EUROPEAN SHIPPING.

West Coast Times, Issue 2239, 3 December 1872, Page 2

EUROPEAN SHIPPING.

(From the European Mail, Oct. 6.) Intelligence reached Liverpool on Aug. 23, of the total destruction by fire of the screw .steamer Dover Castle, whilst on the voyage from Callao to Liverpool. The intelligence is very brief) being comprised iv a cable telegram from New York, and .merely states that the Dover Castle was destroyed by fire off Cocraimbo, a port on the West Coast of South America, and that the crew had been saved and landed at Co.quimbo. At the time the vessel Was destroyed she was under the command of Captain Jlowison. The Dover Castle was built, during the ; present year on the Clyde, 2431 tons, was classed Al at Lloyd's for 21 years, and Was the property of Messrs Donald, Currie, and Co. By the last mail we learn that Her Majesty's ship Nassau, Commander W. Chimmo, had arrived at Singapore from Labuan. While she was surveying in the Salu Sea, a boat's crew, with Lieutenant Gray and Mr White, when taking bearings on the north-east end of the Salu Islands, were attacked by forty or fifty natives. They fought their way through them to the boat, and during the fight, Lieutenant Gray aad one of the crew were wounded; some of the natives were killed and others vrounded. Captain Chimmo, believing his crew had been mistaken for Spaniards, communicated with the people, telling them that the Nassau was an English vessel, and had nothing to do with the Spaniards, and asked for an explanation of their conduct, which they declined to give, and expressed their readiness to fight. Several days were .spent in vain endeavors to come to an understanding, after which the Nassau was put into position and shelled the villages, which were totally destroyed, It turned out that the people were Baligini pirates. A few days ago, a new steam vessel was launched at the iron shipbuilding works of Messrs Oswald and Co., Siinderland, named the Zanzibar. She is built for the Union Steamship Company, and, according to present arrangements, it is intended to relieve the Natal, now running between Cape Town and Port Natal. Her dimensions are as follows: — Length between perpendiculars, 225 ft; breadth, 29ft 6in; depth in hold, ' 17ft 3in; tonnage register, 950 tons, with cabin accommodation for 45 first and 40 secondclass passengers; schooner rig, and supplied with all modern appliances • for the! safety and comfort of passengers and crew. The engines are on the improved inverted cylinder compound-surface condensing principle, of the nominal power of 110 horses; but capable of working up to an indicated power of 500, and are intended; to run at, seventy reyolur. tions per minute, so as to propel ; the vessel at a speed of ten knots per hour. The diameters of the cylinder's are 27 and. 54 inches respectively, each having a stroke of 33 inches. The boilers are constructed upon the cylindrical multitubular principle. On September 30, 1823, Mr John Stephens writes :—": — " I belonged to the ship Eaikes, Captain Gardner, James Burton and Co., of New City Chambers, owners, then lying in Arracabessa Bay, Jamaica. Our shallop, of about 20 tons, with four hands, left the ship laden with outward-bound cargo for Port Antonio, some thirty miles or more to windward, about 6. p.m. the same day, with the land breeze. About 9 p.m. a sudden squall capsized her, about six miles off Port Maria; the second mate and two others were drowned, the fourth was being dragged down by the sails, but he dived and came up clear. He first saw a long bundle of split wood for hoops for sugar hogsheads, by which he endeavored to support himself, but as the wood became soaked it would not support him; he then made for a light cask or puueheon, which contained hats, but .the cask was so unmanageable that he : «ould not hold on, and he tried to find the hoops again, but failed. He again made for the cask, remembering that he had a knife with a lanyard round his tieck ; he stuck the knife in between the iron hoops of the cask and wound the lanyard round his. hand, and with this he supported himself until 9 a.m. the next morning, October i, when he was picked up off Ochorious by one of tlie ships that sailed from a leeward port, and twenty or thirty miles from where tlie boat capsized, and whither he bad drifted by the strong lee current. He was soon put on board adroger that was beating to windward against the sea hreeze, and they hailed our ship about 4 p.m. The man had, therefore, supported himself by the aid of his knife and lanyard, and he was in the water all flight, from 9 p.m. till 9 a.jn. the next day. Only a very good swimmer could have managed as ..he did. We sent our boat for him, and "wheh he 'first came back on board his hand was swollen, and with n, gash or indentation nearly two

[ inches deep, where the lanyard was wound | round. This circumstance is vividly impressed on my mind, as I was to have been one of the four."