A GREAT STORM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2509, 16 April 1902, Page 72

A GREAT STORM.

My impressions of Victoria were gained mostly on the return journey, for it was towards evening when the Aorangi reached! the wharf, and in a few hours we were steaming up-channel towards the town of Vancouver, which, a3 I have aaid, is on the mainland 70 miles away. That night there came up a great storm, the only bad weather of tho voyage. What it had been on the land I saw next day in the park at Vancouver, where immense trees had been torn up by the roots, and almost all the narrower paths through the park rendered impassible by the litter of the storm. What it was at sea the record of shipwrecks for the next week 6adly testified. But on board the Aorangi we concluded there was no reason for any anxiety. Let the wind blow as it might, there surely could be no danger for our big ship in the comparatively narrow waters of the strait. Danger, however, there was before morning, though no passenger on board knew aught of it till all was over. The wind, indeed, was raving as if possessed by a thousand furies, and the sea was torn into one white mass of seething, furious water ; but the wind was with us, and tho land-locked channel prevented the wave-* rising to a height calculated to imperil the safety of our ship. Consequently the passengers slept through the night undisturbed. Not so the officers and crew. -The ship ran her distance a few hours before daylight, and! was anchored in English Bay there to wait for morning. While lying there a terrific blast came up, and ere the seamen were well aware of what was happening she had dragged her anchor and was flying before the gale. The man in the chains was crying "and a half four" before the drift was arrested, and the Aorangi had only a few inches of water uncles her at that cast of the lead. By this time the engines were throbbing ahead, but the ship remained fast, and it soon appeared that the fluke of the anchor had caught the rabmarbie cable. Tho chief engineer told me that, roused from his sleep by the uproar, he made the best of his way to the bridge, and, crawling up the ladder, shouted a question to the pilot. " Steam," was the reply. " For God's sake give us steam." The watch below was called! to the assistance of the watch on duty, and soon all the steam she could carry was pouring into the cylinders. But for some perilous moments the ship refused to budge. They could get rid neither of the anchor nor the cable. At last the good ship solved! the problem. First dislodging the telegraph station near at band, she broke the cable and steamed away into safety. With the arrival of morning the gale had much subsided, and we were moving towards the Vancouver wharf, and the first that most of the passengers learned of the perils of the night was from the Vancouver papers of the nexfc day.