THE TRAGEDY OF THE KOROSKO
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
| CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. | CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. |
CHAPTER I.
THE public may possibly wonder why it is that they have never heard inthe papers of the fate of the passengers of the Korosko. In thesedays of universal press agencies, responsive to the slightest stimulus,it may well seem incredible that an international incident of suchimportance should remain so long unchronicled. Suffice it that therewere very valid reasons, both of a personal and of a political nature,for holding it back. The facts were well known to a good number ofpeople at the time, and some version of them did actually appear in aprovincial paper, but was generally discredited. They have now beenthrown into narrative form, the incidents having been collated from thesworn statements of Colonel Cochrane Cochrane, of the Army and NavyClub, and from the letters of Miss Adams, of Boston, Mass.
These have been supplemented by the evidence of Captain Archer, of theEgyptian Camel Corps, as given before the secret Government inquiry atCairo. Mr. James Stephens has refused to put his version of the matterinto writing, but as these proofs have been submitted to him, and nocorrection or deletion has been made in them, it may be supposed that hehas not succeeded in detecting any grave misstatement of fact, and thatany objection which he may have to their publication depends rather uponprivate and personal scruples.
The Korosko, a turtle-bottomed, round-bowed stern-wheeler, with a30-inch draught and the lines of a flat-iron, started upon the 13th ofFebruary in the year 1895, from Shellal, at the head of the firstcataract, bound for Wady Halfa. I have a passenger card for the trip,which I here reproduce:
| S.W. “KOROSKO,” FEBRUARY 13TH. PASSENGERS. | |
| Colonel Cochrane Cochrane | London. |
| Mr. Cecil Brown | London. |
| John H. Headingly | Boston, U.S.A. |
| Miss Adams | Boston, U.S.A. |
| Miss S. Adams | Worcester, Mass., U.S.A. |
| Mons. Fardet | Paris. |
| Mr. and Mrs. Belmont | Dublin. |
| James Stephens | Manchester. |
| Rev. John Stuart | Birmingham. |
| Mrs. Shlesinger, nurse and child | Florence. |
This was the party as it started from Shellal, with the intention oftravelling up the two hundred miles of Nubian Nile which lie between thefirst and the second cataract.
It is a singula