News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-03-13
SMELLING THE LAND.
The Narrow Escape of CunsrdOr Twenty
Years Ago.

In the summer of 1867, says news
paper correspondent, took passage in
the China, of the Cunard line, for Liver
pool. We had very dismal run across
the Atlantic, rain alternating with thick
fog for twelve days, the ship rolling in
cessantly, and every night becoming
new horror in the constantly increasing
fear that something would happen to the
steamer. Fastnet Light, off the coast
of Ireland, was seen for a few minutes
during a fog-Iift ON the evening of the
thirteenth day, and the captain told us,
one and all, that our wretched passage
would soon be over.
The night that followed was densely
black and very stormy, but the ship was
under full sail, and was driven through
tremendous seas with all steam on. I
turned in about ten o'clock and slept,
should say, two hours, when an ire
sistible-and to this day unaccountable
Influence compelled me to get up and
dress myself. The ship rolled fearfully,
but l managed to reach the deck and to
grope my way, hand over hand, by the
deck railing to the smoke pipe, where L
stood few minutes thoroughly ap-
palled at the blackness of the night and
the mad plunging of the vessel.
Suddenly this terrific cry came up
from the deck below me 'fGod Al
mighty help us we're gong ashore.
Put the ship about" family saw the
white waving of an arm in a shirt sleeve,
and the next minute was thrown from
my feet by the sudden change of the
ships course brought about by an
officers telegram to the wheelhouse.
Everything was in instant confusion,
not bettered by the fact that the dark
rocks of the Irish coast were plainly visi.
BILE to many of the frightened passen-
gers. The ship shook like reed in the
fierce wind that blew, for every sail was
aback and headway seemed utterly i'm
possible to make. 1t was long time
before the vessel answered her helm,
and nothing but the naval discipline of
the sailors saved the China from becom-
ing a total wreck.
L may mention here that the captain
of the ship Three Bells-the savior of
the San Francisco's passengers after she
was dismasted-was with us, and he as
sured us that in all his long life as a
sailor he never had so narrow an escape
from instant death. The ship was nearly
upon the rocks and at the rate she was
going she would have smashed herself
to pieces in very short time.
After breakfast the next day some one
said: "Let us have up the man who
gave the alarm;" for we had learned
that the man I saw at midnight was
steerage passenger; and soon he ap-
peared among us, a gray-haired son of
the sea, seventy years of age, or there
about, who modestly said to us as we
gathered about him: Good friends,
give thanks to God, and do not praise
me. 1 only smelled the land growing
nearer and nearer, and was but His
humble instrument to save you"
The fact is we were drawn in some
mysterious manner eight miles out of
our course. The captain was widely
censured by the London papers and has
never been seen, so 1 have heard, upon
the ocean since. Possibly the magnet
ism of the land or the effect OF the iron
and steel in the ships construction, or
some powerful element of the stormy at
mosphere, produced a deviation of the
,,aadla of 4ba oOnnposs apd ToarhaOa
counter currents or other contrary forces
of resistless tides made the great ship
plaything for the treacherous sea.