Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1890-07-12
A HEROINE OF SIXTEEN.
The Extraordinary Swim from the
Quetta.
do in

The Extraordinary Swim from the
Quetta.
L. T. Meade in Woman
In the history of this century there
has, perhaps, never been known an in
stance of greater courage, endurance
and pluck than that shown by Emily
Lacy, young girl under Is years of
age, at the time of the wreck of the
Quetta. AS Miss Lacy is related to
some personal friends of my own, |
have asked permission to publish few
more particulars about her. She and
her younger sister, aged Is, were COM
ing to England to complete their edu
cation. When the crash came Emily
Immediately rushed to the cabin to try
and rescue her younger sister, and the
two succeeded in reaching the deck,
where, however, they were at once
separated; and they never met after
sci was going down a gentleman in
whose care the girls were said to her:
"You look after yourself and | will
take care of May" Both this gentle
man. however, and the little sister were
drowned.
"When we got aft" she writes, ''the
ship suddenly went down, and as | was
drinking in the salt water [ thought |
was going to be drowned. But | came
up again and was surrounded by Gin
galese and sheep. | felt myself being
pressed down by them it was terrible.
Then | saw a raft a short distance out,
and was dragged on to it by the purser,
who was very kind to me. We were at
tached to a bigger raft, crowded with
Cingalese. When we got away some
1ictor no
noisy, we cut our raft adrift and [ re-
manned on her with the purser for a
long time, till we were, as / thought,
two miles from the shore; and, as he
told me that he could not SWIM | left
him and swan for the shore, but / did
not reach it, as it was SO far away. |
went on swimming toward the land
and saw another raft on which were
two Cingalese, to which I made my
way and got to it; but as they were very
rude and excited, and [ thought they
might be drunk, I left it and took to
swimming again"
When lifted out of the water she
could not have kept up for another half
hour. She was quite without clothes,
and burned nearly black with tine sun.
Before lifting her out of the water a
sailor threw his jacket over her, and
then laid her tenderl y in the bottom of
the boat. For twenty consecutive
hours she had been swimming and
floating, sometimes on her back, some
times on her side. She spoke of the
heat as so intense that she had continu-
ally to keep her head under water to
escape sunstroke. She says that she
had never any conscious fear Of death,
either from drowning, or from a worse
or more terrible enemy, sharks, but
she often felt her powers of endurance
giving way, and it was only the thought
of the agony her death would have
caused her parents which enabled the
heroic girl to continue her exertions.
The wreck took place at P. NJ. on Fri
day, February IS, and Miss Lacy was
not rescued until s o'clock on Sunday
morning. Twelve hours out of that
time she spent with the chief officer
Grey, who had got on a raft. AS he
could not swim the brave girl swan by
the side of the raft and tried to tow it
toward land. Finding, however, that
she was making no progress, she left
him, hoping to reach land, which did
not seem far away, and SO get food and
water for herself and him. She soon,
however, got into cross currents, and
when the Albatross rescued her she was
drifting out to sea. Miss Lacy is now
recovering from the fearful shock she
has undergonesand has before now re-
turned to her home. She expressed a
great dread of going again on the water,
and it is scarcely likely that the intrepid
girl will ever visit England.