[Illustration: WRECK OF THE “BIRKENHEAD.”] Striving to quicken the voyage by shortening the passage, the commandant hugged the shore too closely off Cape Danger, and in doing so the vessel struck upon a sunken rock whilst steaming at the rate of eight miles an hour. So tremendous was the shock, that, although the night was clear and the sea calm, the stately ship was in a moment a broken wreck. The catastrophe occurred three miles from land, and six hours after starting. Yet all save the vessel might have been saved, but for the unfortunate command to back the engines, which had the effect, instead of easing the vessel, to dash her amidships upon the rocks, precipitating her fate; so that, in little more than half-an-hour, breaking in two, she went down, with 9 officers and 349 men, besides fully 80 of the crew. Whilst these so truly brave men were engulfed the prey of the insatiate sea, _the weak and helpless—the women and children, were all saved_, but only by such a noble sacrifice. The heart sickens as we contemplate so dreadful a scene, thus pathetically and feelingly narrated in the _New York Express_:— “The steamer struck on a hidden rock, stove a plank at the bows, and went to the bottom, we believe, in half-an-hour’s time. There was a regiment of troops on board. As soon as the alarm was given, and it became apparent that the ship’s fate was sealed, the roll of the drum called the soldiers to arms on the upper deck. That call was promptly obeyed, though every gallant heart there knew that it was his death summons. There they stood as if in battle array—a motionless mass of brave men—men who were men indeed. The ship every moment was going down and down—but there were no traitors, no deserters, no cravens there! The women and children were got into the boats, and were all, or nearly all, saved. There were no boats for the troops—but there was no panic, no blanched, pale, quivering lips among them!... Men like these never perish; their bodies may be given to the fishes of the sea, but their memories are, as they ought to be—immortal!” These, records the _Spectator_—“the very men whom we shrank from when we met them wearing flying ribbons in their battered hats, reeling through the streets—were the same who went down in the ‘Birkenhead’—as which of us can feel sure that he would have had nerve to do?—in their ranks, shoulder to shoulder, standing at ease, watching the sharks that were waiting for them in the waves—at the simple suggestion of their officers that the women and children filled the boats, and must be saved first. No saint ever died more simply; no martyr ever died more voluntarily; no hero ever died more firmly; no victim ever met his fate in a more generous spirit of self-immolation.”