Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1880
No. 607.
Mr. Maynard to Mr. Evarts.
Constantinople, November 15, 1879. (Received Dec. 13.)
Sir: A dispatch from the Department of State, No. 71, of August 29, 1876, instructed the procurement at as early a day as practicable, for the use of the Secretary of the Treasury, of copies of the latest reports of life-saving institutions and societies in Turkey, with such other information as might be attainable.
Inquiry failed to discover any such reports, or any other information worth communicating. In the notes of my recent cruise around the Black Sea (dispatch No. 340, of September 10, 1879), I mentioned a life-saving station near the mouth of the Bosphorus and the death in April last year of Captain Palmer, who had charge of it. Beyond what is there stated I had obtained absolutely nothing. There has just been reproduced here a paper from a late English journal on “The Life-boat Service in Turkey,” which I inclose. It is from the pen of Sir George Thomas, an English gentleman who has resided several years in Constantinople, and is connected with the Imperial Ottoman Bank; and it may be relied upon as authentic.
For many miles each way from the entrance to the Bosphorus the shore of the Black Sea has no harbor and affords no shelter from the storm. In rough weather, vessels coming in are peculiarly exposed. There is, moreover, a point at no great distance, known by seamen as “the false Bosphorus,” where the coast line is very similar to that at the real channel. By the display of false lights the deception used to be complete and often fatal. Humanity and commerce alike demanded protection, and this article gives the result. I am aware of no similar establishment elsewhere in the Ottoman dominions.
I have, &c.,
Sir George Thomas on the life-boat service in Turkey
the black sea life-boat and rocket service—a sketch and retrospect.
In a recent number of the Morning Post, under the heading of “Life-boat Service in Turkey,” there appears from the Constantinople correspondent of that journal the following graphic and interesting description of that service, more especially of the station on the European shore of the Black Sea mouth of the Bosphorus.
On a grassy headland some six miles from the mouth of the Bosphorus stand a couple of cottages, a beacon, and a flagstaff. At their feet the treacherous Euxine breaks with surging crash against the sharp-hewn rocks or sweeps quietly into the little [Page 966] sandy bays, whilst behind and around the pleased eye may rest on leagues of purple moor fringed with Belgrade’s dark sun-streaked forest.
The first glance at these tiny mansions and trim garden plots suffices to show that no native is master there, and quite prepares me for the hearty “Glad to see you, sir; what will you have after your ride?” which greets the ear as a splendid specimen of the Anglo-Saxon race runs down the steps and gives his hearty grip. This is Captain Palmer, once a skipper in the English coasting trade, now chief of the rocket and life-boat service on the European shore—a brave, frank-hearted sailor, who fears neither wind nor wave when duty beckons onward. The neat five-roomed house into which he leads me is a source of endless though modest pride to the honest tar, for, from foundation to roof, all, save locks and tiles, are the work of his own hands. His father before him had been content with the smaller, clumsier building in which his crew of fifteen Moslems now dwell, but “You see,” he explains, “the dear old man had not my mother out here, and I could not send for my wife till she had a comfortable place to lay her head, and the Turks would never have helped me.” So shortly before he had been named to his drowned sire’s post young Samuel Palmer buckled to the task, and soon could write to his bride—there she is, smiling welcome whilst bustling about “on hospitable thoughts intent”—to come out and cheer his new home.
I wonder what the simple Hampshire girl felt when first set down in this strange land. Besides her husband, not a soul within half a dozen miles can speak a word of English, for the village, which seeks shelter from the rough northern blasts behind, that fort-crested hill, is inhabited by Greeks and Turks only, and the sailor lads who run so willingly to serve her could do no more than try to guess her wants.
But Mrs. Palmer was not easily dismayed; her husband had picked up Turkish, and she could also, and is doing so fast. Still it is a lonely existence, and painfully exciting, too, when the man for whom she has left country and kin goes forth to snatch victims from the furious storm. Moslem wives and daughters made, it is true, overtures of friendship on her arrival, but at the beginning she could not understand them, and afterwards found their chattering so unsavory that the fair Khanums met with chilling reception and unmistakable hints not to intrude their society on the Giaour’s wife.
Over 32 miles of coast from Fanaraki to Carabounar reigns Captain Palmer. The latter and Kilia, being the two most important, are each supplied with a life-boat, as well as the rocket apparatus, which alone is furnished to the second-rate stations. Except Palmer himself, there is no foreigner in this service (a similar one under Captain Summers exists on the Asiatic side); his officers are Turks and so, or rather Mohammedans, are his men. Gallant fellows these, and smart and skillful, likewise, when carefully trained. They must be led and kept in order, and then all goes straight; a case of skulking is very rare, and for strength and endurance none can surpass them. In five minutes from the moment the warning rings out the life-boat is launched and ready, but in the rocket battery Palmer places his chief trust, owing to the fact that ships generally strike on jocks where no boat could get at them. To this point it would be well if ship-owners enforced greater attention among their masters and crews. The Black Sea is notoriously dangerous, and no part more so than the mouth of the Bosphorus, it being most difficult to hit in dirty weather, especially as its principal features are faithfully copied by one or two adjacent bays that lure numbers of vessels to destruction despite the excellent system of lights. Indeed, before the establishment of these stations, wreckers had fine pickings, and bitterly do the villagers of the coast still resent the interference with what they regard as their natural prey. Notwithstanding, however, the known perils of these waters, many officers of the commercial navies are evidently quite ignorant of the use of the rocket, and although to each is attachéd full directions in English, French, Turkish, and Greek, it is no uncommon thing to behold the first man who clutches the line onboard the stranded ship fasten it around his body and jump into the breakers. Of course he is dragged ashore dead, on account of the boiling surf and scraggy rocks. Others, on the contrary, seem utterly without notion how to secure the welcome rope, and. fumble it helplessly until some angry wave sweeps them far out of the reach of aid. Hundreds of lives have been lost for want of a little common foresight.
Extraordinary though it may appear, the official Turk does nothing to reward zeal and courage in this service. About 36s. a month are the wages of those who may at at any hour be called on to jeopardize their lives, and just now a poor fellow who had obtained a few weeks’ leave to visit his wife and family for the first time during seven years had his scanty pay stopped whilst absent. Such treatment has a very bad effect, as is proved by the frequent retirement of well trained and efficient hands, who find in the fisheries a more grateful and less perilous manner of earning bread.
Talking of bread reminds me of the trouble that Ramazan brings Palmer. Nine-tenths of the men persist in strictly observing that fast. It is vain to reason that they are similarly circumstanced to warriors in the field. No argument can persuade them to eat and drink between dawn and sunset. The result is that, through daily excessive abstinence and midnight feasting, they become weak and incapable of sustained [Page 967] exertions. An example of this occurs to me. One afternoon of the sacred month, a small craft was noticed in distress a little distance away. Instantly Palmer put off in the life-boat, but could not reach her, as his men absolutely broke down in the tug against wind and sea. Reluctantly Palmer turned back, as it happened the vessel just escaped, and did not fail to read the men a severe lecture on their folly. No permanent impression on their minds was, however, produced. Here the authorities might usefully influence their fellow Mussulmans.
But what can you expect from an admiralty which neglects to furnish these stations with telescopes and barometers, and even grumbles at every demand for a yard or two of rope? Indeed, but for Palmer’s determined energy, the life-boats now so admiramirably kept and ordered would not impossibly be rotten, worthless coffins.
Desolate and disheartening as such an existence may seem, it is not without its pleasures. A magnificent climate during two-thirds of the year, lovely scenery, abundance of cheap fish, game, poultry, eggs, and milk are not to be despised. During the Bosphorus season, too, Kilia is a favorite picnicking ground. A ride of less than, ten miles along the high coast carries one thither from Therapia, and it would be dim-cult to meet with a fairer gallop than back through the valley and shady beech groves. Then there is capital shooting. Thousands of plump quail light every autumn on the breezy heights, and you can do worse than tramp out at break of day to the scented heather and knock over the little brown birds as fast as your dog turns them up. Later on, huge flocks of teal and duck haunt the Lake Derkos, close to which lurk also woodcock and pheasant; and if you prefer big game, plunge inland amongst the high brushwood, with dogs and beaters, and both pig and deer will offer your rifle a chance. Shoot away and enjoy yourself, for the land here is free to all.
But far different guests to cock and longtails does winter too often bring to these dwellers by the sea. Then rage those fearful tempests which have stamped “black” on the turbulent Euxine. A grand, if terrible, spectacle may be at such times witnessed on this storm-lashed coast. Masses of seething foam dash far and wide, as the waves hurl themselves, with thundering roar against the trembling cliffs; trees are dragged up by the roots, huts leveled with the earth.
Night throws a horrid veil over the scene. Hark, to that gun! A ship on the reef. Loud peals the alarm, and at its first note the men are awake and stirring. Down the rocks, guided only by the white stones which mark the precipitous paths, they spring. “Quick, now, with the rocket! Ready! Fire!” And the line hisses clean across the sinking barque. “Bravo! She has it; gently now”; whilst a drenched sailor is hauled on shore. Up the cliff with him, to where warm blankets and hot grog will restore exhausted nature. “Out again with the basket”; again and again, till all are saved, and Palmer heaves a sigh of relief. “Is anybody left?” he once asked an Italian skipper. “Only a dog and canary.” Straightway the kind-souled tar plunged into the surf; and to this day the bird sings in his cottage and the spaniel licks his hand. It was during a gale that brave old Samuel Palmer ended his grand career. I had been talking to him but a short while before of the quiet English home in which, he was to rest from his toil. A sad, soft expression stole over the weather-stained face as he answered, pointing to the calm water, “My grave is there; I feel it.” It was the last time that honest hand shook mine, and within four months I stood by the open grave in Scutari’s famous cemetery, where he lies midst those who also fell in the hour of victory, for victory indeed crowned the close of that nobly-spent life.
The story is still fresh in my memory. On the morning of April the 23d, 1878, a large Turkish ship was observed close into Fanaraki Bay, which she had evidently mistaken for the mouth of the Bosphorus. Palmer was immediately sent for and by the time he had galloped over on his black pony the vessel had anchored. Troubled in his mind at this, for there was already a stiff breeze nearly right on shore, and every sign of much worse ere sunset, Palmer sent on board the Turk, which turned out to be a transport crowded with troops, invalids, and refugees, male and female, from the seat of war, advising him to get out of his dangerous position. The answer was that she had only auxiliary steam power, which could not make head against the wind. Not satisfied with the reply and growing more and more uneasy, as the tempest was evidently close on them, Palmer again implored the captain to try, contending that by combining steam with his jib he would probably just fetch round the point into the Bosphorus, an opinion shared by most professional men present. But the doomed ship did not stir. Another hour, and it was too late. The gale increased with fearful rapidity, and ere darkness set in a perfect hurricane was raging. The life-boat was miles away; she could never have been there, in time even if launching her were possible. All eyes were strained towards the ship, whilst Palmer stood ready with the rockets. Would the cables hold? A few moments of awful suspense; and—
Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell,
Then shrieked the timid and stood still the brave,
as the vast hulk was hurled with tremendous violence on the rocks. Wave after wave lifts her like a feather, only to dash her again on the cruel stones. She must [Page 968] breakup; the one agonizing question is, when? The saving ropes are already on hoard, the basket running backwards and forwards on its mission of mercy. “Into the surf, my lads, and up the rocks with them,” shouts Palmer’s, cheery voice, as he plunges, life-line in hand, into the boiling foam to assist the half-drowned men and women. Thirty-two has he himself drawn to land and passed up the cliff towards the refuge-house, when he noticed a soldier struggling hard by. Palmer springs towards him, clasps him firmly, and turns to the shore. It may not be; his task is done! A huge sea, mightier and more furious than its fellows, strikes the gallant sailor whilst thus incumbered, the life-line slips from his grasp, and he is seen no more till his body and that of the trooper are found by his son jammed together in the cleft of a rock. Close to the spot lies, plainly visible in the shallow water, the skeleton of the ill-fated ship, which had sunk shortly afterwards, carrying down with her all but the 96 souls that Samuel Palmer died to save.—(From the Daily Moniteur du Commerce, of November 14, 1879.)