THE LOSS OF THE BIRKENHEAD. fam-i-li-ar, well known. un-daunt-ed, fearless. 1. Of all the wonderful instances of human courage on record, there is none more striking than that which is contained in the sad history of the loss of the Birkenhead troop-ship. 2. Like a familiar text-book used as an unfailing standard, and quoted from generation to generation, the devotion to duty under the most terrible circumstances displayed by the undaunted heroes who went down with the Birkenhead, will ever be held up as an example to be followed in all ages. 3. The Birkenhead was an iron paddlewheel steamer, one of the finest of her class. She sailed from Queenstown, Ireland, on the 7th of January 1852, for the Cape of Good Hope, and took out a detachment of the 12th Lancers, and detachments of nine regiments of the line. In all, there were six hundred and thirty-eight persons on board, including the ship's company, and the wives and children of the soldiers. 4. She made a fair and prosperous voyage, sighted the Cape, and as she ran down the coast her passengers looked forward to a speedy release from the unpleasant confinement of her decks. 5. The evening was clear, the land was but a league distant, and the Birkenhead was steaming at the rate of eight miles an hour, not dreaming of harm, and unaware of the proximity of danger. 6. Suddenly there was a blow that shook every one of the ship's timbers; the Birkenhead trembled from stem to stern, stopped, and began to sink. A rock, unknown to navigators, had found her out; and having pierced her side, thrust up its pointed head into the engine-room. A mass of water rushed in that must have at once drowned upwards of a hundred men, who were in their hammocks on the lower deck. 7. The rest of the troops and the officers thus startled from their sleep rushed on deck. There was alarm, but no confusion. Instantly, as though they had been waiting for the accident instead of waiting to go ashore, the ship's officers and the officers of the troops issued their necessary orders. The women and children were taken on the upper deck, and the soldiers were mustered there; while the sailors, in obedience to the captain's commands, lowered the ship's boats and made ready to go. 8. The boats being manned alongside, the women and children were handed into them, with such of the crew as were necessary to take them to the shore. Few, if any, of the soldiers who saw their beloved ones departing were able to go in the boats, for it was found that the utmost the boats could hold, without endangering the safety of their occupants, was but one hundred and eighty-four, out of the total number of six hundred and thirty-eight on board. 9. The land was near; Simon's Bay, to which port the Birkenhead was bound, was close at hand; there was a chance that the boats might return before the final catastrophe came, or help might come at any moment from the port to which they were sailing. 10. Some there might have been who indulged in this hope, and who were sustained by it till it was rudely dashed to pieces; but the majority of the men knew that escape was all but impossible; that before the boats could return from their first trip, to say nothing of a second, all would certainly be over. 11. The force with which the ship struck had been so great as to drive the rock bodily into her; she was being pressed down by the weight of the water that had rushed in, and was showing signs of giving way amidships. 12. Not a murmur was heard from the soldiers as they stood at their death parade; no hint was there of unruliness, of selfishness, or complaint. With death staring them in the face, the men felt comfort in knowing that the women and children were beyond the reach of harm. The world's history presents no page on which a more glorious picture of heroism is to be found. 13. Some few solemn words of consolation, but none of earthly hope, were spoken by the colonel in command of the troops, and the brave captain of the Birkenhead was not slow to second him in bidding the men resign themselves to their inevitable fate. 14. Soon the fatal moment came. The good ship which lay so badly wounded on the sharp spear that had pierced her could last no longer, she gave a few convulsive throbs, there was a cracking and a rending, and the Birkenhead parted in the middle, sinking in two pieces on either side of the rock. 15. Long ere the boats could get back to her from the shore, long before the news of her disaster could be told at Simon's Bay, the brave men who had unavoidably been left in her had been drowned in the sea or devoured by sharks. A very few-less than a dozen-saved themselves by swimming, or, by clinging to broken pieces of wreck, managed to reach the shore. THE LOSS OF THE BIRKENHEAD. cap-tur-ed, taken in war. sleek, smooth, oily. the Birk-en-head, a steam troop-ship, was wrecked near Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope, in Feb. 1852, when 438 officers, soldiers, and seamen were lost. trans-lu-cent, allowing light to pass through, but not transparent great fierce fish, sharks. 1. Right on our flank the crimson sun went down, The deep sea rolled around in dark repose; When, like the wild shriek from some captured town, 2. The stout ship Birkenhead lay hard and fast, Caught without hope upon a hidden rock; Her timbers thrilled as nerves, when through them passed The spirit of that shock. 3. And ever, like base cowards, who leave their ranks In danger's hour, before the rush of steel, Drifted away disorderly the planks From underneath her keel. 4. So calm the air, so calm and still the flood, That low down in its blue translucent glass We saw the great fierce fish, that thirst for blood, Pass slowly, then repass. 5. They tarried, the waves tarried for their prey! The sea turned one clear smile! like Those dark shapes in the azure silence lay H |