you may have heard of the wreck of the quetta1. it took place at nine o"clock on friday evening,28th february, 1890. the fine vessel struck an uncharted2 rock and in three minutes was swallowed up-one of the most sudden, complete, and piteous disasters that the australian coast has ever known.
1quetta: one of the finest steamers of the british india company, running between brisbane and london via tortes strait.
2uncharted: not marked on any chart or map.
among the numerous passengers were emily lacy, a young girl under sixteen years of age, and her sister aged thirteen. they were returning to england to complete their education. little did they dream, when the quetta left brisbane, that so awful a fate was in store. yet the disaster was destined to furnish an example of courage and endurance such as the world has seldom seen.
when the crash came, emily rushed to the cabin to try and rescue her younger sister. the two succeeded in reaching the deck, where, however, they were at once separated, and they never met again. miss lacy tells that, just as the vessel was going down, a gentleman(in whose care the girls were) said to her, "you look after yourself, and i will take care of may." both the gentleman and her little sister were drowned.
"when we got aft," miss lacy writes, "the ship suddenly went down, and as i was drinking in the salt water i thought i was going to be drowned. but i came up again, and was surrounded by cingalese1 and sheep. i felt myself being pressed down by them; it was terrible. then i saw a raft a short distance out, and was dragged on to it by the purser2, who was very kind to me. we were attached to a bigger raft, crowded with cingalese.
"when we got away some distance, as the cingalese became very noisy, we cut our raft adrift, and i remained on her with the purser for about twelve hours, till we were, i thought, two miles from shore; and as he told me that he could not swim, i left him and swam for the shore, but i did not reach it, as it was so far1cingalese: natives of ceylon, who formed part of the crew.
2purser: an officer of the ship who keeps the accounts and has charge of the stores.
away.
"i went on towards the land, and saw some wreckage, on which were two cingalese, to which i made my way, and got to it; but as they were rude and excited, i thought they might be drunk, so i left it, and took to swimming again.
"then i caught sight of another raft on which was chief officer1 grey. he could not swim. i tried to swim by the side of the raft and tow it towards the land. but either the current was too strong or the raft too heavy. so i struck out for the land myself, which still seemed about two miles away, and hoped to get food and water for myself and my hapless companion.
"despite my efforts, the land seemed to get farther away. i still struggled on. at times the heat was so intense that i had continually to plunge my head under water to escape sun- stroke. i must have got into cross currents, for, peer2 as i might, i could no longer see the land. i was assuredly drifting out to sea. my strength began to fail, and though i now floated all i could, instead of attempting to swim, i knew that the end could not be long in coming."at eight o"clock on sunday morning miss lacy was picked up by the albatross, exhausted3, and burned nearly black with the sun. before lifting her out of the water, a sailor threw his jacket over her, and then laid her tenderly on the bottom of the boat. she had been swimming and floating for twenty hours, sometimes on her back and sometimes on her side.
1chief officer: officer in a boat next in rank below a captain.
2peer: look about.
3exhausted: worn out.
she says that she had never any conscious fear of death, either from drowning, or from a worse and more terrible fate-death by sharks. she often felt her powers of endurance giving way. it was only the thought of the agony her death would cause her parents which enabled the heroic girl to continue her exertions until help came.
compiled by e. w. h. f.
