As to the situation of any more lights for the entrance to Port Jackson, no doubt there will be many opinions. The North Head has been mentioned as a site for this leading light, but my own convictions, borne out by the judgment of others of great experience, goes against the North Head only being lighted; and if only one light should be added, that there is another situation preferable. Because every seaman knows that a light on a high cliff in thick rain squalls, which is the weather we have here to dread, is not so easily seen as a light placed a moderate distance above the water's edge. Therefore, if one light only should be added, that light should be placed where the turning point of the entrance takes place—in this case the low point of the South Reef—a red light visible eight miles. And perhaps it would not be at all amiss to say, in the Sailing Directions for the Port of Sydney (a copy of which, by the way, I have not seen for a long time in places of resort for seamen, being very likely out of print), that unless such leading light is seen, no sailing vessel with an east wind at night (coasters excluded) should attempt the entrance without a pilot, as long as she can keep to sea.—Having stumbled upon the word pilot, we may write—
Prevention second.—A more effective system of pilotage at Port Jackson Heads. Let me be understood when I say effective system of pilotage, because I do not for a moment throw blame or slur upon the pilots now at the Heads, but I think it disgraceful to the Government of New South Wales that such a paltry system should be kept alive when I see the way they manage things in Melbourne. It strikes me very forcibly that a pilot-cutter—one of those crafts that can keep the sea in any weather, would be very beneficial in preventing any more wrecks like that of the Dunbar. And I venture it as my opinion, that had such a vessel, with six, or any other number of good men and true in her, been cruising off the Sydney Heads, we should not now have to lament the loss of the ship Dunbar, and all hands, save one, on the night of August 20th, 1857. That cutter would have been cruising on such a night with Sydney lights bearing from N.N.W. to W.N.W., or thereabouts, distant from 10 to 15 miles, she would in all probability have put a pilot on board the Dunbar (if Johnson's account is correct) with daylight, and before the gale came on. Had the cutter not been able to board the ship, the latter would have been ordered to answer the flash-light which all pilot vessels burn every half-hour, and there is little doubt that men intimately acquainted with coasting work, which long-voyage ship-masters cannot possibly be, would have seconded the first order by an urgent request to make more sail and keep to sea, if possible; or, had the pilots deemed the entrance at all practicable, yet without being able to board the ship, the latter would have been directed to follow in the wake of the cutter, as is continually done on the coast of England.
D. P."
More bodies have been discovered in the North Harbour, since the compilation of the foregoing narrative, but they have not, it is believed, been yet identified. The matter of wreck was mentioned in the House of Assembly, on Tuesday evening last. A debate thereon seemed at one time likely to supervene, but the discussion was very properly stopped by the Speaker as irregular.
Our readers may be interested to learn that poor Johnson has a trade (that of a rough carpenter) and does not purpose for the present, at all events, to return to the dangers of a seafaring life. We beg to suggest that a shilling subscription be set on foot in his behalf, so as to buy him tools and clothing, and thus set him up in business. We feel confident that if the subscription be made, thus low, hundreds will willingly contribute. The Right Worshipful the Mayor, Captain McLerie, and the Police Magistrates, who have already taken so warm an interest in the sad event would doubtless not refuse their aid and sanction to what is now proposed.
A short description of the locality where the late melancholy catastrophe occurred may be interesting to those not acquainted with it. From the outer South Head (near which the lighthouse stands) to the South Reef, at the entrance of Port Jackson, the distance is about a mile and a half. It is between these two points that the catastrophe occurred. The coast is very high and steep, and, indeed, may be said to be inaccessible. Next to the South Reef is a small bight, commonly known as the Gap, and here are large table rocks nearly level with the surface of the water, and as smooth as if cut by the chisel of the mason. Here, more perhaps than anywhere else, the breakers roll in with excessive violence.
The Gap is a very short distance from the flagstaff at South Head, near which place it is supposed the Dunbar struck. In the fearful sea that was running on Thursday night it is a miracle that a single soul has been saved. Here in fact, must have been the place where the ship went ashore, as on the morning of the wreck no traces of the ship could be seen further south. When, however, the ebb tide made, the wreck would of course be sent towards the entrance of the port, and the easterly wind and sea, assisted by the subsequent flood tide, would drift the bodies and floating masses into Middle Harbour, where, indeed, the greater portion of the debris and a number of bodies were found to be deposited.