Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/69

 saw it without a great loss of life, besides serious wounds.

As nothing of the kind happened here, we are all glad to have seen once what sailors can do on an emergency, and Captain Grey’s presence of mind (which is always very striking) was quite remarkable. Before we could go from the cabin to the deck, he had given the order, ‘All hands clear wreck,’ which brought every human being up from below, and every man was in his place working away at disentangling the ropes, furling sails, &c., not two minutes after the crash. Except on these occasions, you never see more than half the crew and one-third of the officers at a time; but everybody works in these cases, and it was a curious scene.

We were saying that if any ship had passed at that moment not within speaking distance, they would, with the little exaggeration that attends all disasters, have given you all such a shocking account of our dismasted look; for several smaller sails were carried away by the strain on,them, and you would have heard of us as a wreck on the water. It was supposed that twelve hours would suffice to put us to rights, judging from