Forty-Five Days From Hongkong: Seattle's New Orient Steamer Docks With Sugar, Rice and Bananas

British steamer Palmas, the first vessel on the Union Pacific line between Seattle and Portland and the Orient, arrived in port yesterday and was welcomed by a large crowd of people who viewed her from the wharves as she entered the harbor. She is a fine steel vessel with a carrying capacity of 4,600 tons of freight. She carries 3,300 tons in addition to her coal supply for the trip.

Her cargo for Seattle consisted of 220 tons of sugar, rice and other Chinese and Japanese merchandise and a lot of bananas from Honolulu, and was discharged at Yesler's wharf. Her Tacoma freight was all discharged here, and she will proceed to Portland this morning with the balance of her cargo. She discharged quite an amount of freight at Victoria.

The Palmas is chartered by Samuel Samuels, successor to Frank Upton, and took the place of the Zambesi. She is being followed by the Mascot and other vessels on the same line. She sailed from Hongkong on June 11, stopping at Moji, Kobe and Yokohama, Japan, and at Honolulu, making her time to Port Townsend forty-five days. She had every pound of freight she could carry, leaving tons she could not take and 110 passengers. Most of her passengers were for Honolulu and quite a number for British Columbia. She had eight Japanese on board for Portland and three white passengers. Some of her cargo was for Honolulu, and in place of it she took on a lot of bananas, pineapples, etc.

The Palmas is a propeller, schooner-rigged, 320 feet long, 44 feet beam and 24 feet depth of hold. Her registered net tonnage is 1,584. She was built at Belfast in 1888 and is owned by Elder, Dempster & Co., of the African Steamship Company, of Liverpool, London and Glasgow. She made a voyage from Liverpool to Philadelphia, taking a cargo back from New York to China just before being chartered by Samuels for a space of nine months.

Captain William Taylor, master of the vessel, said she would take such freight as she could get at Portland for Honolulu, China and Japan, and would then proceed to Departure bay to coal before starting on the return voyage. He said she would not go back by way of the Hawaiian islands unless she got sufficient freight to make it an object. She is not a passenger vessel, having been built especially for a freighter, but has fair accommodations for a limited number of cabin passengers. Captain Taylor said he did not know whether she would be sent out for the Sound again on her return or not. She was not chartered for any particular route, and might be sent off in some other direction.

Captain Taylor had to bring two members of his crew in irons from Honolulu. He says he had always treated them with so much consideration that they had become ungovernable and he was forced to take this method of bringing them to time. He had allowed them to go on shore and drink and carouse and never chastised them for it as long as their conduct did not become intolerable. At Honolulu they got drunk, and his officers ordered them out to work; they showed fight. The captain remonstrated with them, but they paid no attention. Finally he had the British consul arrest the two, but the consul refused to try them and placed them back on the vessel when she was ready to start.

The captain was determined that they should not go unpunished for their conduct, and placed them in irons and kept them there until the vessel reached Victoria. He then went before a magistrate and made complaint against them, but owing to the quarantine he could not have their trial on shore there, the vessel only being allowed to touch at the outer wharf to discharge with longshoremen taken over from Port Townsend. He told the magistrate he would give up the vessel unless the men were tried in some way and punished. The result was that the magistrate and his clerk went down and held court on the wharf. The captain and witnesses gave their testimony from the edge of the vessel, not being allowed to go on shore nor the magistrate to go aboard the vessel. The trial resulted in the two sailors being sentenced to thirty days' imprisonment and the forfeiture of their pay for the voyage.