verboard and hung on to a line
for a while. Then he disappeared."

THE COOPER'S STORY.

James Taylor, a cooper employed on the Roraima, gives the following
account of his experience of the disaster:

"Hearing a tremendous report and seeing the ashes falling thicker, I
dived into a room, dragging with me Samuel Thomas, a gangway man and
fellow countryman, shutting the door tightly. Shortly after I heard a
voice, which I recognized as that of the chief mate, Mr. Scott. Opening
the door with great caution, I drew him in. The nose of Thomas was
burned by the intense heat.

"We three and Thompson, the assistant purser, out of sixty-eight souls
on board, were the only persons who escaped practically uninjured. The
heat being unbearable, I emerged in a few moments, and the scene that
presented itself to my eyes baffles description. All around on the deck
were the dead and dying covered with boiling mud. There they lay, men,
women and little children, and the appeals of the latter for water were
heart-rending. When water was given them they could not swallow it,
owing to their throats being filled with ashes or burnt with the heated
air.

"The ship was burning aft, and I jumped overboard, the sea being
intensely hot. I was at once swept seaward by a tidal wave, but, the sea
receding a considerable distance, the return wave washed me against an
upturned sloop to which I clung. I was joined by a man so dreadfully
burned and disfigured as to be unrecognizable. Afterwards I found he was
the captain of the Roraima, Captain Muggah. He was in dreadful agony,
begging piteously to be put on board his ship.

"Picking up some wreckage which contained bedding and a tool chest, I,
with the help of five others who had joined me on the wreck, constructed
a rude raft, on which we placed the captain. Then, seeing an upturned
boat, I asked one of the five, a native of Martinique, to swim and fetch
it. Instead of returning to us, he picked up two of his countrymen and
went away in the direction of Fort de France. Seeing the Roddam, which
arrived in port shortly after we anchored, making for the Roraima, I
said good-bye to the captain and swam back to the Roraima.

"The Roddam, however, burst into flames and put to sea. I reached the
Roraima at about half-past 2, and was afterwards taken off by a boat
from the French warship Suchet. Twenty-four others with myself were
taken on to Fort de France. Three of these died before reaching port