n suddenly the ship STRUCK! A rush upon deck
followed, of course. The men (I mean the crew! think of this) were
kicking off their shoes and throwing off their jackets preparatory to
swimming ashore; the pilot was beside himself; the passengers dismayed;
and everything in the most intolerable confusion and hurry. Breakers
were roaring ahead; the land within a couple of hundred yards; and the
vessel driving upon the surf, although her paddles were worked
backwards, and everything done to stay her course. It is not the custom
of steamers, it seems, to have an anchor ready. An accident occurred in
getting ours over the side; and for half an hour we were throwing up
rockets, burning blue-lights, and firing signals of distress, all of
which remained unanswered, though we were so close to the shore that we
could see the waving branches of the trees. All this time, as we veered
about, a man was heaving the lead every two minutes; the depths of water
constantly decreasing; and nobody self-possessed but Hewitt. They let go
the anchor at last, got out a boat, and sent her ashore with the fourth
officer, the pilot, and four men aboard, to try and find out where we
were. The pilot had no idea; but Hewitt put his little finger upon a
certain part of the chart, and was as confident of the exact spot
(though he had never been there in his life) as if he had lived there
from infancy. The boat's return about an hour afterwards proved him to
be quite right. We had got into a place called the Eastern Passage, in a
sudden fog and through the pilot's folly. We had struck upon a mud-bank,
and driven into a perfect little pond, surrounded by banks and rocks and
shoals of all kinds: the only safe speck in the place. Eased by this
report, and the assurance that the tide was past the ebb, we turned in
at three o'clock in the morning, to lie there all night."

The next day's landing at Halifax, and delivery of the mails, are
sketched in the _Notes_; but not his personal part in what followed:
"Then, sir, comes a breathless man who has been already into the ship
and out again, shouting my name as he tears along. I stop, arm in arm
with the little doctor whom I have taken ashore for oysters. The
breathless man introduces himself as The Speaker of the House of
Assembly; _will_ drag me away to his house; and _will_ have a carriage
and his wife sent down for Kate, who is laid up with a hideously swoln
face. Then he drags me up to the Governor's house (L