chief officer.
Mr. Rogers, who was third mate, replied that he had gone aloft to see
how matters stood with them. The captain, sorely distressed on account
of his daughters, took a calm and lengthy survey, to see if any chance
might present itself to him for their safety; but all he could discover
before him was an extensive front of perpendicular rock, so he and the
third officer returned, to prepare the ladies for the worst. The
captain, drawing his daughters to him, held them firmly in each arm,
and thus together they went down, and so death found them! The third
officer, a midshipman, and one of the passengers, determined, at any
risk, to leave the ship, as they were well aware that to remain in her
was inevitably to perish. Accordingly they hastened on to the poop. A
moment later, and they must have been swept away by a gigantic wave,
that reared itself over the vessel, and which half-drowned, in the
noise of its descent, the screams that rose from the cabin below. A
hencoop, which had been grasped by a couple of passengers, landed them
in an exhausted condition upon a rock. Mr. Schutz and the midshipman
had both disappeared. Twenty-seven men gained access to a rock, but
seeing that, as the tide flowed, they would stand in danger of being
swept off, they strove to make for the cavern, but all, except eight,
were drowned in the attempt. Messrs. Rogers and Brimer, who were among
the number, succeeded in approaching the cavern, and ensconced
themselves on shelving ledges worn by the action of the sea; and this
fearful situation they were compelled to retain, witnessing the
fruitless and violent efforts of their expiring companions, while their
ears were filled with their stifled cries. Mr. Rogers saw Mr. Meriton
on the rock, a few feet from himself, and they congratulated one
another upon their escape, and together watched the final plump of the
"Halsewell" into the depths of the ocean. A distressing fact was, that
some of the men, even at the moment when succour was near, unable to
hold out any longer, were precipitated into the sea. Owing to the
brave and humane conduct of the quarrymen, those who had survived were
placed in comfortable quarters before night; but these were a small
minority of those who started gaily out in that ill-fated ship.

On the 26th February, 1852, the "Birkenhead" went down off the Cape of
Good Hope, carrying with her four hundred and thirty-eight souls. The
noble example of ou