Poets’ Opinions on Early Navigation—Who was the First Female Navigator?—Noah’s Voyage—A Thrilling Tale—A Strained Vessel—A Furious Gale—A Birth at Sea—The Ship Doomed—Ladies and Children in an Open Boat—Drunken Sailors—Semi-starvation, Cold, and Wet—Exposed to the Tropical Sun—Death of a Poor Baby—Sharks about—A Thievish Sailor—Proposed Cannibalism—A Sail!—The Ship passes by—Despair—Saved at Last—Experiences of a Yachtswoman—Nearly Swamped and Carried Away—An Abandoned Ship—The Sunbeam of Service—Ship on Fire!—Dangers of a Coal Cargo—The Crew Taken off—Noble Lady Passengers—Two Modern Heroines and their Deeds—The Story of Grace Darling—The Longstone Light and Wreck of the Forfarshire—To the Rescue!—Death of Grace Darling.
“Hearts sure of brass they had who tempted first
Rude seas that spare not what themselves have nursed.”
So sings Waller, and his words are only the repetition of a sentiment much more grandly expressed by Horace, who wrote now near two thousand years ago:—“Surely oak and threefold brass surrounded his heart who first trusted a frail vessel to the merciless ocean.” And once more, just to show the unanimity of the poets on this point, Dr. Watts has said:—
“It was a brave attempt! advent’rous he
Who in the first ship broke the unknown sea.”
Now, if all this is said of man, what shall be said of the woman who first trusted herself on the great deep? Who was she? It would be most difficult to satisfactorily answer this question, but there can be no doubt that “Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons,” whose voyage and enforced residence in the ark lasted no less than twelve months and three days[24] are the earliest females on record who embarked in a great vessel on a boundless expanse of waters.
These pages have already presented episodes in the lives of many seafaring ladies, but till now no chapter has been specially devoted to the subject. In these days of general travel ladies make, as we have often seen, long voyages to and from far distant parts. One of them, some nineteen years ago, underwent the horrors of shipwreck, and her subsequent sufferings were admirably told by her under the title of “Ten Terrible Days.” The account, which should be read in its entirety, is here, for obvious reasons, considerably condensed.
One day late in the year 1861 a grain-laden vessel, a fine clipper, might have been seen slowly and gracefully sailing out of the noble bay of San Francisco. On her as passengers were two or three ladies with children, among them Mrs. William Murray, the authoress, who had been recommended to take the long voyage home in a roving clipper, in preference to taking a passage in the over-crowded steamers running to Panama and New York. Let her open the story. “The sun,” says she, “was shining as it always does in California, [pg 57]until the sea and the rocks and the vast city seemed literally glittering with sunlight. One long look back to the happy home of the last six years, to the home still of the husband and brothers obliged to remain behind, and at last I had only the sea that parted us to look at through my tears. Our friends had seen us set sail in what seemed a gallant ship. It had been chosen from all others as the one to send us home in for its show of perfectness. There were men in San Francisco who knew that the ship was unseaworthy (having been frightfully strained in her last voyage to China), and that she was in no fit condition to be trusted with the lives of helpless women and children, yet they let us sail without a word of warning.”
The dreaded Horn had been easily rounded in good weather, and on the evening of January 4th, 1862, they had been eighty-six days out; in ten more they expected to be in England. The sailors had predicted a stormy night, and a terrific gale followed closely on that prophecy. The wind increased in fury, and the ship rolled till those on board were often thrown from their feet. That night a child was born on board, and the kindly lady passengers did all in their power for the poor mother.