A NOVEL "SMOKE-STACK." 143 



Colonel Bulkley spent his time in cheering- the men, and reminding them that 

 the sea has been proved to be an infinitely safer place than the land. No single one 

 on board really expected to survive. Meantime, the gale was expending its rage 

 by tearing- every sail to ribbons. Rags and streamers fluttered from the yards ; there 

 was not a single piece of canvas intact. The cabins held a wreck of trunks, furniture, 

 and crockery. 



In one of the cabins several boxes of soap, in bars, had been stored. When the g-ale 

 commenced to abate, some one ventured into the house on deck, when it was discovered 

 that it was full of soapsuds, which swashed backwards and forwards through the series 

 of rooms. The water had washed and rewashed the bars of soap till they were not thicker 

 than sticks of sealing-wax. 



At last, after a week of this horrible weather, morning broke with a sight of the sun, 

 and moderate wind. There were spare sails on board, and the rudder could be repaired; 

 but what could be done about the funnel ? The engineer's ingenuity came out conspicuously. 

 He had one of the usual water-tanks broug-ht on deck, and the two ends knocked out. 

 Then, setting it up over the boiler, he with pieces of sheet-iron raised this square erection, 

 till it was about nine feet high, and it gave a sufficient draught to the furnaces. 

 "Covert's Patent Smoke-Stack" created a sensation on the safe arrival of the vessel in 

 San Francisco, and was inspected by hundreds of visitors. The little steamer had ploughed 

 through 10,000 miles of water that season. She was immediately taken to one of the 

 wharfs, and entirely remodelled. The sides were slightly raised, and a ward-room and aft- 

 cabin, handsomely fitted in yacht-fashion, took the place of the house on deck. It was 

 roofed or decked at top in such a manner that the heaviest seas could wash over the 

 vessel without doing the slightest injury, and she afterwards made two voyages, going 

 over a distance of 20,000 miles. Poor old Wright ! She went to the bottom at last, with 

 all her crew and passengers, some years later, off Cape Mattery, at the entrance of the 

 Straits of Fuca, and scarcely a vestige of her was ever found. 



And now, retracing our steps en route for the Australian station, let us call at one 

 of the most important of England's settlements, which has been termed the Liverpool of 

 the East. Singapore consists of an island twenty-five miles long and fifteen or so broad, 

 lying off the south extremity of Malacca, and having a city of the same name on its 

 southern side. The surface is very level, the highest elevation being only 520 feet. In 

 1818, Sir Stamford Raffles found it an island covered with virgin forests and dense jungles, 

 with a miserable population on its creeks and rivers of fishermen and pirates. It has 

 now a population of about 100,000, of which Chinese number more than half. In 1819 

 the British flag was hoisted over the new settlement ; but it took five years on the part 

 of Mr. Crawford, the diplomatic representative of Great Britain, to negotiate terms with 

 its then owner, the Sultan of Johore, whereby for a heavy yearly payment it was, with 

 all the islands within ten miles of the coast, given up with absolute possession to the 

 Honourable East India Company. Since that period, its history has been one of unexampled 

 prosperity. It is a free port, the revenue being raised entirely from imports on opium 

 and spirits. Its prosperity as a commercial port is due to the fact that it is an entrepot 

 for the whole trade of the Malayan Archipelago, the Eastern Archipelago, Cochin China, 



