SHIPPING TELEGRAMS.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3827, 10 June 1873, Page 2

SHIPPING TELEGRAMS.

Attckiahb. — Sailed, 9th— 9.40 a.m., Lady Bird, for Taranaki.

Lyttelton. — Arrived, 9th— B a.m., Rangitoto, from Wellington. Bittff. — Arrived, 9th— 11.20 a.m., Alhambra, from Dunedin.

The following telegram has been received by the Secretary of Customs from the Officer in Charge of H. M, Customs, Havelock : — " Captain Scott (Alert) reports Sunday, Ist, noon, sighted, seven miles south Terawiti, ship's quarter deck with house and all attached ; passed within about forty feet. Close to fore end house was hatchway about seven feet square ; house, with rose deck each side, three feet ; one door front house, port side j only one window fore side, three windows Btarboard side, about IS x 12 inches ; house about twenty feet. Saw also cask and other debris close to it." This was probably part of the vessel that was wrecked on Cape Campbell a few day a before.

During the passage of the ship Naomi from Liverpool to Fort Chalmers, a sad calamity occurred, casting a gloom over all — viz, the drowning of Alfred Williams, a fine lad of 16 years. It was on the Bfch May, the ship at the time going eight or nine knots with a stiff couth-wester. At a quarter to nine in the evening, Williamo, who was heavily clothed, and last eeen leaning over the lee rail of the poop, with his hands in his pockets, is supposed to have been jerked over during a heavy lee lurch. The first intimation of the accident was cries being heard astern by the man at the wheel. The ship was immediately wore round, and every search under the circumstances made, but without avail.

The following is an extract from a letter by a passenger on board the Velooidade, of Jjyttelton, bound from Auckland to Newcastle : — " On Sunday, April 25, it began to blow very hard against us, and drove us out of our course, the wind increasing to a perfect gale, with a very high sea. On Wednesday morning we sighted a ship, apparently in distress, so we "went down to her — about ten miles — and found it was the Belle Isle, of Liverpool, from King George's Sound, bound to Newcastle. We got within hail of her, and found that she had sprung a leak, and that the water had got into her sand ballast, and in the rolling of the ship the ballast had shifted, and the vessel was right on her beam ends. She looked at every roll that she must turn bottom upwards. The; had cut away her main and mizzen masts. There was a very high sea on, so our captain Bang out, ' Launch your boats, and we will lay to for you.' They tried to launch one, but it was smashed up in two minutes ; they then tried another, and got her out without much damage. Meanwhile, our captain had also lowered his boat— a very good one, but very amall — and pulled off to her. Then there was a fine sight to see in the midst of the gale — wemen, children, and men being lowered one after the other over the stern of the vessel into these boats, and then they put away for our ship, and we pulled them on board ; some of them thanked God from their heart when they were safe. The Belle Isle's boat was so damaged that she could not go back again, ao our little boat had to do all the work, and kept on till dark, and still there were the officers* and four or five men on board, bo we had to stay by her all night. They might have come off before, but the captain would not leave her, much to our captain's disgust, as he was in a hurry. Nest morning our boat was sent agiin, and brought off all, aud we started after having saved more than forty persons. The sailors were a queer lot, nearly all blacks. Some of them had been put in irons till just before the ship was wrecked, for disobedience to orders. The captain, whom we found a very fine old gentleman, was very low at the loss of his ship. He had been twenty-eight years at sea, and this was his first accident. Though greatly crowded, the Velocidade reached Newcastle in safety on the* Saturday following.

Late papers Bay that divers have been at ! work in calm weather upon the sunken ship Northfleet, the masts of which are visible from the land, and boats hare plied all round, but as yet only three or four bodies have been recovered. A correspondent of the Melbourne " Argus" says : — " The first found was that of Mr Frederick Brand, a young man well-known in my own neighborhood, first at football and cricket, but of whom it might be said that ' nothing in his life became him like his leaving it' He was going out in an official position in connection with the Taamanian railway. It was young Brand that fired the rockets, having first declared to the captain that he would stand by him to the last, and render any service in his power. laside his loose serge jacket a revolver was found, of which two chambers had been discharged. 'This revolver,' says a correspondent, ' was bought by the deceased, as he himself said, so that in case of any disturbance among the navvies on board he might Btand by the captain,' end it is surmised, with great appearance of truth, that young Brand brought the weapon on deck when Captain £nowles was bravely trying to keep the way to the boats clear for the women and children, and that this is the very revolver with which the captain wounded one of the men who forced his way into the boat, and is now in the hospital here. Two shots are known to have been fired by Captain Knowles, who would naturally give biclt the revolver to Mr Brand when he found that in the struggle for life the rough men who crowded the deok were beyond his control. Young Brand fulfilled his pledge to stand by the captain and imitate his self-sacrifice. At the last moment he must have replaced the revolver within his jacket, tying around his breast a cork jacket. He was found floating with his head well out of the water, and it is sad to think that in all probability the cries of the poor young fellow for help were unheard, and that he was passed over in the darkness of the night, and perished at last from cold and exhaustion. The body was interred, with every mark of public respect, in the church -yard at Lloyd.