Australian Tales - Setis

wheel, in this frightfully heavy sea, might broach us to, and send this
stately ship and her gallant crew, with her tons of gold, and her forty
sleeping passengers, to the rocky caves below;” and as I turned into my
warm cot, how much I sympathized with those poor fellows on deck!
— how much I felt indebted to sailors! Doubtless many of my readers
have felt in a similar way.
I have also seen a ship trembling like a terrified steed, as she rushed
before the fury of a tornado, and while some of the sails, which had been
blown from the gaskets, were flying in ribbons, and making a noise like a
hundred stockwhips; and while the strong masts bent before the blast,
like bulrushes; I have seen a sailor, with an axe in his hand, lay out on
the main yardarm, and cut away the chain topsailsheet, which had got
foul, while other equally brave men, at the imminent risk of their lives
and limbs, cut the flapping sails from the yards. Such feats of daring
deserved something more than coarse fare and four pounds a month.
And I have been on board a steamer, off the Australian coast, when I
would have gladly given a year's income to have been safe on shore.
When the green seas were tumbling over the vessel, and carrying away
chain boxes, and everything moveable, from the decks — when blue
lightning played dangerously about the masts and funnel, and the pealing
thunder was heard above the roaring of the wind and waves — when the
captain and his officers were eagerly looking for Sydney lighthouse
through the thick rain and darkness — and when many of the sea-sick
passengers below were fearing they would never see that welcome light
again. How much I felt indebted to sailors then!
By the way, I remember on one occasion, while lying wind-bound in a
northern port, hearing several wealthy colonists — at a dinner table
— describe a fearful night they had passed in a favourite coasting
steamer, during an easterly gale. They stated that the captain kept on the
bridge during the whole of that protracted passage, exposed to the full
force of the storm; and on their arrival at Sydney the next day, he had to
be carried below, and put to bed, being completely exhausted. I heard
those gentlemen confess that they owed their lives, on that awful night,
to the watchfulness and skilful seamanship of the captain, aided, of
course, by his officers and crew. But whether those wealthy colonists
ever acknowledged their obligations in any more tangible shape, I am not
aware.
As I write, I have harrowing reminiscences of my visit to the ill-fated
Orpheus, at the invitation of a beloved friend, a promising young officer
(and a true Christian), who perished at his post, in the sad wreck on
Manakau Bar, on the 7th February, 1863.
I inspected nearly every part of that noble steamship, which then lay at
anchor in Farm Cove — and as I walked round her decks, I could not but
he struck with the healthy and cheerful appearance of her crew. A finer