I was staying at the Criterion Hotel, on the beach, where the evening previous to my intended departure, I was given a send-off, which lasted into well-advanced morning. Owing to this I missed the boat. A few hours afterwards it was blowing a cyclone. Spray came over the hotel. It was thought the "Banshee" could not live through the blow, and we were not surprised when we learnt very quickly that she was wrecked about 3 p.m. the same afternoon. It was ascertained later that, finding her engines were not powerful enough to make headway against the wind, the captain tried to weather a rocky point on Hinchinbrook Island, so that he might beach her in a sandy bay beyond. She failed to get around the point, and lifted by a wave over the rocks, became fixed in a cleft, where she soon bumped a hole in her hull. Such of her crew and passengers who were not lucky enough to be thrown far inland were drowned, or crushed to death. One passenger, named Burstall, crawled out on a boom, from which the waves swept him high on to the rocks. A following wave put him out of danger, but left him considerably bruised. Out of thirty-seven on board, sixteen were saved, one a stowaway, who, it was said, walked out of the hole made in the ship's hull by the rocks. A few days afterwards I returned to Cooktown by the s.s. "Singapore," and saw what was left of the "Banshee" in the distance. In February, 1877, the "Singapore" ran ashore on L. Island, off Port Mackay, and became a total wreck. I had left my riding horses in Cooktown, and a day or so after my arrival, I went on to Palmerville to send my teams down to the Port. Having done this, and started them two days ahead, Mrs. Jackson, whom I have mentioned as having met some years previously in the Peak Downs district, asked me to take 200 ounces of gold down to the bank. I agreed to do so, carrying it in my valise on the saddle. I was very glad when I reached the waggons to get rid of the gold, as it proved a very dead weight on my legs.