upon a heap of dead bodies.
He attempted in vain to rise; for though he felt no pain, his left leg
was broken, his knee cut almost half through, and his body much
bruised. In this state he was discovered, and carried by some persons
to a large fire until further assistance could be obtained, and he was
then conveyed to the hospital.

One of the officers of the Sceptre, who is still alive, and who
happened to be on shore at the time this terrible catastrophe
occurred, declares, that nothing imagination could conceive ever
equalled the horrors of that night. When the first signals of distress
were made from the Sceptre, the whole population of Cape Town, with
the officers and soldiers of the garrison, crowded down to the beach,
in the vain hope of being able to afford some assistance. The night
was bitterly cold; the wind blew with terrific violence, and the sea,
lashed into fury, broke with a deafening roar upon the beach. As night
approached, and darkness hid the vessel from their sight, the
feelings of the agonized spectators became almost insupportable. The
booming of the guns alone told that the ship still lived among the
raging waters; whilst ever and anon a piercing shriek announced that
the work of death had begun.

All along the beach large fires were lighted, as beacons to guide
those who might be cast upon the shore. At length the ship was driven
nearer, and again she became visible from the land. She appeared, says
an eye-witness (before mentioned), like a huge castle looming in the
distance. The hopes of the spectators revived as she heeled on towards
them, and they all stood ready to give assistance whenever it should
be available. At one moment, a fearful crash was heard--next, a
piercing shriek, and the flash of the torches waved in the air
displayed the struggling forms of the drowning seamen, tossed to and
fro upon the waves amongst masses of the wreck, which, in many
instances, killed those whom the waters would have spared.

The only help that the people on shore could render to the unhappy
sufferers was, to watch the opportunity when the waves brought a body
near to the land, and then to rush into the water, holding one another
at arm's length, and to grasp the exhausted creature before he was
borne back by the receding wave.

In this manner forty-seven men were saved, together with Mr. Shaw, a
master's mate, and two midshipmen, of the names of Spinks and Buddle,
before-mentioned. Six officers ha