The Uncommercial Traveller

cumstances. Eighteen hundred and fifty-nine had but another day t

t alongside the Lighter, the regularly-turning windlass aboard the Lighter, the methodical figures at work, all slowly and regularly heaving up and down with the breathing of the sea, all seemed as much a part of the nature of the place as the tide itself. The tide was on the flow, and had been for some two hours and a half;

its; meeting courteous peasants well to do, driving fat pigs and cattle to market: noting the neat and thrifty dwellings, with their unusual quantity of clean white linen, drying on the bushes; having windy weather suggested by every cotter’s little rick, with its thatch straw-ridged and extra straw-ridged into overlapping compartments like the back of a rhinoceros. Had I not given a lift of fourteen miles to the Coast-guardsman (kit an

st fragment of the Wreck of the Royal Charter, Australian trader and passenger ship, Homeward bound, that struck here on the terrible morning of the

ed the little Island in the bay, for ages henceforth to be aground certain yards outside her; these are

agments of wreck, where other divers and workmen sheltered themselves, and where they had kept Christmas-day with rum and roast beef, to the destruction of their frail chimney. Cast up among the stones and boulders of the beach, were great spars of the lost vesse

ny ways, like staircases without stairs, on which the wild village hangs in little clusters, as fruit hangs on boughs, and had given the alarm. And so, over the hill-slopes, and past the waterfall, and down the gullies where the land drains off into the ocean, the scattered quarrymen and fishermen inhabiting that part of Wales had come running to the dismal sight—their clergyman among them. And as they stood in the leaden morning, stricken with pity, leaning hard against the wind, their breath and vision often failing as the sleet and spray rushed at them from the ever forming

ht up, it went aboard the Tug-steamer, where good account was taken of it. So tremendous had the force of the sea been when it broke the ship, that it had beaten one great ingot of gold, deep into a strong and heavy piece of her solid iron-work: in which, also, several loose sovereigns that the ingot had swept in before it, had been found, as firmly embedded as though the iron had been liquid when they were forced there. It had been remarked of such bodies come ashore, too, as had been seen by scientific men, that they had been stunned to death, and not suffocated. Observation, both of the internal change that had been wrought in them, and of their external expression, showed death to have been thus merciful and easy. The report

ned his house and heart to their agonised friends; of his having used a most sweet and patient diligence for weeks and weeks, in the performance of the forlornest offices that Man can render to his kind; of his having most tenderly and thoroughly devote

ge beside me, in five minutes, than I have read in anathematising discourses (albeit put to press with enormous flourishing of trumpets), in all my life. I heard more

hat the peasantry had shown any superstitious avoidance of the drowned; on the whole, they had done very well, and had assisted readily. Ten shillings had been paid for the bringing of each body up to the church, but the way was steep, and a horse and cart (in which it was wra

nd opened the churchyard gate, and op

very Commandments had been shouldered out of their places, in the bringing in of the dead; the black wooden tables on which they were painted, were askew, and on the stone pavement below them, and on the stone pavement all over the church, were the marks and stains where the drowned had been laid down. The eye, with little or no aid from

that could not speak to him, patiently examining the tattered clothing, cutting off buttons, hair, marks from linen, anything that might lead to subsequent identification, studying faces, looking for a scar, a bent finger, a crooked t

to compare the description brought, with the dread realities. Sometimes, they would go back able to say, ‘I have found him,’ or, ‘I think she lies there.’ Perhaps, the mourner, unable to bear the sight of all that lay

at their clothes had become mixed together. The identification of men by their dress, was rendered extremely difficult, in consequence of a large proportion of them being dressed alike—in clothes of one kind, that is to say, supplied by slopsellers and outfitters, and not made by single garments but by hundreds. Many of the men were bring

t hand, and the frying-pan in which it had bubbled over a brazier of coals was still there, with its ashes. Hard by the Communion-Table, were some boots that had been taken off t

private graves, so that the mourners might erect separate headstones over the remains. In all such cases he had performed the funeral service a second time, and the ladies of his house had attended. There had been no offence in the poor ashes when they were brought again to the light of day; the beneficent Earth had already absorbed it. The drowned were buried in their clothes. To supply the great sudden demand for coffins, he had got all the neighbouring people handy at tools, to work the livelong day, and Sunday likewise. The coffins were neatly formed;—I had seen two, waiting for occupants, under the lee of t

ns of gratitude. This clergyman’s brother—himself the clergyman of two adjoining parishes, who had buried thirty-four of the bodies in his own churchyard, and who had done to them all that his brother had done as to the larger number—must be understood as included in the family. He was there, with his neatly arranged papers, and made no more account of his trouble than anybody else did. Down to yesterday’s post outward, my clergyman alone had written one thousand and seventy-five letters to relatives and friends of the lost people. In the absen

hich was the type of Death, to the Christian dwelling side by side with it, which was the type of Resurrection. I never shall think of the former, without the latter. The two will always rest side by side in my memory. If I had lost any one dear to me in this unfortunate ship, if I

, and to the gratitude of relations and friends, made me very anxious to see some of those letters. I was present

her w

ent child, early taught the way of salvation. We fondly hoped that as a British seaman he might be an ornament to his profession, but, ‘it is well;’ I feel assured my dear boy is now with the redeemed. Oh, he did not wish to go this last voyage! On the fifteenth of October, I received a letter from him from Melbourne, date August twelfth; he wrote in high spirit

band

ays, last Tuesday? Believe me, my dear sir, when I say that I cannot express my deep gratitude in words sufficiently for your kindness to me on tha

ow wr

le does it signify to us, when the soul has departed, where this poor body lies, but we who are left behind would do all we can to show how we loved them. This is denied me, but it is God’s hand that afflicts us, and I try to submit. Some day I may be able to visit the spot, and s

widow

ave taken about my dear husband, as well for the sentiments yours contains, evincing the spir

t your name as a disinterested person will stand in history, and, as successive years pass, many a widow will think of your noble c

her w

isit to his dear brother’s body, and also for your ready attention in pronouncing our beautiful burial service over my poor unfortunate son’s rema

me to convey to you

the clergyman’s house, wr

ived here yesterday morning without accident,

e. No words could speak language suited to my heart. I refra

names, but em

e been able to leave my bedroom since I returned, wh

he body of my beloved and lamented son, I should have returned home somew

little prospect, and I m

your hands, by whom I well know that everything will be done that can be, according to arrangements made before

another to the many deep obligations I am under to you by writing to me? And should the body of m

el I owe to you all for your benevolent

has restored and tranquillised me. I must again repeat, that language has no words by w

en able to do. Oh, the bitterness of the cup I drink! But I bow submissive. God

the gratitude of the Jewish people is feelingly expressed in the f

flock whose relatives have unfortunately been among those who perished at the late wreck of the R

ng them in their mournful duty, but also towards the dead, by exerting yourself to have our co-religionists buried in ou

f Liverpool’ thus express them

er to the Royal Charter, which have received universal recognition, you have very benevolently employed your valuable efforts to assist such members of our faith a

on behalf of our community, the expression of their warm acknowledgments and gra

gentlem

been to us a most sorrowful and painful event, but when we meet with such friends as yourself, it in a measure, somehow or other, abates that mental anguish, and makes the suffering so much easier to be borne. Considering the circumstances connected with my poor brother’s fate, it does, indeed, appear a hard one. He had been away in all seven years; he returned fou

e necks of rough men (and found there after death), those locks of hair, those scraps of letters, those many many slight memorials of hidd

LES

disturb thy nights. May the pillow of peace kiss thy cheek, and the pleasures of imagination attend thy dreams; and when length of years makes thee tired of earthly joys, and the curtain of death

e’s dress; under which, initials.’ Another seaman ‘had, on the lower part of the right arm, the device of a sailor and a female; the man holding the Union Jack with a streamer, the folds of which waved over her head, and the end of it was held in her hand. On the upper part of the arm, a device of Our Lord on the Cross, with stars surrounding the head of the Cross, and one large star on the side

mily before I left them. As I brought the Coast-guard down, so I took the Postman back, with his leathern wallet, walking-stick, bugle, and terrie

uld find their way here when they visit the Old World; I thought of the writers of all the wreck of letters I had left upon the table; and I resolved to place this little record where it stands. Convocations, Conferences, Diocesan Epistles, and the like,

ittle child; I would kiss the hands that worked so busily and gently in the church, and say, ‘None better could have touched the form, though it had lain at home.’ I could be sure of it, I could be th

time—I have referred, my reference would be as nothing. He is the Reverend Stephen Roose Hughes, of L