“St. Mary’s, April 18th.
“The gun went last night or very early this morning. Of course I flew out of bed, and if it had not been for my landlady’s nerves I would have flown out of doors. The noise of the gun had hardly ceased to vibrate when men came out of the houses and began to run, and it has puzzled me ever since to know if the Scillonians sleep in their clothes, for they had them on, and how they got into them passes my comprehension.
“The life-boat I heard launched with a cheer about ten minutes after.
“It was a thick fog, and the boat, as you will see by the papers, is the ‘Minnehaha,’ with a crew of 100, 64 passengers, and 300 cattle. She struck on the Scilly Rock, near Bryher; and I believe everybody is safe on Bryher by now. They hope to float the vessel off at full tide. They have wired to Penzance for the ‘Lyonnesse’ to come and fetch the passengers, so I don’t think she will worry about such trifles as our mails to-day.
(Later the same day.)
“‘Wrecking’ is delightful work. I feel quite capable now of tying a lantern to a cow’s-horn. All morning I have been out in the damp fog, and all St. Mary’s also. The policeman had to shoo the children into the school.
“They are now landing the passengers’ luggage, and a cheer went down the quay on the arrival of a large teddy-bear. The purser of the vessel says they have been in fog three days. They struck just where the cocoanut vessel struck before.
“All the boats rushed across to the wreck this morning, but the captain stood with a pistol in his hand and dared the men to come on board. When the vessel is proclaimed hopeless there will be a rush—thousands of tons of cargo on board, and they are throwing heaps overboard to try and get her off, but the universal prayer is that they won’t, as it will be a harvest for Scilly. All the same, there is much sympathy with the captain.