Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/120

 114 THE CORNWALL COAST to save all that were left on the wreck, but 196 were drowned. There was another rich harvest for St. Keverne graveyard. The memor- able blizzard of 1891 of course paid its tribute of wrecks to these shores. The largest loss was the Baij of Panama, a Liverpool boat of 2,282 tons, making for Dundee with jute from Calcutta. Eighteen of her crew were lost, some being frozen to death. On this occasion a most wonderful feat of courage and endurance was accomplished by a man of Porthoustock, that village of brave men. It was important that telegraphic messages should be despatched from Helston, and a man named James volunteered to carry them. He reached Helston with infinite difficulty, and found the place practically snowed up, all communication broken. Against strong advice he resolved to push on to Falmouth, distant at least fourteen miles by road, the roads almost impassable with sno^v- drifts. He began his journey by pony, but soon had to leave the animal behind. Once he was near succumbing, but a rest in a wayside cottage restored him ; the last two and a half miles he covered by crawling on his hands and knees, being too exhausted to walk. Falmouth was reached at last, and the messages from Porthous- tock, St. Keverne, and Helston were delivered. But the tale of wrecks is not finished. In 1895 the Andola was broken here, its crew saved by the lifeboat from Porthoustock. More recent, and the best remembered of all, is the wreck of the Mohegan, in 1898. She was a boat of 7,000 tonnage, leaving Gravesend with about 150 persons on board. She struck one of the Manacles, and within twenty minutes was submerged with the exception of masts and funnel. Rescue proved very difficult,