ier than usual, observed great quantities of seaweed occasionally
floating alongside. This excited some alarm, and a man was immediately
sent aloft to keep a good look-out. The weather was then extremely hazy,
though moderate; the weeds continued; all were on the alert; they
shortened sail, and the boatswain piped for breakfast. In less than ten
minutes, "breakers ahead!" startled every soul, and in a moment all
were on deck. "Breakers starboard! breakers larboard! breakers all
around!" was the ominous cry a moment afterward, and all was confusion.
The words were scarcely uttered, when, and before the helm was up, the
ill-fated ship struck, and, after a few tremendous shocks against the
sunken reef, she parted about midship. Ropes and stays were cut
away--all rushed forward, as if instinctively, and had barely reached
the forecastle, when the stern and quarter-deck broke asunder with a
violent crash, and sunk to rise no more. Two of the seamen miserably
perished--the rest, including officers, passengers, and crew, held on
about the head and bows--the struggle was for life!

At this moment the Inaccessible Island, which till then had been vailed
in thick clouds and mist, appeared frowning above the haze. The wreck
was more than two miles from the frightful shore. The base of the island
was still buried in impenetrable gloom. In this perilous extremity, one
was for cutting away the anchor, which had been got up to the cathead in
time of need; another was for cutting down the foremast, the
foretop-mast being already by the board. The fog totally disappeared,
and the black, rocky island stood in all its rugged deformity before
their eyes. Suddenly the sun broke out in full splendor, as if to expose
more clearly to the view of the sufferers their dreadful predicament.
Despair was in every bosom--death, arrayed in all its terrors, seemed to
hover over the wreck. But exertion was required, and every thing that
human energy could devise was effected. The wreck, on which all eagerly
clung, was fortunately drifted by the tide and wind between ledges of
sunken rocks and thundering breakers, until, after the lapse of several
hours, it entered the only spot on the island where a landing was
possibly practicable,--for all the other parts of the coast consisted of
perpendicular cliffs of granite, rising from amid the deafening surf to
the height of twenty, forty, and sixty feet. As the shore was neared, a
raft was prepared, and on this