National opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1865-1874, 1873-04-18
APPEARANCE OF THE DEAD.

APPEARANCE OF THE DEAD.
A feeling deeper than reverental awe,
a sensation as might be experienced by
one standing on the threshold of death,
chilled to the very marrow the bones of
the looker-on, and it was with slow step
and hali-averted glance that the cleaner
of news approached this solemn assem-
bly,. Then what a sight met the eye !
There, on the brow OF that rocky island,
partly on the stone, partly on the grassy
earth, wet with last nights rain and cut
up by brown patches of moss, lay the
aged and the young, the strong and the
feeble, equalized at last by the blow
that fell SO suddenly on them. Ay !!
man, woman and child had been alike
swallo wed up by the greedy deep. Side
by side lay they, some of whose faces
bore the imprint of that peace so much
spoken of others were set resolutely,
as if the last thought of the living crea-
ture had been duty and others again
revealed nothing of the final emotions
that must have crowded the few fast
passing minutes that elapsed ere eterni-
ty opened up before them.
PICTURE OF THE CORpSEs
The dead lay in all positions, too
half recumbent, stiffened by death, and
icy cold wildly agitated, as if the
struggle had been long and bitter easy
and natural, making one almost believe
that no agony had been suffered by the
departed defensive, as if resisting the
butleting of the maddened waves on the
horrid still night on the bare cliffs in
all stages of dress, from the well-to-do
emlgrant with his clothes all on, evil
dencing his habits, to the weary sailor
just relieved from his watch, who had
turned in, clad in wet garments women,
whose dresses had been torn to rags by
the action of the breakers children as
they might have been in their beds
but one and all carefully and reveren-
TALLY covered where mutilation disfg-
rred the form, for, alas the work of |
rescue needs bold and INSCRIPTIONS
hand, and the floating body must be |
GATED as it washes by, and, no matter |
where the sharp hook strikes, whether
on face or neck or body, it cuts and |
tears frightfully. Some corpses had |
been so terribly lacerated that sail cloth |
had been used to cover up the features
and limbs which love itself could no
longer recognize. Hands, arms, feet
and legs that were bare were seen
around, and all were bleacbed and
shrunken horribly.
DEATH APPEARS LIFE LIKE.
Faces were discolored and blotched
red, green-yea, all manner of hideous
colors and, again, there were those fair
md rosy as in life. Gazing upon some
IF these forms one would have sworn
hey slept, and so strong was the illu-
SION that in stepping by them the step
vas light, for fear of waking those who
never will wake until the sound of the
last trump"
In this awful array of bodIes two faces
truck the behOlder with undisguised
horror ; one, that of a man, whose out
tretched arms lent additional force to
he wild expression of the widely dis
ended eyes. These glared so intensely
hat their fixed look of despair was a
orce unequalled by any save that of
emale body, and then, indeed. was the
gony of death met angrily. fiercely, fu-
iously, depicted with startling vivid
less on rigid lineaments and firm-set
RAYLANcE's STATEMENT. !
Quartermaster Charles Raylance says:
bout twenty minutes past three o'clock t
hove the log, and the ship at that '
Ime was going at the rate of twelve {
nots an hour. l went into the aft |
and was looking through a
ne of the windows, when / fancied | /
aw breakers on the starboard side. / !
hen ran forward to the lookout man on a
ne bridge, and l asked him if he did not
link there we're breakers on the star /
GARD side. He reported to the second
fiicer. who telegraphed to the engine
'om to reverse the engine full speed A
stern. We both then jumped off the e
ridge together on to the deck. Then v