It will now perhaps be as well if I go. back to the date of the first in-all we knew. or know fre our side:—On timation reaching Formosa, and tell you the 13th two or three junks came in from the Pescadores reporting the total loss of a large white-painted steamer bound from Shanghai to Hongkong and laden with silk." Many versions were given, some deck that she was a man-of-war; but further investigation, conducted with the greatest care by Mr. Warren, H.M.'s Consul, seemed to prove that what I quote above was the most reliable and generally supported statement. The colour of the steamer and her cargo, facts about which the reporters were very firm, showed us at once that she was a mull-best, and probably either the German mail or one of the Canadian Pacific steamers, most likely the former.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.