268 



THE SEA. 



All the boats, however, except two, were swept away by the sea before they could be 

 lowered, many perishing with them, and one was crushed by the funnel falling- on it. The 

 ship held together for several hours, and had there been any means of making their hope- 

 less condition known at St. Mary's, the chief of the Scilly Islands, a steamer, and a first- 

 class lifeboat* belonging to the National Lifeboat Institution, might have arrived in time 

 to save a large number of lives. Such, however, was not to be, and when the mornino- 

 dawned all that remained of the crew and passengers who, a few hours before, had been 

 looking forward to happy meetings in the Fatherland with fathers, mother, sisters, brothers, 



ISLANDS. 



and friends at home, were those who had succeeded in mounting the rigging of the fore 

 and main masts, and a few others in the half-swamped boat, the only one which had 

 been safely lowered. The women and children who had crowded the deck-houses and 

 saloon, and the male passengers and those of the crew who were on the upper deck or the 

 bridge, had perished. Alarm-guns were fired and signal lights thrown up continually, 

 until the seas breaking over the ship prevented such efforts attracting attention; and some 

 of the former were heard on the islands, but as steamers from America had been in tht 

 habit of firing guns to mark their arrival off the islands, they were not supposed to 

 danger signals. It is said, however, that at St. Agnes, the nearest island to the wreck, 

 the guns were believed to be from a vessel in distress, but the fog was so thick that boats 

 were afraid to venture out. 



The mainmast fell at about seven o'clock in the morning, and the foremast an houi 



* Vide The Life-boat; or, Journal of the National Life-boat Institution. August 2, 1875. 



