HOW A "KILMARNOCK BURNS" WAS LOST ON THE ABROLHOS REEF.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Sia,—Although I cannot, from my own experience, quote an instance of devotion to a literary ideal equal to that which your correspondent has given us in the case of " The Rescue of Elizabeth Bennet," I do personally know that one Presbyterian minister was willing to risk his own life and those of his ship- wrecked companions in order to save his copy of the Kilmarnock edition of Burns. In the year 1886 the Royal Mail Steam Packet '
Guadiana' struck the Abrolhos reef and tore the bottom out of herself. Captain Hanalip kept the engine-room telegraph on the bridge at " full-speed ahead," hoping to hold her on the reef while we lowered the boats and got the passengers, mails. and specie away. I was in charge of one of the cutters lying clear of the wreck laden with passengers, expecting every moment her engines would. fail ,and she would slip off the reef and sink. Suddenly from the gunwale of my boat the minister (who had joined us at Rio Janeiro) arose and begged me to put him alongside again, so that he could save his Kilmarnock copy which, as he explained, he had left in his berth. My refusal exasperated him. He appealed to the boat's crew and his fellow-passengers. Alas! they did not understand: there was not another Scot in the boat. Had there been I verily believe I should have been suppressed; but then that precious Kilmar- nock copy might have been nestling to-clay on some British
Previous page
