three men were lost, I slung round to see if she could be raised. After we’d spent best part of a week we sailed over her and dropped anchor. It was a lovely Sunday morning when wo struck her. She lay in sixty feet of water on a bottom as white as the moon. Looking down I could see her leaning over on one side upon the coral reef. When I got down to her I saw she’d torn a great gap in the reef when she ran against it. The mainmast was gone and hung by the fore. I clambered up ; I saw whole shoals of fish playing in and out of the hatches. First I went to look for the bodies, for I never like to work while there’s any of them about. Finding the fo’castle empty, I went to the two little state cabins. It was rather dark, and I had to feel in the lower bunks. There was nothing in the first, and in the other the door was locked. I prized it open and shot back the lock with my adze. ‘ It flew open, and out something fell right against me. I felt at once it was theAvoman’s body. I was not exactly frightened, but it shook me rather. I slung it from me and went out into the light a bit till I got hold of myself. Then I turned back and brought her out —poor thing! She’d been very pretty, and as I carried her in ray arms, with her white face nestling against my shoulder, she seemed as if she was only sleeping. I made her fast to the line as carefully as I could to send her up, and the fish played about her as if they were sorry she was going. At last I gave the signal, and she went slowly up, her hair floating round her head like a pillow of golden seaweed. • That was the only body I found there, and I managed after to raise pretty considerably of the cargo. ‘ One of my expeditions was among the silver banks of the Antilles—-the loveliest place I ever saw, where the white coral grows into curious tree-like shapes. As I stepped along the bottom it seemed as if I was in a frosted forest. Here and there trailed long fronds of green and crimson seaweed. Silver-bellied fish flashed about among the deep brown and purple sea-ferns, which rose high as my head. Far as I could see all round in the transparent water were different coloured leaves, and on the floor piles of shells sc bright in colour that it seemed as if I had stumbled on a place where they kept a stock of broken rainbows. I could not work for a bit, and had a quarter determination to sit down awhile and wait for a mermaid. I guess if those sea-girls live anywhere they select that spot. Afterwalking the inside out of half an hour 1 thought I had better get to work and blast for treasure. A little bit on from where I sat were the remains of a treasure ship. It was a Britisher 1 think, and corals had formed all about her, or rather about what was left of her. The coral on tire bottom and round her showed black spots. That meant a deposit on either iron or silver. 1 made fairly good hauls every time I went down, and sold one piece 1 found to Barnum of New York. {To he continued.')