Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 124: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

REAL ROMANCES OF THE SEA. BY GEO RGE JEAN NATHAN Pree? U RIED away in the records of the American Seamen’s Society, the writer recently discovered a report made by the Captain of the bark Anjou (2,069 tons) upon his arrival in Mar- seilles aboard the liner Erizst Simons in 19006. After a mysterious disappearance from the face of the earth for a period of many months, he reappeared. During this time not only had all trace of the Captain himself been lost, but, alas, of the Anjou with her crew and twenty-five passengers. The scant, scenario-like report, unadorned further, follows in the Captain’s words: MODERN CRUSOES le Anjou, while on a voyage from Sydney to Falmouth, was wrecked on one of the Auckland group in the Pacific. We had left Sydney on January 20, and during a thick fog and rough weather on February 4 the ship struck on a reef. The masts fell and smashed some of the small boats, and there was a panic on board. “Tortunately all escaped in the boats that remained whole, but many were only partly dressed and some not at all. Aftera terrible experience in a heavy gale, lasting for almost a whole day, we reached the shore of one of the deserted islands the following afternoon and, after a battle with the heavy sea, managed to drag our bodies up on to the land. ‘‘Naked and wounded, for what clothes we had had been ripped off, our bodies torn and bruised by being battered around, we looked like a band of phantoms marching ,on to the conquest of some infernal island. ‘‘Almost starved, we lighted a big fire with flint and attracted some sea-birds which we captured and ate. Making clothes for ourselves out of long grass and leaves, we started out to explore the island. After a search that lasted three days, some of our party discovered a rude shelter, showing that shipwrecked people had been there at some time before. “On the following days we killed, with rocks, a number of albatross and caught a 1070 cComicloooks (©