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 back into the wreckage and picked up those who seemed most urgently in need.

I won't enter into the detail of the condition of the poor souls we got, but two instances of nerve stand out so clearly in my mind that I must tell them. Both pertain to women, and never have I seen greater courage and patience shown by anyone.

I heard a call near my end of the boat and told the boys to back water, and I reached over and pulled in a woman who I thought at first glance was a negress; I never believed a white woman could be so black. I learned afterwards that she and her husband had got into a lifeboat, and while he was busy helping to clear it she got panic-stricken by the tremendous overhanging funnels and jumped back on to the steamer without her husband knowing it. She was aboard when the final plunge came, and the suction took her part way down one of the funnels, but