VOYAGE OF THE "SUNBEAM." 323 family in his own yacht. Then it is written by a lady, who has proved by her book that she possesses the sterling qualities of an English woman. Brave and bright, with a happy blending of the poetry of the sea and the prose of the land. In many ladies you see nothing but the lady, something so artificial, separated from the great human family with its kith and kin; but not so this adopted daughter of old Neptune, and not so the first lady of the land-our own beloved queen, in whom is found, in a pre-eminent degree, the wife, mother, and woman, which recently drew from so many American hearts, "God bless her." Then the book is written with such simplicity, naturalness, charm, that you have the exciting freshness of a well-written novel, with all the reality of truth. Look at the happy family life on board, crossing the mighty Pacific Ocean, with its eleven thousand miles of water. Look at that little pet, Sunbeam, scrubbing down the deck! The discoverer of this vast ocean looked out upon it and saw it in one of its grand PACIFIC moods, hence its name. Lady Brassey says: "Saturday, November 4th, 1876.-To-night's sunset was more superb than ever. Each moment produced a new and ever increasingly grand effect. I mean to try and take an instantaneous photograph of one. It would not, of course, reproduce all the marvellous shades of colouring, but it would perhaps give some idea of the forms of the masses of cloud, which are finer than any I ever saw before. This ocean seems to give one, in a strange way, a sense of solemn vastness, which was not produced to the same extent by the Atlantic. Whether this results from our knowledge of its size, or whether it is only fancy, I cannot say, but it is an impression which we all share. "Sunday, November 5th.-Fine, and considerably hotter, though not unpleasantly so. We had the Litany at eleven, and evening prayers and a sermon at four o'clock. Not a single ship has passed within sight since we left Valparaiso, and the only living creatures we have seen are some albatrosses, a few white boobies, a cape-hen, the little petrels already mentioned, a shoal of porpoises, and two whales." If a yacht will ship seas and make heavy weather, how much more heavy laden merchant ships? But even yachting, especially if across the oceans and round the world, will enable those, on board, to appreciate the lot of the merchant sailor. "After dinner, however, we very nearly met with a most serious accident. We were all sitting or standing about the stern of the vessel, admiring the magnificent dark blue billows following us, with their curling white crests, mountains high. Each wave, as it approached, appeared as if it must overwhelm us, instead of which it rushed grandly by, rolling and shaking us from stem to stern, and sending fountains of spray on board. Tom was looking at the stern compass, Allnutt being close by him. Captain Lecky, seated on a large coil of rope, placed on the box of the rudder, was spinning Mabelle a yarn. A new hand was steering, and just at the moment when an unusually big wave overtook us, he unfortunately VOYAGE OF THE "SUNBEAM." 325 allowed the vessel to broach-to a little. In a second the sea came pouring over the stern, above Allnutt's head. The boy was nearly washed overboad, but he managed to catch hold of the rail, and with great presence of mind stuck his knees into the bulwarks. Kindred, our boatswain, seeing his danger, rushed forward to save him, but was knocked down by the return wave, from which he emerged gasping. The coil of rope, on which Captain Lecky and Mabelle were seated, was completely floated by the sea. Providentially, however, he had taken a double turn round his wrist with a reefing point, and throwing his other arm round Mabelle, held on like grim death; otherwise nothing could have saved them. She was perfectly self-possessed, and only said quietly, 'Hold on, Captain Lecky, hold on!' to which he replied, All right.' I asked her afterwards if she thought she was going overboard, and she answered, 'I did not think at all, mamma, but felt sure we were gone.' "SUNBEAM" SAVING A SHIP-WRECKED CREW. I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. "Thursday, September 28th.-A fine, bright morning, with a strong, fair wind. The order to stop firing was given at noon, and we ceased steaming shortly after. There had evidently been a gale from the southward during the last few days, for the swell was tremendous, and considerably diminished our speed. Still, we managed to go twenty-seven knots in two hours and a half. "I was lying down, below, after breakfast, feeling very stupid, when Mabelle rushed into the cabin, saying, 'Papa says you are to come up on deck at once, to see the ship on fire.' I rushed up quickly, hardly knowing whether she referred to our own or some other vessel, and on reaching the deck I found everybody looking at a large barque, under full sail, flying the red union-jack upside down, and with signals in her rigging, which our signal-man read as 'Ship on fire.' These were lowered shortly afterwards, and the signal, 'Come on board at once,' hoisted in their place. Still we could see no appearance of smoke or flames, but we nevertheless hauled to the wind, tacked, hove to, and sent off a boat's crew, well armed, thinking it not impossible that a mutiny had taken place on board, and that the captain or officers, mistaking the yacht for a gunboat, had appealed to us for assistance. We were now near enough to the barque to make out her name through a glass— the 'Monkshaven,' of Whitby-and we observed a puff of smoke issue from her deck simultaneously with the arrival of our boat alongside. In the course of a few minutes, the boat returned, bringing the mate of the Monkshaven,' a fine-looking Norwegian, who spoke English perfectly, and who reported his ship to be sixty-eight days out from Swansea, bound for Valparaiso, with a cargo of smelting coal. The fire had first been discovered on the previous Sunday, and by 6 a.m. on Monday the crew had got up their clothes and provisions on deck, thrown overboard all articles of a combustible character, such as tar, oil, paint, spare spars and sails, planks, and rope, and battered down the hatches. then they had all been living on deck, with no protection from the wind and sea but a canvas screen. Tom and Captain Brown proceeded on board at once. They found the deck more than a foot deep in water, and all a-wash; when the hatches were opened for a moment dense clouds of hot suffocating yellow smoke immediately Ever since poured forth, driving back all who stood near. From the captain's cabin came volumes of poisonous gas, which had found its way in through the crevices; and one man, who tried to enter, was rendered insensible. "It was perfectly evident that it would be impossible to save the ship, and the captain therefore determined, after consultation with Tom and Captain Brown, to abandon her. Some of the crew were accordingly at once brought on board the which was then sent back to assist in removing the remainder, a portion of whom came in their own boat. The poor fellows were Sunbeam,' in our boat, 66 327 almost wild with joy at getting alongside another ship, after all the hardships they had gone through; and in their excitement they threw overboard many things which they might as well have kept, as they had taken the trouble to bring them. Our boat made three trips altogether, and by half-past six we had them all safe on board, with most of their effects, and the ship's chronometers, charts, and papers. The poor little dingy belonging to the 'Monkshaven' had been cast away as soon as the men had disembarked from her, and there was something melancholy in seeing her slowly drift away to leeward, followed by her oars and various small articles, as if to rejoin the noble ship she had so lately quitted. The latter was now hove-to, under full sail, an occasional puff of smoke alone betraying the presence of the demon of destruction within. The sky was dark and lowering, the sunset red and lurid in its grandeur, the clouds numerous and threatening, the sea high and dark, with occasional streaks of white foam. Not a breath of wind was stirring. Everything portended a gale. As we lay slowly rolling from side to side, both ship and boat were sometimes plainly visible, and then again both would disappear, for what seemed an age, in the deep trough of the South Atlantic rollers. "For two hours we could see the smoke pouring from various portions of the ill-fated barque. Our men, who had brought off the last of her crew, reported that, as they left her, flames were just beginning to burst from the fore-hatchway; and it was therefore certain that the rescue had not taken place an hour too soon. Whilst we were at dinner, Powell called us up on deck to look at her again, when we found that she was blazing like a tar barrel. 'When we saw,' said a sailor to Lady Brassey, 'it was an English vessel, and that you answered our signals and sent a boat off, we were indeed thankful; though that was nothing to what we feel now at once more having a really dry ship under our feet. Not that we have really suffered anything very terrible, for we had a bit of shelter, and plenty to eat, and the worst part was seeing our things washed overboard, and thinking perhaps we might go next. We have not had a dry deck since we left Swansea, and the pumps have been kept going most of the time. Why, with this sea, ma'am, our decks would be under water.' (This surprised me; as, though low in the water, the 'Monkshaven' did not appear to be overladen, and the Plimsoll mark was plainly visible.) Our boats were all ready for launching, but we had no sails, and only one rudder for the three; so we should have had hard work to fetch anywhere if we had taken to them. We lashed the two boys-apprentices, fourteen and sixteen years old-in one of the boats, for fear they should be washed overboard. The youngest of them is the only 6 |