All went on prosperously until the Thursday, when, as the ship was in full steam and sail, she encountered a terrific gale about 280 miles to the west of Cape Clear, and, in spite of the best seamanship, she failed to ride over the storm, which, with tremendous fury, swept away both her paddles. Simultaneously the top of the rudder-post, a bar of iron ten inches in diameter, was suddenly wrenched off, and her steering gear being also carried away, she broached to and lay like a huge log in the trough of the sea. From Thursday evening until two o'clock on Sunday, her bulwarks almost touching the water, she rolled about like a disabled hulk, the passengers and crew expecting that she would every moment go down. The working and rolling of the vessel, at one instant of dread, displaced and destroyed all the furniture of the cabin and saloons, and, broke it to pieces, throwing the passengers pell-mell about the cabin. Everything that occupied the upper deck was washed away, and a large part of the passengers' luggage was destroyed. Between twenty and thirty of those who were on board, including several ladies, had limbs and ribs fractured, with numerous cuts and bruises. One of the cow-sheds, with two cows in it, was washed into the ladies' cabin, together with other things on board, and caused indescribable consternation and confusion. On Sunday evening, after two days of terrible suspense, a temporary steering gear was fitted up, and the disabled vessel with her distressed crew made for Cork Harbour, steaming with her screw at nine knots an hour. Her flag of distress was sighted at about three o'clock in the afternoon of Tuesday, off the Old Head of Kinsale, and H.M. ship _Advice_ at once steamed out to her assistance and towed her to within a mile of the lighthouse off Cork Harbour by about nine o'clock. Such is a general outline of this disaster--one which is rendered all the more remarkable from the circumstance that the vessel had only been recently surveyed by the officers of the marine department of the Board of Trade, when new decks and other requirements were carried out and completed at a cost of 15,000 pounds.