THE "KENT" ABANDONED. 71 



sides of the Cambria : and others, again, were drowned in their hurry to get on board 

 the boats. 



One of the sailors, who had, with many others, taken his post over the magazine, 

 at last cried out, almost in ill-humour, " Well ! if she won't blow up, I'll see if I can't 

 get away from her." He was saved and must have felt quite disappointed. One of the 

 three boats, swamped or stove during the day, had on board a number of men who had 

 been robbing the cabins during the confusion on board. "It is suspected that one or two 

 of those who went down, must have sunk beneath the weight of their spoils." 



As there was so much doubt as to how soon the vessel would explode or go down, 

 while the process of transference between the vessels occupied three-quarters of an hour 

 each trip, and other delays were caused by timid passengers and ladies who were naturally 

 loath to be separated from their husbands, they determined on a quicker mode of placing 

 them in the boat. A rope was suspended from the end of the spanker-boom, along the 

 slippery top of which the passengers had either to walk, crawl, or be carried. The reader 

 need not be told that this great boom or spar stretches out from the mizen-mast far over 

 the stern in a vessel the size of the Kent. On ordinary occasions, in quiet weather, it 

 would be fifteen or twenty feet above the water, but with the vessel pitching and tossing 

 during the continuous storm, it was raised often as much as forty feet in the air. It 

 will be seen that, under these circumstances, with the boat at the stern now swept to 

 some distance in the hollow of a wave, and now raised high on its crest, the lowering of 

 oneself by the rope, to drop at the right moment, was a perilous operation. It was a 

 common thing for strong men to reach the boat in a state of utter exhaustion, having 

 been several times immersed in the waves and half drowned. But there were many 

 strong and willing hands among the soldiers and sailors ready to help the weak and 

 fearful ones, and the transference went on with fair rapidity, though with every now and 

 again some sad casualty to record. The coolness and determination of the officers, 

 military and marine, the good order and subordination of most of the troops, and the 

 bravery of many in risking their lives for others, Deems at this time to have restored some 

 little confidence among the timid and shrinking on board. A little later, and the declining 

 rays and fiery glow on the waves indicated that the sun was setting. One can well understand 

 the feeling of many on board as they witnessed its disappearance and the approach of darkness. 

 Were their lives also to set in outer gloom the ocean to be that night their grave ? 



Late at night Major MacGregor went down to his cabin in search of a blanket to 

 shelter him from the increasing cold. "The scene of desolation that there presented 

 itself was melancholy in the extreme. The place which, only u few short hours before, had 

 been the scene of kindly intercourse and of social gaiety, was now entirely deserted, save 

 by a few miserable wretches who were either stretched in irrecoverable intoxication on 

 the floor, or prowling about, like beasts of prey, in search of plunder. The sofas, 

 drawers, and other articles of furniture, the due arrangement of which had cost so much 

 thought and pains, were now broken into a thousand pieces, and scattered in confusion 

 around. . . . Some of the geese and other poultry, escaped from their confinement, 

 were cackling in the cuddy; while a solitary pig, wandering from its sty in the fore- 

 castle, was ranging at large in undisturbed possession of the Brussels carpet." 



