The Portland daily press., 1871-01-28

ltlt sharp DuTu OH uty uOSe-tudt Wao o.
The soup had been blown clean out OF the ba
sin. which was as dry and empty as if it had
just been washed, and there was no more
soup to he had. The poor little steward mad
been trying caution me against this very |
misfortune but could not hear him. When. |
ever the CAPTAIN wanted to give an order he |
beloved it through his speaking trumpet, and |
even then il could hardly be heard if the sail |
ors were lew yards off. He came up to me
and shouted in my ear, " You had better go be-
low, and don't come up here again." / was
very humble and wretched, SO nodded. but
thought to myself "How am to get down? l
can unite myself, and if could, how is it
possible to crawl to the top Of the companion
iaddef? However, the waves soon settled
mat question for me by breaking once more
over the ship, tearing my chair away from1 its
iashings, and foating it and me long way
down the deck. AT one time / thought l
should havesbeen washed overheard ,and so did
those who saw me, but fortunately, at the
most critical moment the water ran out of
the scuppers and the ch,.ir and l dropped
heavily down on the deck. l saw two or
three sailors coming toward me as well as
they could, out they had quite enough to do,
poor fellows, without looking after lady pas
sengers, so managed to creep out OF my
many shawl wraps, and crawled to the head
of the ompanion-ladder, and so down to my
cabin, where L lay on a mattress extremely
miserable. l was wet through, and it was
quite impossible to get any dry things out of
my boxes, for they were jammed up in cor
ner under the berth, and fastened in by
board to keep them from sliding out of their
places. felt violent pain in my chest and
no wonder, for the pin of my brooch had been
driven about half an inch into it, and then
broken Off; painful business it was to get
that piece OF pin out!
I'm THE CABINS.
can assure you that time passed heavily
down below. All the skylights were fastened
securely up, SO were the strong shutters Tor
dead lights" as they are called to the tcabin
PORTFOLIOS, and we were in vtter darkness,
except from a glimmer of an oil lamp in the
passage. Most of the passengers left their
cabins and preferred to lie on mattresses in
this sort of long corridor, suppose for the
sake of company, but they looked very
wretched; some were groaning, some were
crying, some were praying, all were Brighten
ed, as well they might be! The heat and close
smell of the crowded saloon and passage were
quite overpowering, and [ preferred remain
ing in my own cabin on the floor, crawling
out on my hands and knees once or twice
day to get little biscuit and claret; there
was nothing else to be had
Upon one OF these excursions discovered
that the most constant and piercing of all the
shrieks came from an old French lady. who
yeked at the top of her voice every time the
ship lurched more heavily than usual, but the
instant she righted again, before giving anoth-
er roll, madam regained her composure, and
her elegant manners, and turning with a
smile to her fellow sufferers, observed in ex-
cellent French, "eXcuse me, bat such mo-
ments as these are so embarrassingw Scarce.
| ly had she finished her little apology than the
| ship lurched again and she set up a still loud
er scream than before.
At last Christmas day dawned upon us, but
what a contrast to our previous happy ones,
| for which we all felt we had not been half
thankful enoueh! thought if nv own dear
little boys could have seen their mothers stu
alton, how shocked they would have been. 1
pictured them to myself in their lovely Eng
lish country home, thinking and talking of
me on that day, and saying, mamma is safe
on shore now" And there was I. and some
three hundred souls besides, tossing about in
a water-logged vessel, without masts, without
a rudder, steering by some sort of rude con.
| triyance, with broken engines and with the
pumps going day and night to keep us afloat.
| The sky had not cleared for one brief instant
| during all these weary days to allow us to
take an observation and find out where we
were, and we could not see yard before us.
The gale showed signs of abating, or we were
blundering out of its circle; but the sea was
running mountains high. All through the
day and night we could hear the dry hoarse
cry of Breakers ahead"! or else "Breakers on
the port bow or else Breakers on the star
| board bow' according to the way we help
lessly turned, hoping to find way out of our
| difficulties. We could now hear the loud
shouts of the sailors, for the wind was moder-
ating good deal, though the weather was
just as thi *. Our provisions were running
very short; for many days the supply of bis
cult had been exhausted, and we were thank
full for whatever odds and ends the purser and
his assistants could fish up out of the store
room, but as that was half full of water al
most everything in it was spoiled.
Christmas day was sad enough and dismal
enough, but Christmas night was worse. Ey-
er since the beginning of the storm no one
hadlbeen able to sleep on account of the in
cessant uproar of the winds and waves, to
which was added an equally terrible creaking
and stralning of the vessels timbers, Min
gled with these sounds were shouts, screams,
and at first constant crashing of glass and
| china; but very soon that came to an end, for
| the last of our plates and dishes were reduced
| to fragments, only fit to be thrown overheard
And here I must tell you that in the worst
| part of the cyclone some of the passengers
actually held a meeting, all the members
squatting on the cabin floor, and passed with
great formality and gravity many votes OF
condemnation; among others, one upon the
unhappy carpenter for not making a box bic
enough to hold all the glass and china in the
ship, so as to prevent its being broken! Poor
man! he had quite enough to do to tinker up
the ship, without looking after the glass or
CHINA; he was in constant requisition, and
the last l saw of him was lying huddled up in
| sort OF recess under the companion ladder.
having had his foot frightfully crushed when
ne was down in the hold, trying to keep the
cargo within bounds However, to return to
| that Christmas night. Everything was in the
| same state as usual-that is, we were in hour
| ly expectation of the ship either laundering
| or going to pieces on rock; and yet many OF
| us were doing, quite worn out with nearly a
fortnight OF sleeplessness, excitement, hunger
| and misery,
was lying on mattress on my cabin
floor, and in that next to mine were a lady
and her two grown up daughters. They had
been very quiet and composed all through
these trying days, and often congratulated
myself on having such good neighbors. 1t was
therefore, the more alarming to hear on
Christmas night the most piercing shreks
from their cabin preceded however. by a
crashing sound. 1 felt sure there was really
something the matter, and sprang up to
try to get to their assistance: Before could
make my way from my cabin to theirs, the
screams had been supplemented by wild yells
from the rest of the passengers, who shouted
out every conceivable variety of bad, not to
say impossible, news, "We've struck on a
rock" "Theres hole in Mrs. C's cabin, and
all the water is coming in.' "The ship is
breaking up" &c. 1 saw the most excited
gentlemen climbing up on the cuddy table,
and trying to pry open the skylight, so as to
escape to the deI'..; fortunately they did not
succeed in their absurd attempts, or we
should have had the next sea down upon us,
to add to our misery. Others were struggling
and fighting towards the companion ladder to
get up that way.
Amid all this din reached poor Mrs. CPS
cabin, where the doctor had already arrived
The truth was bad enough, without these
false reports of evil. Mrs. C. managed to
wedge herself into her berth by pillows, pre-
ierring that to mattress on the floor: above
her s'eeping-place was heavy sort of locker,
about the size and shape of half a chest of
drawers; this was secured by large iron
clamps to the side of the ship, but the inces.
SAINT rolling and straining had 50 loosened its
fastenDgs that 4One lurch heavier than the
others opened the planks wide enough to allow
the great screws and nails to give way, and
the heavy mass fell down, but the ship was
heellng over so much that, instead of falling
on Mrs. c., who was just beneath it, the lock-
er only struck her one blow as it rolled over
on the floor. That blow, however, shattered
her arm, besides breaking her collar bore in
two places. 1t was her daughters shrieks we
had heard, for the poor lady herself was quite |
lnsensible. The doctor was nearly in despair;
here was most critical and delicate suruicai