UPS AND DOWNS 
but the tremendous seas denied the crew all access to 
the forward part of the vessel, where the store of fresh 
water was kept, and for five days they had nothing to 
drink but the dish-water which had been left in the 
cook’s galley. Strangely enough, there was only one 
very serious casualty, the second mate being disabled 
by an accident to his knee. The captain told me that 
during the worst of the storm they were continually 
under water; the seas seemed to strike them simul- 
taneously at bow, stern, port, and starboard, and at 
times seemed to descend even from the heavens. How 
terrible the force of the tempest must have been was 
proved by the fact that the great steel masts of the 
vessel, six feet in circumference, had all gone over 
the side. 
Although thus disabled herself, however, the W. C. 
Watjen was enabled to play good Samaritan to a 
smaller German vessel in a like plight, and took up 
her crew and brought them safely to Hall Sound. 
All the bulwarks were carried away, iron plates one- 
eighth of an inch thick were peeled from the sides of 
the ship, and crumpled up like paper by the force of 
the wind and sea. After the fifth day the captain was 
able to take an observation, and, by the help of an 
old chart, he concluded that New Guinea must be his 
nearest land. Crippled as he was, he endeavoured to 
make for Yule Island, where his chart, which was in- 
complete, told him there was a mission station, and, 
curiously enough, he was quite close to his desired 
haven when he was discovered and towed in by the 
Moresby after seventy-six days’ stress. Had the vessel 
drifted farther west, she must have gone on the reefs, 
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