COOLIE TRAFFIC (2) Continuation.
23.9
One fine day in the early seventies, a trim screw-steamer, the Dolores Ugarte, stood out from the Macao Roads, and pointed her clipper bow for the shores of South America. It was the last voyage of the Dolores Ugarte. On board were 600 coolies, guarded night and day by armed Europeans.
Three days out from Macao, the ship caught fire, the Europeans took to the boats and left to their fate the wretched coolies, who perished almost to a man.
This is only one coolie, Leung Ashen returned to Hongkong. The story he told the local authorities: "I am a native of Sunning, twenty years of age, and have no employment. A few days ago, a cousin of mine took me to Macao, as she said, to get me some work. She lodged me in a foreigner's house. There I stayed three days. I was then taken to a barracoon, where I stopped two days.
"I was brought before an officer, in whose presence an interpreter told me that I was to go to Peru to work for four dollars a month, and if I refused to go, I was to be sent to the chain-gang for six years, and thereafter to be put into a dungeon for two years. I had no option, therefore, but to put my name to a printed form, which had Chinese and European writing on it. A seal was then affixed, and I was paid eight dollars in silver, and received also two suits of clothes, a padded jacket, and a pair of shoes. No bedding of any kind was given to me; not even a mat. I was then marched into a ship with several hundred others.
"On the third day after the ship sailed, shortly after our breakfast, a fire broke out on board. The smoke came into our hold in great volume, and at this time there were no foreigners to oversee us. The smoke came in very thick and a great many were suffocated.
"More than one hour after the smoke first came to our hold, the hatch grating was torn off by somebody - by one of the cooks, I believe. We all made a rush for the hatchway and a terrible struggle for life and death ensued. I was partially suffocated when I got to the hatchway and could not climb up it. Some Chinese pulled me up.
"By this time the fire had reached the hatchway, and my face was severely burnt in my attempts to get up on deck. When I came on deck, the whole ship from the mainmast to the stern was a mass of flames.
"After falling into the sea, I swam to a burnt spar which was floating on the water. There were several other coolies holding on to this spar besides me.
"I should say that when I first came on deck after our release, I noticed one boat in the distance making away as fast as it could. It appeared full of men, who, I think, were Europeans, as they could pull well, and none of us Chinese knew how to use an oar.
"Proceeding, Leung Ashen said that when the spar passed what appeared to be an island, he struck out for the land and having reached it, lay down to sleep. About five hours later he was awakened by water lapping his feet. To his horror, he realised that the land would soon be completely covered by the high tide. He moved to the highest point and when the water had reached his knees, a hen-coop, probably from the Dolores Ugarte, floated by. He struck out for this and managed to hold on to it until picked up by a passing junk. Before taking the unfortunate coolie from the water, the junk master demanded money, and Leung Ashen gave him the eight dollars which were still strapped round his waist.
"While the junk was returning to Hongkong, it sighted other coolies floating about on spars, but the junk people left them to their fate, because they had lost their money."
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