A FEARFUL SHIPWRECK.

Otago Witness, Issue 1682, 16 February 1884, Page 11

A FEARFUL SHIPWRECK.

A dispatch of January \A repot ts the total Ijss of the steamship City of Columbus, belonging to the line between Savannah nnd Boston, and the loss of more than 100 lives. The scene of the disaster wan on a, reef called Devil's Bridge, off Ga.yhead, near New Bedford. The steamer lle t Boston at 3 o'clock on the afternoon of the 17th for Savannah, and struck at 8 45 next morning.- The cause Heem* to have been want of attention by the' pilot, as he told a passenger who was in the rigging with him afloi\ tho vessel struck that he had fixed the course of the vessel and fastened the wheel, and as he was very cold he went to the smoke-stack to warm himself. He remained there 20 minutes, and when he returned to his post In* found the ship had veered round. When ho ascertained that the vessel was among the rocks and it was probably impossible to save her, he put her right in shore and ran her as high as he could, with the result that although, she drew 17ft of <vator her fore part was in lift. Among those who perished was Oscar lsiag, Turkish Consul-gene-ral, and a journalist named Morton, of the Boston Globe, going south for his health. 'Onothird of the passengers were women and children, not one of whom, so far as is known, is saved. One survivor says it was fearful to see the women" swept off. Some rushed on deck with their husbands, and as the full force of the storm broke upon them, realising that all was lost, they threw their arms around their husbands' necks and bade them good-bye. A few moments later they wore swept overboard. A mother, with her child held tight in her arms, was borne away by tho waves almost before reaching the deck. Not one woman reached the rigging, and a majority were washed overboard by the waves. A number were probably smothered in their berthd. A steward, who was in the rig-* ging with about 40 others, says they clung to the shrouda with their fingers benumbed, with floating corpses and debris at their feet. Occasionally one of his companions would from exhaustion lose his hold and drop into the raging sea, but most of those who were fortunate enough to gain the rigging wero rescued. Captain' S. S. Wright was saved. Out of a passenger-list of SO, and a crew of 45, only 29 were saved. The town of Bedford, Mats,, was full of people on the 20fch, looking for the bodies of relatives and friends ; but there was such a deplorable lack of system in assembling the' corpses rescued from the sea that they were scattered to all points along the coast.