KINGS, lad The "China Mail" has the following graphic ' description from its special correspondent at the wreck:—
"Saigon, 12th September.
On all the long line of the East "Coast ia'T doubt if there is a more frowning impressive promontory than Cape the most North-Easterly point on the coast of French' Indo-China Ever gloomy and cloud-ridden, mountain piled on murky'*mouritain, up to five thousand foot it seats, crowitéd: with a great finger of granite-(& fatuous Iand-mark for" mariners): that scores' mysterious" writing "on the roof of the world: And twenty miles to the Southward, some two miles off the dark' coastline," the white breakers spout on'tlie dreaded' reef of the Three Kings reef that, hail'tHe Fates'so willed it, had, on the night'of the sifnth of this mont ti of September, been the scene of as terrible a] known, tragedy as any the China "Seas have rove high as the rail of the' poor, Tastee swell'had risen dangerously, and every sea For -at seven o'clock on the night in She sivang about her centre. sickeninglys. question the fine steamer Tamise, of the and by now a great. rent was -outlining Messageries Maritimes coasting fleet, itself'on her dark side amidships. ~-: And drove -at full-speed high up among the on her decks was pandemonium. - Baggage, crowns.of theee black and wicked pinnacles cases of valuable cargo, native luggage. of to away-there—her bones a maritime won-no'-value at all, iron-clamped - boxes and a scoff—till the end of time. Her specie, bundles of paper umbrellas; bases passengers "had just sat down to dinner of champagne with the ends' knocked out when the-shock came. There was excite-and-a few bottles missing; all: heaped up ment and to spare among them at first igueldy-piggeldy waiting for the chance of but-her ship's company were worthy seabeing save! that the majority was never'to men of la grande nation, the night. was And the creaking of block-and-tackle, deadly calm, and the ship rested without the shrill cries of: the motive: crew, motion'in her rocky cradle 0 in time hoarse, ground-cub oaths; snd ' excited; the excitement subsided, and the night hurried roaring of the "Frenchy sped much as usual; only in the depths of masters and the twelve Marius de the ship s: llow.and weary engineers fought irve'sons of land and ses: they with the rising water, and the craven fears volunteered for servies from' of the native engine-room crew.
Pfand down below—tho pity of it! 'The aasenigers: won, Arsin-washed dawn lit many faces, for sleep had come to but few. The beautiful hand-painted saloon; the fine realm' still, held, but the barometer was music room, with "its noble. grand ~piand ud they were in the very track of that had yielded its joyous strains: to the typhoons: So -all the boats were touch of So-many fair ladies'; the smoke nd.-every preparation made to bar n uch jovial hip. But -tho coast - was -in+ gs; all henceforth to be:"but the hospitable; one, hundred and forty miles hornie of the' fishes. How' small: Nature was their nearest succour; and it may be makes us feel with'all our science in "the well belivved: that the Commander, and all face of such a catastrophe as this! 'Could who knew their. perilous state, prayed for any fisher's coble a be. more' pitiful wreck passing ship. For. there were gently than this fine steamer—the ° greatest con! nurtured women amens the passengers, and stiudtive triumph of our civilibation: little sehildren to whom thie' boat voyage Bot we must back to the coaster, for the would have spelt torture if not death.
To all these straining eyes, then, waking the dark cliffs with hia angry'blests, wary seaman who tas her-ie'chasge out of the lowering North, flying' light, for his friendly barometer'talls his that it ing wil Seas belonged is time to leave that dangerous neighbourier Shantung, hood. All thst weary day with his engines absolutely La in passenger actumpy steamer of the tramp he had kept-his-ship in.position, for the Gifty fathoms of water under his keel forigers, even the of giving these bade the: ides -of anchoring. He had-now all the' passéngets;'rai's; wud ti elements of comfort, they yet took her to part of the baggage; xnd, he knew that to their hearts' with rapture; to them she re-stand by the wrtok! ut hight (greatly, as a Presented safety, and home, and friends seaman, as ho would have liked to stand in. Soon a fluttering string of colour it by the Gommander and crew of the 'Tamise told their distress signal was who hid signified: their intention of stay-changed: her" course" for thet,' and yawl ing by the ship) was. to risk: the valuable ing wildly,. but with' no lives he had then on board. So' when at of hesitation, for "her niaster "had p.m. the "Txmise ' flew' the "signal nown thit const' like A book for twenty yenrs,' she passed to landward, of ther, his engines Full ahvar" with a fervent Proceed on your' voyage!" Hid!rany and''stayed her course' there "where tle "Thank God!" And hig barometer had swell was least. And with little ceremony fallen to 2948, and he was to' be or signalling' the transportation 6f "the justified of his' wisdorh before' morning. passengers was begun, for she very children So, with three long farewell blasts sew from the yloom that lay on land and that wore flung back in weird, soul sea that a storm was-at hand. moaning echoes from that ithospitat Seven boats'of the maitbeamer and two shore the coaster turned short on her keel ind headed down the coast for Saigon, 0 e If ever a more But all eyes on her turned for a last, Wok pitiful and unnerving dbusiressthan tra at the Three "Kings—shapos dark," and shipping" women and childven_ in: ship's proud and scornful—and the' pitiful, thing boats comes the way of'sitiérehant seamen I have yet to® har' of tt: If it of man's handicraft, vHoy, held' captive there' And all hearts thought tenderly, was bad forthe' Tathise's Officers' to get their changes fely "into ths Boats even aye, and sort with a prayer, of the hotest, souls staying there doing what they had with the aid"éf atbpeat crew; what
aod up the. tall side. of th abi with fely out of the: ristigand"fatting craft for shone of the coaster to get them been brought up to believe' ivas théic duty, although ty nothing" more sacred than the Onderwriters, or' a like' soulless' entity, the shareholders of the Messageries onl Maritimes. When last seéxi she: was listed boat-load of livirig*freight wa' without a'slip san. tingent had™béen'idded -to'thd!thappy, if nerve-shaken and-tremulguss crowd-on the coaster's deck. Then came the mails, load after load, till the fore "Teek*betfeath the awnings* was filled with the well-known Reaped-up'ioads of trunk abd: portman. yellow bags: Then' carnie th rage; such
teaux,"and bags, arid tigs dumped into the boats aiyhow—tough. nuts these for the meagre crew of the coaster-to haul up the meaty height of their side" Andothe only a-hand-were the: black -ooatell padres of men among the-passengers she woud gi¥ Frenclr missiin—hovtibre theotetical'Chris-tious thes, may their r-cord of saved souls among the unsavoury Tongking natives be as thie sands of the sea thattased them so scurvily! By three in the afternoon the heavily to port, the sprays wore' flying as high as her main yard, and lier stern" was swaying wildly through an are of thirty degrees. And thit with every' evidence of a typhoon approaching. But' thos on board of her stayed of their'own accord, they had the land under their, leo, they had plenty of good boats, and they were seamen.
Sixty-eight European passengers, eightyeect the ton, filled the roomy decks eight bags of mails, specie, parcel post, an five natives, one hundred a sesealy of the Shantung to the very awnings from_stem to stern, And not in "all that French. ship's company was there man who could speak English; and' not—hardly likely—among'the seven Buitishers was there one who could spéak'Fieiigh. Beds of @ kind were found'for' the tei ladies, but the men had to neck the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.