y wrenched off, and her steering gear
being also carried away, she broached to and lay like a huge log in the
trough of the sea. From Thursday evening until two o'clock on Sunday,
her bulwarks almost touching the water, she rolled about like a disabled
hulk, the passengers and crew expecting that she would every moment go
down. The working and rolling of the vessel, at one instant of dread,
displaced and destroyed all the furniture of the cabin and saloons, and,
broke it to pieces, throwing the passengers pell-mell about the cabin.
Everything that occupied the upper deck was washed away, and a large
part of the passengers' luggage was destroyed. Between twenty and
thirty of those who were on board, including several ladies, had limbs
and ribs fractured, with numerous cuts and bruises. One of the
cow-sheds, with two cows in it, was washed into the ladies' cabin,
together with other things on board, and caused indescribable
consternation and confusion.

On Sunday evening, after two days of terrible suspense, a temporary
steering gear was fitted up, and the disabled vessel with her distressed
crew made for Cork Harbour, steaming with her screw at nine knots an
hour. Her flag of distress was sighted at about three o'clock in the
afternoon of Tuesday, off the Old Head of Kinsale, and H.M. ship
_Advice_ at once steamed out to her assistance and towed her to within a
mile of the lighthouse off Cork Harbour by about nine o'clock.

Such is a general outline of this disaster--one which is rendered all
the more remarkable from the circumstance that the vessel had only been
recently surveyed by the officers of the marine department of the Board
of Trade, when new decks and other requirements were carried out and
completed at a cost of 15,000 pounds.

The scene during the storm in the grand saloon, as described in detail
by various passengers, was absolutely terrific. None of the furniture
had been secured, and when the gale became violent and the rolling of
the vessel increased, sideboards, tables, chairs, stools, crockery,
sofas, and passengers were hurled with fearful violence from side to
side in a promiscuous heap. When it is said that at each roll the top
platform of the paddle-boxes dipped into the sea, anyone who has seen
the towering sides of the _Great Eastern_ may form some conception of
the angle of the decks, and the riot of unfastened articles that
continued below during the greater part of the gale. The dest