ON SABLE ISLAND. 37 



The report was received at the main station at 9 a. m. on the 27th. Immediately the 

 " Rehance " was manned and tlie small hoats got ready. The wreck was twenty miles distant, 

 and now was seen the advantage of the car-wagons. As quick as their hardy ponies could 

 draw them the superintendent and all his men were at the scene of the wreck. They found 

 her lying about two hundred yards from the shore, settled deep in the sand and listed seaward, 

 with her lee side under water, main and mizzen masts gone by the deck, and a tremendous 

 sea running and sweeping over her bows, rendering all chance of escape by the efforts of 

 those on board utterly hopeless. 



The " Reliance" was immediately launched, the crew took their stations and without 

 delay started for the wreck. They liad to contend with tremendous seas, strong currents and 

 hio-h winds, in which all agreed that the l)oats hitherto on the island could not have lived. But 

 the " Reliance," as the sailors said, rode the waves like a duck, and after considerable time and 

 effort they reached the side of the wreck. During the afternoon they made six trips to her, 

 and brought ashore eighty persons, young and old. Two more attempts were made to reach 

 the wreck, but the oars and thole-pins were broken by the violence of the sea, and the boat 

 had to return to the beach. An attempt was made to send a warp from the ship to the 

 shore, but the current ran at such a rate that it could not be accomplished. The men were 

 now exhausted, their clothes freezing on them, and night was on, rendering any attempt to 

 reach the wreck hopeless. The kindhearted superintendent was obliged to give oi-ders to 

 haul up the boat, but the scene which ensued he ever after spoke of as the most painful of 

 his life. " When night came on, and we had to haul up our boat, the cries from those left 

 on the wreck were truly heartrending. In the hurry of work families had been separated, 

 and when those on shore heard tlie cries of those on the wreck at seeing the boat hauled up, 

 a scene was witnessed that may be inuigined but cannot be described. I walked slowly 

 from the place, leading my horse, till by the roaring of the sea, the whistling of the wind 

 and the distance I had travelled, their doleful cries could not be heard." What particularly 

 affected him was that the wind seemed to be rising, and he feared the wreck would go to 

 pieces before morning. 



At dawn every man was at his post, and the lifeboat was launched as soon as it was 

 clear enough to see the wreck. To their joyful surprise the wind had abated, and in ten 

 trips, by 10 o'clock a. m., the crew and passengers were all safely landed. Capt. Jordan 

 was knocked down by a sea and very severely cut and bruised, while the boat was making 

 her second trip, but the mate, Mr. Collamore, did his part nobly. The island men exerted 

 themselves to the utmost, the boat's crew nobly sticking to the boat, and declining the 

 offer to be relieved for a time by some of the vessel's crew. As to the boat the superin- 

 tendent says : " The ' Reliance ' has done what no other boat could do that I have ever seen. 

 It was a fearful time, yet the boat's crew each took their stations readily, and soon showed 

 that they felt the 'Reliance' to be worthy of her name." On the night of the 29th the ship 

 was broken into a thousand pieces, and only a few packages of cargo and some fragments of 

 ship's material were saved. 



The gallant conduct of Capt. McKenna and his men having been brought under the 

 notice of the Mariners' Royal Benevolent Society of England, they by unanimous vote 

 awarded to him the gold medal of the corporation and a silver one to each man serving 

 un<lcr him.' 



' Tiffany's " Lile of Miss Dix," pp. 213-220. 



