WKECK OF THE "AMAZON." 279 



and she passed rapidly through the water. But it is necessary, in order to make clear what 

 follows, to describe the position of her engines and boats. 



" The engine-room was about the middle of the vessel, having sixteen boilers eight 

 in the forward and as many in the after part. There were, consequently, two funnels : 

 one about midships, the other immediately behind the foremast. In those vessels which 

 have but one set of boilers and one funnel these are placed in the after part of the engine- 

 room, while the store-room, containing tallow, oil, and other inflammable materials, is 

 placed forward. But the Amazon having boilers at both ends, it happened that the floor 

 of the store-room rested directly on the wood casing that surrounded the upper part or 

 steam-chest of the forward boilers. 



" Then, with regard to the boats : most of the older vessels have life-boats resting, 

 bottom up, on the top of the paddle-boxes, according to a plan much approved in the navy, 

 and the smaller boats swing suspended over the water, from two curved iron props, or 

 davits, as they are technically termed, by ropes that, running through a pulley, enable 

 men seated in the boats to lower themselves from the ship's side to the water, when the 

 hooks by which the tackle is attached to the boats may at once be cast off. But as it 

 would be inconvenient that the boats so hung from the davits should be swinging back- 

 ward and forward with every roll of the ship, ropes are lashed round them and fastened 

 to the bulwark of the vessel, in order to keep them steady. Now, in order to get quit 

 of this latter somewhat clumsy contrivance, as well as to ease the strain of the boat upon 

 the tackling by which it swings, a different mode of fastening was adopted in the Amazon. 

 There were the davits as usual, and the common contrivance for lowering the boats into 

 the water ; but instead of the undergirding ropes or guys, two iron props were introduced, 

 each of which, branching out at the top into two prongs, received in its groove the keel 

 of the boat, in which she sat as in a cradle, thus taking away all strain from the ordinary 

 tackling. This change in the mode of securing the boats had, however, this effect : that, 

 whereas in the former case the boat's crew had but to lower the boat and themselves 

 into the water, by the new mode it became necessary, before they could do that, to hoist 

 the boat* up a few feet till it was got clear of the projecting points of the crutch on which 

 it rested. Of what fatal consequence this necessity was will become too apparent- in the 

 course of the narrative/' 



The machinery was perfectly new, and, as is frequently the case on first trials, became 

 much heated in the bearings : so much so, indeed, that water had to be pumped over them. 

 Whether or not the terrible disaster about to be described resulted from that fact will 

 never be known ; it much more probably occurred from some light being dropped upon 

 the waste, &c., of the oil-room. No neglect of duty was attributed to the engineers, who 

 seem to have been exceptionally careful. 



About a quarter before one o'clock, Sunday, when the ship was about entering the 

 Bay of Biscay, Mr. Treweeke, the second officer, a most promising and practical sailor, 

 being then officer of the watch, was on the bridge. Just before, Duusford, quartermaster, v 

 had gone the rounds to see that the lights were all out, and had reported that all was 

 right; Mr. Treweeke then was on the bridge, and Mr. Dunsford was standing under him 

 to receive orders. Mr. Vincent, one of the midshipmen, was on the quarter-deck ; all was 



