struction would be certain. The bark came gallantly in until she
was only half a mile distant from the lighthouse, and then grounded
heavily in about seven feet of water. As soon as she struck she began
pounding with tremendous violence against the bottom while the seas
broke in great white clouds of spray entirely over her quarter-deck.
It did not seem probable, that she would live through the night. As
the tide rose, however, she drove farther and farther in toward the
mouth of the river until, at full flood, she was only a quarter of
a mile distant. Being a very strongly built ship, she suffered less
damage than we had supposed, and, as the tide ran out, she lay high
and dry on the bar, with no more serious injury than the loss of her
false keel and a few sections of her copper sheathing.

As she was lying on her beam-ends, with her deck careened at an angle
of forty-five degrees, it was impossible to hoist anything out of her
hold, but we made preparations at once to discharge her cargo in boats
as soon as another tide should raise her into an upright position.
We felt little hope of being able to save the ship, but it was
all-important that her cargo should be discharged before she should go
to pieces. Captain Tobezin, of the Russian steamer _Saghalin_, offered
us the use of all his boats and the assistance of his crew, and on the
following day we began work with six or seven boats, a large lighter,
and about fifty men. The sea still continued to run very high; the
bark recommenced her pounding against the bottom; the lighter swamped
and sank with a full load about a hundred yards from shore, and a
miscellaneous assortment of boxes, crates, and flour-barrels went
swimming up the river with the tide. Notwithstanding all these
misfortunes, we kept perseveringly at work with the boats as long as
there was water enough around the bark to float them, and by the time
the tide ran out we could congratulate ourselves upon having saved
provisions enough to insure us against starvation, even though the
ship should go to pieces that night. On the 25th, the wind abated
somewhat in violence, the sea went down, and as the bark did not seem
to be seriously injured we began to entertain some hope of saving both
ship and cargo. From the 25th until the 29th of September, all the
boats of the _Saghalin_ and of the _Palmetto_, with the crews of both
vessels, were constantly engaged in transporting stores from the bark
to the shore, an