WRECK Of THE STEAMER CHEVIOT.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 257, 1 November 1887, Page 5

WRECK Of THE STEAMER CHEVIOT.

THIRTY-FIVE LIVES LOST.

THE. VESSEL BROKEN UP,

HEARTRENDING SCENES.

Melbourne, September 21. The wreck of the steamer Cheviot at Portsea, which was briefly reported yesterday' was total, and disastrous to life. The Cheviot passed through the Heads on Wednesday evening at about 8 o'clock on

her way to Sydney, while a heavy southwest gale wa3 blowing, which deterred the steamers Wairarapu and Southern Cross from leaving port, An hour afterwards her propeller was carried away by the sea or it dropped off—the stern rose out of the water, one account says, the engines "vacced," and all the blades of the propeller were suddenly stripped off —and the vessel lay helpless on a lee shore with so heavy a gale blowing that her anchors, which were let go to try and save her, ware dragged, An attempt to handle the vessel under canvas also failed. She was tossed about helpless upon the water, and in about an hour the steamer stranded, and soon parted amidships. The fore part broke up, and all the steerage passengers and most of the crew and officers,, who were upon it, perished. A man managed to reach the shore, much cut and bruised by the rocks.

The stern half of the vessel remained just upon the rock until daylight, when the Queensclift' lifeboat crew, assisted by the artillery men at Point Nepean, and some men who were employed at the fort making pits for the new guns, effected the rescue of the saloon passengers and captain by means of the life-saving apparatus brought from the lighthouse at Point Nepean. A rocket attached to a line was fired on board, which made it a comparatively easy matter to employ a hawser to carry a "boatswain's chair ,! between the steamer and the shore. The women were landed first, and then the male passengers wero brought off. The captain, Richardson, was the last man to leave the ship. The shipwrecked people received every kindness at the Portsea quarantine station, which is close to the scene of the wreck, and after they hud been attended to by i)rs Browning and Griffiths they were sent on to Mcl bourne.

Thirty-five lives, chiefly those of sailors, firemen, engineer, and .steerage passengers, were lost, and 24 were saved, 19 being got ashore by the ellbrts of. the rescuers. The shore is thickly strewn with wreckage and cargo from the ill-fated vessel. The cargo seems to have largely consisted of produce. This afternoon when the flood-tide returned again the stern part of the vessel, which still held together resting on the rocks, was irresistibly swept by the south-west gale, which continued with unabated force. The ship was Founded by Breakers

on to a jagged reef, and was quickly split in two. Preparatory to going to pieces, she was for a timo in two parts, and the company on the fore part were divided by a gulf amidship from the passenger*. The captain was aft. Both portions were kept above water by resting on ■ the reef, but the ship, after stranding broad&ide on, had drifted round with herliead to pea, so that the forecastle received the full force of the sea. She began to break up. The fore deck was continually beinj? swept by breakers, which, to some extent, broke their force before they reached that part of the steamer. The sailors and steerage passengers we re locked in the deckhouse, and were un&bto to,venture on deck for fear of being swept overboard. They were unable, even hud they reached the deck, to gain the stern of the vessel, which Was ttie'"stffsfo iJoliMon. Every moment the fore half otthe vessel was parting into fragment?, and every moment approached nearer the inevitable, until one crowd, among whom where two women and a little girl, wave tossed into the boiling abyss,of Hurt, which was -grinding the broken vessel beneath their feet.

Toriiblo Suspense.

The suspense, according to a survivor, was the cruellest torture, but) it extorted no unmanly cry. Even women behaved themselves with the utmost firmness. There were more than enough life-belts, but the passengers and sailors did not seek to obtain them while they were waiting for the end. The sailors were smoking and quietly discussing the chances of petting to shore alive; and one of the women asked Frederick Campbell, the- donkeyman, if she was sure to die. " 1 told her," said the man, " while there was life there was hope, as I wished to cheer her, but my heart sank within me while I spoke." The poor woman's body was found stark and cold on the rocks at high water mark today, and she had no lifebelt on. Beside her was the corpse of an able-bodied sailor wearing a lifebelt. At last, after lingering in agony, those who were crowded in the fore-cabin knew the-worst, and most of them were sacrificed, while their shipmates in sacstem were reserved for further eiif pense and ultimate salvation. The stem bad been breaking up piece by piece with every succeeding wave, and waves followed each other almost continuously. Then came the final catastrophe, and the battered wreck was lifted up and listed: civet before it disappeared. There was a rush to open the door of the for,e-eabin, behind which shelter had been sought from the pitiless force of the tempest. The sailors leaped out to make an attempt to reach the land, and some of them did so, while others, almost within touch of land, were cruelly beaten to death by the wreckage and agajnsit jagged rocks. The passengers went down into the fore-cabin, and it they were passive and untiiuching. A Half-naliod, Battered Lamp trimmer named Calcraft was the first to put himself out of the reach of the waves. He crawled up the cliff, and seeing the telegraph line, followed, it to the fort at Port Nepean. The artillery men were sQon groping their way down the rough mountain path leading to the scene of the wreck. One man was found clinging in the last stage of exhaustion to the edge of the rocks. He was lifted in a dying state on the shoulders of four gunners, Who carried 'him to the barracks. Another heartbroken cry came from the island rock, which was separated by only a few feet of water from the coast. Two sailors had been washed to this spot, They were told to be of good cheer until daylight, when they would be rescued. Meanwhile the efforts of the artillery men were devoted to any who came near the shore. Fires were lighted with the debris of the ship in order \ to , assist the survivors in their work. This also guided the Queenscliff lifeboat crew, who were followed by their comrades in fishing boats.' All the crews could do was to search the coast; but, the night being very dark, little could be seen. When daylight broke, the hull, which was. stent indistinctly at first, .soon stood out clearly enough from its surroundings to show there was a cluster of men and women on 1 her quarter then. The Life - Saving Apparatus, There was opportunity for the life .saving apparatus to do good service, for the lifeboat could not go outside the Heads in such weather, much less take people off with the hurricane which was blowing. The craft was dead on the lee shore, and ■the lifeboat could not have lived in such a sea for five minutes, so that her crew must —as tbey hurriedly decided to do—work in uhotbe' , Avd better way, by throwing' a

were stored at Point Nepeari, close by, and the, artillerymen and lifeboat crew promptly started to get the tackle. Within an hour the carriers returned with load, and their re-appearance gave the liveliest satisfaction to the devoted band clinging to the quarter, and who manifested their, joy by a round of cheers. A great shout went up from the shore and from the ship simultaneously as the rocket was fired, for its aim was true, and the line which it carried went right over the vessel sideways. The wind caught it as it fell and threw it into the outstretched hands of the captain, who was the tirst man to lead in saving life. The captain hauled on the line until the hawser was aboard, and then he attached it firmly to the tanrail. Next was despatched to the vessel a cradle or boatswain's chair. When all preparations w&re complete, the captain placed in the chair an elderly lady, after which he held up his arms as a signal to haul, and the trawlers who composed the lifeboat's crew, the gunners, and contractors' men waded deep into the surf, and hauled with a will. The distance of the ship was so great that ifc was impossible fco support the hawser in the middle. The tirst effort, however, was successful. All the . women were removed in the same way, each in order of seniority of years, their landing being cheered by the ship and by the rescuers on shore. Then followed the saloon passengers, whose places were determined by the captain, without the slightest scrambling upon the same basis of .'preferment as the ladies. After this followed such members of the ship's company as Were present. The captain himself,when the cradle was returning for the last time for him, went below and brought up a small case, supposed to contain his sextant, and then dropping into the chair, he was pulled inwards amid quite as loud an ovation as it was possible to raise. The captain, says an eye-witness, was overcome ; he raised his hat and dropped his head, while a tear stole into his eye. Then, after shaking bands with each of his crew who were saved, he went to where one of the dend sailors was lying and looked sorrowfully at his face. He could nob stand it, and hastily covering his features, ho turned away silently, deeply moved at the awful sight. The Scene After the Wreck. By the time the captain—who was the last man to leave the wreck—had come to land, and the work of rescue had been successfully consummated, it was broad daylight, and the havoo which the catastrophe had wrought stood fully disclosed. The beach was strewn thickly with pieces of every portion of the woodwork of the vessel and flotsam and jetsam of all kinds. Hor cargo, broken boats, broken spars, pieces of deck-houses, harnesscasks, life-buoys, and fragments of the rigging, sails, stores, and cases, also hundreds of bags of chaff filled up the space between water at ebb tide and highwater mark. As soon as the task of saving the living had been achieved searchers were sent up and down the beach for a mile. They found — without much trouble in searching — corpses, upon which crushing against the rocks had wrought terrible effect. They all had lifebelts on, and their staring eyes showed that they had not been drowned, but had been suddenly rendered unconscious by being driven against the rocks, or being struck on the head by wreckage while swimming for land. The line about" the strong swimmer in his agony " was strongly impressed upon the observer by the expression of the faces, the position of the arms was that of a man endeavouring to gain the shore, when suddenly his Skull was Stove in by the Boiling Sea driving him against the rooks, and the expression petrilied in death. The eyes were open and bloodshot, quite unlike the closed eyes and peaceful aspect o$ peifcons who have sunk into insensibility by drowning. One man, whose arms were extended in tbfi attijtiicje Q,f mftkjng a was naked to tlio waist, snowing that he hod cast off everything likely to impede the free action of Ins limbs in struggling for dear life, while all the bodies were very sparsely clothed. The injuries, too, were all upon the head; and that abrasions, if not fractures, of the skull, nose and cheekbone were inflicted during life, was proved by the appearance of the wounds. On the sand, on a little hillock, were the bodies of a young seaman and an elderly woman placed full length, together. The man had on a lifebelt, and it was evident from his attitude that he had been a lusty swimmer, full of life and muscular energy, to reach the land. The last bodies found up to late in the afternoon were those of a young man (who had the figure of a woman gaudily tattooed on his left arm, and wore a silver ring on the marriage finger of the left hand) and that of a little girl about 5 years of age. All the bodies were conveyed to the Quarantine Station, and subsequently conveyed to Melbourne. The Cheviot was valued by the owners at from £20,000 to £2.~),000, and was insured for only about £10,000. The value of the cargo was about £8,000, believed to be almost entirely covered by insurance.