FATAL STEAMBOAT COLLISION.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVIII, Issue 1894, 14 July 1863, Page 3

FATAL STEAMBOAT COLLISION.

FEARFUL LOSS OF LIFE. — u';M>; [A brief acsount of this sad catastropha appeared in an Independent Extra on Saturday.] [From the Otago Daily Times, July 6.] On Saturday evening there happened, in the vicinity of Port Chalmers, a catastrophe more lamentable and appaliog in its character than any that has ever occutred in the Province of Otiigo. Two of the port steamers, proceeding at full speed in opposite directions, came into violent collision, and amid the darkness, the confusion, and the general terror which prevailed, the more tender vessel of the two filled and sunk, taking down with her many of her human freight, and leaving others waifs upon the waters to battle desperately for life — some with success, others with hopeless effort to avert their fearful fate. Ht>w many persons have suffered by the sad calamity it is impossible at present precisely to ascertain, but the bodies of eleven have already been recovered, «nd there is too much reason to believe thai several more have perished. Though less than the number originally believed to have been lost, when the fearful experience of the participators in the catastrophe tended to an exaggeration of the circumstances, this is a result sufficiently melancholy, but more particularly when are considered the family relationship of the sufferers, and the peculiarly and painfully affecting circumstances under which their general fate was met. Of these circumstances the following is the most perfect account which it is possible in the meantime to obtain, or would be prudent to publish, pending tha rigid inquiry which will no doubt be instituted. Between fire and six o'clock in the evening the steamer Pride of the Yarra — a small iron screw boat — took on board, at Port Chalmers, from forty to fifty passengers for Dunedin, some joiuing her at the jetty, others alongside the steamer William Miskin, which had just arrived from fnvercargill, and one family, consisting of nine souls, Irom on board the ship Motoaka, which had only the previous day arrived in the port from London. At the hour of starting it was dark, and the evening being peculiarly dull there was a difficulty in exactly estimating the number on board, or in recognising the persons of whom the living freight was composed, but such is ihe number generally beliered to have started. The majority were on deck, but the ladies, including Mrs Campbell, wife of the Rev. Mr Campbell, Principal of the High School, Dunedin, who was one of the Matoaka's passengers, sought what proved to be the fatal shelter of the cabin, along with her husband and her five young and interesting children, attended by two maid servants, Fanny Finch and Mary Roberts. In the same place was seated a Mrs Henderson, an engaging young person who had arrived in the colony by the Chili on the occasion of her last passage, and who had only been lately married. Its other occupants were several gentlemen, all of wboro have been saved, with the exception of one, who has been recognised as Mr Somerville, a station holder at Wanganui, but his identity is not sufficiently established. The night being an unpleasant une, some of the passengers of the William Miskin and others — five altogether — squatted themselves in the partially occupied hold, the hatches being left olf, and it is supposed that there were some who betook themselves to a very minute department in the fore part of the vessel, representing the usaal steerage or fore-cabin. Iv the cabin there was a light, and the party in the hold bad also been furnished with a candle ; those in the fore-cabin, if any, were in darkness. Thus freighted, the Pride steamed on, going at her usual speed, and she had the re* putation of being about the fastest boat in the port. Captain Spence was personally in charge, and at the wheel was an experienced and steady steersman, and it so happened that one of the Port Otago pilots was a passenger, though of course not interfering with the guidance of the vessel's course. As she steamed on, parallel to Sawyer's Bay, the lights of the Favorite steamer were recognised, us that vessel was on her way down from town, and, as ■*Jhe two vessels approached, the Favorite seemed to be steering right down upon the Pride, and occasionally keeping so much of a starboard course that her port lights were concealed. This course being apparently preserved, the Pride's helm was ported, and she was kept well over to the starboard side of the channel, which, at that particular place, is defined by a bluff rocky headland, but there appeared still more necessity for porting the helm, and" Port," " Hard a-Por't," are alleged to have been the orders. A collision being now almost imminent, there was a cry of" For God's sake teveise the engines, and simultaneously with this they were reversed, but all too late. Both vessels going still at a considerable rate of speed, the Favorite run stemou to the Pride, catching her at a point about a third of her length from the bow, or nearly on a line with her mast, listing her over to port, and cutting right through her port side. This was the collision as said to have been seen from the deck of the Pride of the Yarra. The Favorite, which is a paddle-boat principally employed in towing, was, as has been described, on her way from Dunedin Bay, where, late in the evening, she had towed up a barque. She was in charge of Captain Adams, steered by C. Murray, both of whom were on

the bridge, where the wheel is stationed, nnd i is a coincidence that on board of tier also there was one of the pilot staff, who was witness o the accident. According to the description given no lights of a steamer ahead were seer from the bridge, and it was a subject of remarl among those on board that the Pride of the Yarra did not seem to have passed, when, suddenly from amidst the darkness, her lights gleamed forth — a mast-head light, and what was apparently the light of her furnace or small cabin windows. She was at the same moment recognised by the puffing of her high pressure engine, and so close was she that, as had already been perceived from her own decks, a collision was seen to be inevitable, and before the orders to stop the engines of tbe Favorite had effected any material change in her speed, the collision was an accomplished fact. Such, at least, is the account given.