WRECKAGE OFF CAPE HORN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 21

WRECKAGE OFF CAPE HORN.

The following is from Basil Lubbock's sea classic, "The Last of the Windjammers."

"Running round two rocky points, we came to a long shingle beach. We lowered the sail, pulled in through the surf, and beached the boat. Just east of us was a marvellous pile of driftwood, covering half an acre, and piled from four to eight feet high in places. This was a graveyard of ships—woeful flotsam and jetsam—sport of the sea ! Lower masts, topmasts, a great mainyard. ships' timbers, bones of brave ships, and bones of brave men . . . Swept before the westerly gales on to this wild coast the easterly current, by some strange streak of eddies, threw it up in this one spot—a sad tale of wasted human endeavours, of gallant seamen beaten by t lie remorseless sea . . . Piled in utter eonfusion lay beautifully carved figure-heads, well-turned teak stanchions with brass caps, handrails clothed in canvas "coach whipping." finished off with "Turks' heads" —the work of some natty A.8.: cabin doors, broken skylights, teak scuttles, binnacle stands, boat's skids, gratings, head hoards, oars, and harness casks. There the mighty roaring Southern Ocean, tiring of its sport, had east them up to rot, in memory of proud, tall ships, of swift clippers, barques, and barquentines. possibly even an old East Indiaman. From the beginning of things men have been tried in fire, botli in peace and in war, afloat and ashore, yet never have men been more tried and pulled through more gallantly than those who officered and manned the square-rigged traders round the Horn.