United States or Moldova ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I, William Henry Hayes, master and owner of the brig Leonora, of Shanghai, hereby notify all and sundry that the barque Agostino Rombo, of Leghorn, as she now lies on this reef, has been purchased by me from Captain Pasquale Lucchesi, and any person attempting to remove any of her deck-houses, spars, anchors, or cables, or certain nickel ore in the lower hold, are liable to be indicted for piracy.
In accordance with Williams' plans the Flying Cloud's cargo was in due time discharged and warehoused on shore in the newly-built stores; the ship herself stripped, hove down, scrubbed, and re-painted from her keel up; her interior re-arranged particularly the forecastle, which was extended sufficiently to accommodate a hundred men; the upper spars replaced by new ones, somewhat higher in the hoist, cut on the island; her canvas altered to fit the new spars, skysails being abolished as causing more trouble than they were worth; the running-gear re-arranged; the deck-houses, with the exception of the poop, swept away; the bulwarks strengthened and pierced; the breech-loading guns, twelve in number, mounted on carriages and placed in position; and, generally, the ship made to look as much like a man-of-war as possible, though she as much resembled the old-fashioned sailing sloop which then still performed duty on our more distant stations as a swan does a goose, her sailing powers far exceeding those of the fastest of them, whilst Williams' metamorphosis of her only had the effect of imparting to her an extremely rakish and wicked appearance.
We got in a cluster like bees, sitting between each other's feet under lee of the deck-houses. Stories and laughter went around. The children climbed about the shrouds. White faces appeared for the first time, and began to take on colour from the wind. I was kept hard at work making cigarettes for one amateur after another, and my less than moderate skill was heartily admired.
There were West River small craft with arched deck-houses, which had beaten their way precariously far up and down the coast; tall, narrow sails from the north, and web-peaked sails on curved yards from the south; Hainan and Kwangtung trawlers working upstream with staysails set, and a few storm-tossed craft with great holes gaping between their battens.
The wreck appeared to be fully as large as he had supposed; and he was agreeably surprised to find, on investigation, that she had not received nearly so much damage as he had anticipated, indeed her injuries seemed to be confined almost entirely to the loss of her masts, bulwarks, and deck-houses. The cabin had been on deck; but this was swept away.
When she was nearly clear, her two great guns were fired almost simultaneously, and, as the shells swept along the deck of the cruiser, they carried men and masts and deck-houses with them, in one devilish confusion of wreckage and of death. To such an onslaught there was no answer.
Certainly, seen from the shore, the old Britannia was a singularly pleasing object to the eye, with her clipper bows, the graceful curve of her sheer, and the beautiful lines of her low hull unbroken by any deck-houses or top-hamper.
The other boats filled as soon as they touched the water. There was no help for us in that way, and again we withdrew to the cabins. A little before five o'clock in the afternoon a huge sea swept over the vessel, clearing the decks fore and aft, and leaving little but the uprights of the deck-houses standing.
The castaways lashed the four wrecks together; they built deck-houses and protections so as to make themselves as comfortable as possible, and for a whole year Columbus and his men lived there at Sir Christopher's Cove on the beautiful island of Jamaica. It proved anything but beautiful for them, however.
First there is the dining-saloon, with cabins all round it; above is the drawing-room, with more cabins; then above that is the hurricane deck, with numerous deck-houses for the captain and officers; and then, towering above all, there is the large beam-engine right between the paddle-boxes.
Word Of The Day