A BOAT ACCIDENT. 40; 



were engaged in conversation. He was awakened about 

 an hour after by a tremendous shock, and a huge wave 

 which broke over him. On starting up, he ascertained 

 that the boat had run upon a ledge of rock, detached 

 from the shore, which was to be seen through the dim 

 twilight about thirty yards distant. The scene that fol- 

 lows baffles description. The boat hung fast by the 

 midships; a heavy sea was tumbling round her, and 

 breaking over her; the children were screaming, and 

 the boatmen shouting for assistance. A pinnacle of the 

 ledge was only partially covered by the surf, and, as it 

 promised for at least a few minutes a less precarious 

 lodgment than that which the boat afforded, for she 

 now began to break up, the crew and the passengers 

 removed to it. Alas ! the tide was rising ; and, melan- 

 choly to relate, in about half an hour some of the children 

 were washed away by the surf. One of the boatmen, 

 David Johnston, could swim a little ; and, stripping off 

 his clothes, he leaped into the water, and reached the 

 shore. The survivor (Skinner), though he could not 

 swim, sprang after him, and his struggling, assisted by 

 the heave of the sea, brought him into shallow water, 

 where he found footing. The boatman who had first 

 reached the land, recognizing amid the heart-rending 

 cries of the sufferers on the rock, the voice of his bro- 

 ther, returned to his assistance ; but, in the attempt to 

 bring him ashore, the latter was drowned ; and he him- 

 self was so exhausted with fatigue and cold, that he ex- 

 pired in the fields, into which he had gone after his 

 second landing, in quest of shelter and assistance. Skin- 

 ner pressed onwards, and came up to an inhabited 

 house; but the inmates, deeming him some deranged 

 person, an opinion which it is probable his state of 

 mind at the time almost justified, denied him admit- 



