258 THE SEA. 



instructed to do), they would get, at most, a sum of sevenpence per man for their night's 

 work; and if they brought merely the property to the proper authorities, they were abused 

 for their inhumanity; and that, therefore, their only alternative was to pass the bodies by, 

 and attend to their own work. Should the view that I have here stated be found to 

 a general one, I think that it will be allowed that it is an argument for either paying 

 more highly for the finding of bodies at sea, or allowing the finders the same salvage upoi 

 the property found upon the bodies that they would have received had the property been pickt 

 up in a chest." 



Pleasant it is to turn from what we may well believe is only an occasional example of 

 want of feeling to such a case as the following one out of thousands that might be cited. It 

 is slightly abridged from a little publication * which should be in the hands of all readers of 

 " The Sea " interested in benevolent efforts for the seaman's welfare. 



Some twelve miles westward from Tramore a favourite watering-place and summer resort 

 for the citizens of Waterford, and nearly half a mile from the coast a farm is situated which 

 has been long occupied by John Ronayne, a hardy and typical Irish farmer. The farm-house 

 has few of the necessaries and none of the luxuries of civilised life, it is a true type of the 

 poor class of farm-houses in many parts of Ireland, consisting of but two rooms one the sleep- 

 ing apartment, where Ronayne's family of twelve children have been born, and the other the 

 living-room, where it is to be suspected sundry four-footed friends occasionally find their way, 

 and bask or grunt before the fire. Rather less than half a mile from the farm is the rugg 

 shore, approached by a rough "boreen," or narrow lane, emerging on the cliff near the course of 

 stream, which is a roaring foaming torrent in winter and spring-time. On winter days anc 

 nights, brown and turbulent, this stream rushes foaming into the ocean over crags and rod 

 and pebbly shore ; but before it joins its fresh water with the salt sea foam, it plunges into 

 crevice, narrow and deep and deadly. Every coastman along the rock-bound shore knows this 

 deep, treacherous hole, and warns the traveller to beware of it for, once in it, there is no return. 

 But this source of peril is little enough to that which is beyond. 



A hundred yards or so from the cove into which this impetuous torrent pours frown two 

 massive ridges of rock, offering to any venturesome ships attempting to run between theii 

 threatening sides destruction on either hand, while only some dozen yards of foaming breakei 

 separate the one from the other. Skilful must be the steersman, and bold the skipper, whc 

 would dare the narrow channel, even though the only one by which they might hope to beact 

 their sinking ship. And yet, on one fearful night in January, 1875, a large vessel, tl 

 Gwenusa, bound from Falmouth to Glasgow, and new but a few weeks before, successful]] 

 accomplished the dangerous passage. Not that any skill was shown, for none on the doom* 

 ship, knew of their proximity to rocks or shore, but, driving blindly on before the full fur 

 of the gale, by chance were brought safely through. But in another instant the 

 struck the rocky shore, and in a moment was shattered to pieces, timbers and tackle, car 

 and living freight, being thrown, scattered and helpless, into the angry surf. Escaping, as 

 a miracle, the rocky dangers of Charybdis, the good ship Gwenissa had been hurled upoi 

 Scylla, and her doom sealed. 



* The Shipwrecked Mariner. A Quarterly Maritime Journal. Vol. XXII. 1875. (Organ of the " Shipwrecke 

 Mariner's Society.") The article is from the pen of Lindon Saunders, Esq. 



