All who care to read narratives of adventure should study
the account of the wreck of the `Scotsman' on Septem- ber 21st on a little island off the coast of Labrador. It was written by Mr. E. Coleman and corrected by Mr. Maurice Colyer, passengers on board, and is printed in the Times of October 19th. They will see as they read how terrible a thing a shipwreck is, even when rescue ultimately comes, how little the maritime novelists have exaggerated, how deadly is the action of cold, hunger, and fatigue. The sudden waking as the ship struck at 2.30 on that night, the rush on deck, the effort to get off the women, nine of whom were drowned by the capsizing of the first boat, the struggle up the rocky ledge when the boats reached land with fingers all bloody and torn, the suffering from the intolerable cold, the gradual failure of the women and children, the discovery of a lighthouse, and the nine miles march to it made twice over by rock and ravine, some fainting by the way, are all told with that realistic power for which literary men so often strive in vain. The lighthouse once reached, the worst was over ; but food was scarce, the only fire was made by burning bits of old barrels, sleep was scarcely possible for the cold, and altogether few of the three hundred who survived will forget these five days as long as they live. There were no deeds of special heroism, bat all behaved well, the men when wearied out still going out for wearier women, and nobody seems entirely to have lost hope, even after a steamer refused to carry them off, because her Majesty's mails must go on. They were at last rescued by a big cargo boat, the Montfort,' in which the crew put themselves on half-rations that the shipwrecked might be fed.
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