Note 131 — Chapter XLI

In a work, entitled “The Black Death in the Fourteenth Century,” translated by Dr. Babbington from the German of Dr. Hecker, published in 1833 by A. Schloss, 109, Strand, London, it is stated that the contagion was carried from England to Bergen, where the plague broke out in the most frightful form, and throughout the country, not more than a third of the inhabitants being spared. The sailors found no refuge in their ships, and vessels were often seen, driven about, on the ocean, and drifting on shore, whose crews had perished to the last man. This reminds us of the skeleton crew of the “Glenalvon,” bound from Charleston to Sydney, met with by Captain Martin, of the “Lancaster,” an account of which appeared in the newspapers of last October. Such tales of the sea, dreadful in their reality, are closely associated with the Phantom ship said to sail the stormy seas near the Cape of Good Hope, which has often furnished an interesting subject for the sailors’ night-watch yarns of spectral fancy.