Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/53

 water was again admitted, and the interior thoroughly flushed out. Then the dead bodies and the putrid cargo were removed—a dangerous as well as an unutterably repulsive task. Thirty-three bodies in all were found below, presenting many sights too hideous for description. These were buried in the middle of the Straits.

The last piece of the superstructure taken down was that about the stern, the highest and strongest built of the whole erection. A photograph representing this portion just before removal gives a good idea of the general construction of this great caisson—for that is what it practically was. The upright timbers were half-checked oak planks, and were seven inches thick—as against the six inches employed on the rest of the construction. They were joined by horizontal angle-iron framings shaped to the vessel's stern. The foot of the planking was stepped into a gutter way of double angle-irons, shaped to the taffrail. From the height of this planking the eye may judge the depth below the surface to which the deck sank.

So was raised the Utopia—a wreck recovered probably in the shortest time and with the least expense on record for a vessel of her size.