had been recommended to take a trip to the Sandheads. He accordingly
embarked on a large and powerful steam tug, the _Retriever_, towing an
outward bound vessel, the _Godiva_, but the weather from the early
morning had been looking very lowering and threatening, and by the
time they reached Saugor Island It had become infinitely worse. Why
they were ever allowed to proceed to sea has always remained a mystery
to me. It must, I think, have been some bungling on the part of the
port authorities. The further they proceeded down the Bay, the worse
the weather became, until eventually they ran right bang into the very
teeth of a severe cyclone. The result, as was to be expected, proved
most disastrous. The hawser connecting the ship and steam tug snapped
in two, being unequal to the tremendous strain, and they parted
company. The vessel escaped by a miracle after having been battered
about and driven in all directions. She was eventually rescued by the
_Warren Hastings_, after the lapse of three days in the Eastern
Channel, in a completely gutted condition, but the steam tug foundered
with every soul on board. In the act of sinking, a most extraordinary
and unheard-of thing happened. A lascar on board was violently shot up
from below through one of the air ventilators of the steamer, and was
found floating in the sea some 36 hours afterwards by a P. & O.
steamer coming up the Bay to Calcutta. He was the one and only
survivor left to tell the sad tale. Of course it could never be
ascertained what actually occurred, but I recollect one of the
theories propounded at the time was to the effect that the steamer had
been drawn into the vortex of the cyclone, and she must then have been
encompassed round about by a towering mass of pyramidical seas,
tumbling in the wildest confusion from all points of the compass,
which gradually led to the culmination of the final catastrophe by
crashing down on to the deck with irresistible and overwhelming force,
literally smothering and engulfing her without a shadow of chance of