During the last year, however, an "unprecedentedly large number of shipwrecks"[169] are on record, no less than five valuable packets having been totally lost. In the early part of the year, the _Karnak_, belonging to Messrs. Cunard and Co., was wrecked in entering Nassau harbour. Shortly after, the _Lima_ struck on a reef off Lagarto Island, in the South Pacific Ocean, and went down. The only loss of life occurred in the case of the _Cleopatra_, the third packet which was lost. This last-named vessel, belonging to the African Steam-ship Company, the contractors for the Cape service, was wrecked on Shebar reef, near Sierra Leone, when an officer and four Kroomen were washed from a raft and drowned in endeavouring to reach the shore. Towards the close of 1862, the _Avon_, belonging to the contractors for the West Indian service, was wrecked at her moorings in the harbour of Colon, New Granada; and, lastly, the _Colombo_ (conveying the Australian mails from Sydney) shared the same fate on Minicoy Island, 400 miles from Ceylon. The greatest loss of correspondence was caused by the failure of the last-mentioned packet, though, from the care of the Post-Office authorities, and the prompt arrangements of the contractors, the loss was not nearly so great as it might otherwise have been if the proper appliances had not been ready to hand. The mails were rescued from their ocean bed and brought to London, where every effort that skill could devise was made to restore them to their original condition. They were carefully dried, in order that the addresses of the letters and newspapers might be deciphered. When dried it was requisite that they should be handled most carefully to prevent them crumbling to pieces--so much so, in fact, that many were unfit to travel out of London without being tied up carefully, gummed, and placed in new envelopes, and re-addressed, providing that the old address could by any means be read or obtained. Notwithstanding all the care and attention bestowed, a great number of letters remained, in the words of the Post-Office people, "in a hopeless state of pulp." An Australian _carte de visite_, which arrived with the rescued mails from the _Colombo_, and now before us, may have been a gem of art from one of the antipodean "temples of the sun," but we have not now the means of judging, as a yellow bit of paper, with an indistinct outline upon it, is all that remains. FOOTNOTES: [166] At this period the packets were worked at a considerable loss; though this large item was occasioned by the war, yet the sea-postage never amounted to half the cost of the maintenance of the mail-packets.