In the whole catalogue of disasters at sea, those which present the most terrible features are water-logged timber ships. The timber trade between Great Britain and her American colonies employs a very considerable fleet of large vessels. As wood is a "floating cargo," old worn-out West-Indiamen, which would not be used for any other purpose, are freely employed. A few years since, in addition to a full cargo, they carried heavy deck-loads, which so strained their shattered fabrics, that they often became water-logged, and were sometimes abandoned in the middle of the Atlantic. The sufferings of the crews on these occasions in their open boats were appalling. Beating about for weeks on the waste of waters without food or drink beyond the rain that fell from heaven, they were obliged to sustain existence by preying on the bodies of their dead companions, and not rarely they cast lots for the living. Since the passing of the Act prohibiting deck-loading, these disasters are far less frequent; but they have by no means ceased.[29] At the time we write there are several timber-ships drifting about the ocean, floating heaps of desolation, at the mercy of the Gulf-stream, which will ultimately cast them on some European shore, or drift them into the North Sea, to serve as fuel for the Esquimaux. In turning over the leaves of Lloyd's List, we find indications of these dreary wrecks, which, clothed in seaweed, are driven over the face of the waters, and sighted by passing ships, of which they often cause the sudden destruction, whilst careering along in seeming security. When these waifs and strays of the deep drift into much-frequented ocean paths, they are doubtless the cause of many of those dreadful catastrophes witnessed only by the eye of God, and our only knowledge of which is a curt notice on the "Loss-book" at Lloyd's, "Foundered at Sea, date unknown." A recent instance, in which possibly no damage was done, will yet suffice to show the risk. The _Virago_, loaded with teak from Moulmein, in the Indian Ocean, to Queenstown, Ireland, became water-logged, and was abandoned on the 5th of March last, 155 miles south-west of Cape Clear. The next day she was passed by the American liner _Eagle_; on the 17th of the same month a steamer, on her way from Rotterdam to Gibraltar, reports having seen her; on the 5th of April she was passed by the _Naiad_ on her passage from Palermo to Milford; and on the 15th the _Samarang_, on her way to Tenby, met with her; on the 18th she was seen 160 miles off the Lizard, "in a very dangerous position," by the _Champion of the Seas_; again, on the 3rd of May, the _Alhambra_ steamer, on her voyage to Southampton, met her in latitude 47°; about the same time and place she was seen by the _Peru_ steamer, "and appeared as if run into;" and, finally, on the 20th of May, the telegraph sends word that she was stranded near Brest, and her cargo was being discharged. It