The survivors endured dreadful privations before they reached a
settlement. They had plenty of whisky, which had floated ashore from
the wreck, but for solid food they had to eat grass, dead penguins
cast up by the waves, and shellfish. They suffered terribly through
insufficient clothing and lack of boots. Two of them walked along
the coast until they came to the Cape Borda light. One went inland
to May’s Settlement. The other survivor, David Kilpatrick, the
passenger, was so ill that he had to be left behind. When search
parties came back for him he had disappeared, and it was not till
a week later that a systematic search of the island led to the
discovery of his dead body a mile and a half from the spot where the
others had left him.
The Loss of Lochs “Shiel” and “Sunart.”
_Loch Shiel_, the sister ship of _Loch Sloy_, was lost on the Thorne
Rock, Milford Haven on the 30th January, 1901. Her master mistook the
Great Castle Head lights and got on the rocks at 8.40 p.m., the Loch
liner being bound out to Australia from Glasgow. There was no loss of
life, however, on this occasion, half the crew being taken out of the
mizen rigging by a lifeboat, and the other half climbing ashore on to
the rocks by means of her bowsprit.
_Loch Sunart_, the last three-master built for the Loch line, was
launched in January, 1878. Her life was a very short one, as on her
second passage out to Melbourne she was piled up on the Skulmartin
Rock, 11th January, 1879.
Notes on Passages to Australia in 1877.
_Loch Maree_ left Glasgow on 5th May, but was held up for four days
in sight of Tory Island, first by calms and then strong S.W. winds.
Between 21° S.—the limit of the S.E. trades—and the Cape meridian, she
had ten days of strong N.W. winds, during which she logged over 300
miles a day for several days in succession.
_Ben Cruachan_ had such favourable winds in the Channel that she
carried the Channel pilot on to Madeira, where she landed him on 25th
April. She made very steady running down south, for her best day’s work
was only 296 miles. Her sister ship, _Ben Voirlich_, on the contrary,
made a run of 350 miles on 26th July in 35° 37′ S., 22° 10′ W., though
she took 83 days from Achill Head to Hobson’s Bay.
_Pericles_, with 489 emigrants on board, made a good start in her
career, like all Thompson’s ships. Between the 23rd and 24th November
in 44° S., she ran 354 miles before what Captain Largie called a
hurricane, so it is not surprising that _Brilliant_ failed to catch her
in spite of an average of 261 miles a day for 22 days between the Cape
and Otway. _Brilliant_, however, instead of emigrants, had 4000 tons of
general cargo on board.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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