The Inner Life of a Shipwreck :

A LADY'S NARRATIVE, ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND.

Hôtel du Louvre, Paris, Nov. 1863.

IF you are ever shipwrecked, my dearest Laura,-which I hope you never will be, but if, in the course of the excited career which lies before you as the wife of a Light Dragoon, you ever should be,—do contrive to get the catastrophe conducted by the Peninsular and Oriental Company. They manage it so much better than any body else. I believe other companies drown you sometimes; and drowning is a very prosaic arrangement, besides being decidedly opposed to the manners of good society-fit only for seafaring people and secondclass passengers. I have just been shipwrecked under the auspices of the P. and O., and I assure you that it is the pleasantest thing imaginable. It has its little hardships, to be sure; but so has a picnic; and the wreck was one of the most agreeable picnics you can imagine. You know that such festivities derive their principal enjoyment from the fact that you always forget the corkscrew and the salt, and are obliged to do without them. Now, what will you say when you hear that at our improvised entertainment we forgot every thing; that is to say, we did not forget, but we were deprived of every thing we wanted for ever so long, and realised all the romantic pleasures of Robinson Crusoe upon his island-except that we had not to dress up in absurd goatskin, and met with only the most civilised of savages?

But of course you will want to know how it all happened; so I will tell the story without further prelude.

First, as to my reasons for coming home only two years after my marriage. It was not my fault. My husband, who, you are aware, is in the Civil Service, was sent to a distant station-a very advantageous change, as it made him a full, instead of a joint, magistrate; but the doctors all said that the journey was more than I could bear, especially in such a trying month as September; so it was settled that I should return home for a year, and become what they call a grass widow. I did not like the idea at first, on account of the separation from my husband; and besides, I can assure you that your old friend Héloïse Simkin has become a great success in India, and as Mrs. Dulcimer is quite a leader, and an object of homage, such as I can scarcely hope to receive in our stupid old country, where things find their level in a most unpleasant manner. Not that I flirted, you know; that would have been too bad. But I believe people called me a "frisky matron," -a term, I hear, of the Saturday Review's,-and that I suppose I am, though it seems rather hard to be called a matron at all at my early age.

However, there was no help for it; so the first mail in September

saw me embark on board the P. and O. Company's screw-steamer Cape Comorin for Suez.

We were a larger party on board than might have been expected considering the season, which is by no means a favourite one for leaving India; for the hot weather is not over in the one country when you start, and the cold weather is just about beginning in the other country when you arrive, involving rather a violent change. We were nearly sixty passengers in all, without counting the second-class, or those strange monsters who joined us at Galle from Australia. Taking them altogether, the passengers were not a very brilliant set, but of course there were some pleasant people among them. I was rather melancholy the first day or two, thinking of my journey out, during which I first met Mr. Dulcimer, my letters concerning whom, by the way, somebody has had the impertinence to publish. But I brightened up by degrees, and was quite myself by the time we arrived at Madras. Here an incident occurred which caused us all great indignation. We had got up a kind of sweepstakes, the event being the exact time when we should weigh anchor. Each drew a particular five minutes, and whoever hit the time the nearest of course won. The stakes were ten rupees, or one sovereign, each, and about five-and-forty persons subscribed; so the pool was worth winning. It would have been agreeable, in any case, as it was understood that the winner was to give a tiffin on shore, and bring back plenty of Madras curiosities for the ladies. But in an evil moment, a certain person—the wife of a high official in the Benighted Presidency—was asked to join. She, a perfect stranger to all of us, drew the winning five minutes, and then left us, carrying off the stakes without a hint of tiffin, or curiosities, or any thing of the kind. We were very much disgusted, as you may suppose, and not inclined to be very civil to the other Madras people who came on board-who, by the way, were all as yellow as buttercups, and envied us, as they confessed, our fresh Bengal complexions. However, we got on very well ultimately, and reached Point de Galle in tolerably good humour.

We had beautiful weather, and the day after leaving Ceylon were as joyous as could be, when the accident happened which is the occasion of my writing to you so soon.

It was a clear calm night when we all retired to our cabins; but afterwards, it seems, a dense fog came on, so that you could not have told when it was morning without a watch. Of course nobody was likely to turn out so soon as usual, and even the habitually early risers, who always took their chota hazree on deck in absurd varieties of undress, were still in their cabins at half-past six o'clock. It was about this hour when we all experienced a terrible shock. The ship had struck on a rock. There was no mistake about it. There was an awful crash, a stop, and then we turned over on one side. With the ship, my servant and myself, who alone occupied the cabin, turned over also, and to bear us company came every loose article in the apartment. I had the lower berth, so had an

easy fall upon the floor; but poor Anna Maria, who slept above, was not a little bruised, and would have been more so but that she happened to fall upon me. This was pleasanter for her than for me; but she was not half so embarrassing as the inanimate objects which swept down upon us both,-desks, dressing-cases, boots and shoes, hats, crinolines, dressesclothes, in fact, of every kind, and all the toilet apparatus, of course,—to say nothing of the sea which poured in through the port, and drenched every thing in about two minutes.

I was terribly frightened, but soon recovered myself sufficiently to laugh at the absurd picture we must have presented to any body having the leisure to look at us. I picked myself up, and then picked up Anna Maria (our servants are always more helpless than ourselves in times of danger); and we were just extricating one another from the mass of goods and chattels with which we were encompassed, when the ship turned upon the other side, and we were all-myself, servant, goods, chattels, and every thing-thrown over in the opposite direction. The same scene of confusion was now enacted again, and as the ship continued to rock from side to side, there seemed nothing for it but to get out of the cabin with all speed.

I managed to secure a dressing-gown,-how my servant costumed herself I am sure I cannot remember,—and so habited I made a dash into the saloon. Here a scene of indescribable confusion was being enacted. All round the large dining-tables people were running, apparently without object. There were no cries heard, but the face of every body bore the impress of blank despair. I speak more especially of the ladies. The gentlemen, for the most part, were trying to assure their female friends that there was nothing the matter; that ships were often stopped as ours was; and that the rocking to and fro, without being able to move an inch, was the sign of a prosperous voyage rather than otherwise. But the countenances of some of the lords of the creation belied their words, and a few showed unmistakable signs of funk. Only one of the gentlemen passengers seemed to derive any pleasure from the scene. This was a middle-aged person, who had come from Australia. He had been snubbed somehow by the ladies, with scarcely any of whom he had made acquaintance. The only conversation I had had with him was not of a very amicable character. He was jealous, I fancy, at the attention paid me by the other passengers,- -as if I had not always been used to attention, and the day before the accident he had come up to me and said, without introduction, and apropos of nothing as regarded the subject, "I tell you what it is, Mrs. Dulcimer, I don't think so much of you as your friends on board; in fact”—and he said this with an air of tremendous severity-" I think you are more engaging than pretty." With which speech he left me, evidently expecting that I should be abased to the earth. I believe the other ladies had neglected him also, for he now made an indiscriminate attack upon us all.

"We are all lost," said he,-"irretrievably lost." And he seemed to

take a kind of pleasure in making the announcement, as if it was no business of his.

The saloon was filled with the passengers, ladies especially, who were bent upon saving whatever valuables they had at hand. The tables were soon strewn with stray things that they were trying to dispose of about their persons-a rather difficult process, by the way, as most of the ladies were in their toilettes de nuit. One of them I noticed-and I dare say others did the same-went on deck in that condition, and began talking to one of the ship's officers about the chances of escape as composedly as if she had been in full dress in a drawing-room. The ship's officers, who were making arrangements for the general good, would not of course be disturbed by particular appeals. It was the purser, I think, who gave his arm to the lady in question, and conducted her, with great gravity, back to her cabin. If I had been on the point of death-as, indeed, I believed at the time I was-I could not have refrained from laughing at the curious appearance of the pair. The purser had on something like his usual complement of clothing; but the lady-well, it was the most ridiculous thing you ever beheld. During all this time the other passengers had managed to array themselves more or less; but the less, I am afraid, was predominant over the more. Some had thrown wrappers over their night-clothes-by far the safest plan. Others had attempted to dress themselves regularly, and being afraid to complete their toilettes, appeared in simple crinolines. Some had put on boots without stockings, others stockings without boots. A few appeared with one boot and one stocking; and one-her appearance was more absurd than any-had attired herself in very limited under garments, and a corset, which, half-laced as it was, may be more easily imagined than described. Out of their cabins they came, some bent upon simply saving their lives; others determined that, come what might, they would rescue some proportion of the things that made life endurable. A few ladies had got their jewel-cases out into the saloon, and were making a selection of the articles they considered most valuable. One, I noticed, was very particular about a bracelet with hair in it, which she fastened upon her arm as carefully as if she was decorating herself for some festive occasion. Another evinced similar solicitude about a little locket, which she had some difficulty in finding among secret drawers. A third seemed to care for nothing but her marriage-certificate, which she carefully placed in a purse, and hung about her neck. She seemed to think that if she was to be drowned, it was better to go out of the world with proper credentials. The more mercenary were solicitous merely about money. "What shall I do with these notes ?" said one. "Do, dear captain" (this was to the captain of the ship), "take care of them for me." "What a dreadful nuisance!" said another; "I forgot to change all these rupees in Calcutta, and the bag will sink me if I hang it round my neck." “Here is a letter of credit upon Coutts's," said a third, who seemed to require a letter of credit upon an outfitter more than any thing else; "who

will cash it for me? I will give any percentage." The latter offer was made in a voice of agony. My poor friend seemed to think that the price of securities was going up in the market, when, in point of fact, it could not well be more down; not, however, that money itself was in a much better position, for very few seemed to care about that. One of those who did, received a characteristic rebuke from our Australian friend. "What do you mean by taking your money ?" said he; "you will never want it." And then he returned to the old chorus, which seemed to give him so much satisfaction, "We are all lost-irretrievably lost!"

It was curious to see, by the way, how the neglected people were made use of at the crisis. There was one man who seemed to know nobody, and to whom nobody, I believe, had spoken. He was appealed to now as a confidential friend, and a lady gave him her child to carry -a charge which he considered so onerous that, as we afterwards found, he never attempted to save any thing of his own, but lost all he possessed with a devotion worthy of a more profitable cause.

In the mean time the ship went rocking to and fro with more violence than ever, and as it seemed that no good came of remaining in the saloon, nearly every body rushed upon deck-costumes to the contrary notwithstanding, as I heard remarked by a flippant young attorney, who was too professional to believe in danger without conclusive evidence. And certainly our condition was such as well might provoke laughter. I have told you of the arrangements as to skirts, &c. The coiffures were, if possible, more ridiculous, and in respect of these, as indeed of all matters relating to the toilette, you might see personal character cropping out. Some ladies, who had always appeared to have abundant hair, now presented themselves with half-bald heads, and dreadful objects they looked, it must be confessed; while others, whom we had never given credit for having much hair of their own displayed themselves as nicely coiffé as ever-a transparent arrangement which deceived nobody. One lady, who had always been suspected of doing something to her complexion, and in particular of rouging, showed exactly the same as usual, and I have every reason to believe that she had spent twenty minutes upon her face even at this terrible crisis. It is certain that she had bestowed very little time upon any other department of adornment; for her wardrobe was so limited when she came upon deck that a contribution was at once levied in her favour upon another passenger, who appeared in most unbecoming style as regarded her head, but with no less than three robes, one over the other. She surely must have dressed for the shipwreck before leaving Galle!

Two or three of the ladies-I noticed only two or three-were completely costumed. They might have made a morning call in the attire which they wore on this short notice; and a few of the gentlemen were in equally good order. I suppose habit does a great deal for people in such cases.

Well, the rocking went on, and every thing in the saloon was in the