One day late in the year 1861 a grain‐laden vessel, a fine clipper, might have been seen slowly and gracefully sailing out of the noble bay of San Francisco. On her as passengers were two or three ladies with children, among them Mrs. William Murray, the authoress, who had been recommended to take the long voyage home in a roving clipper, in preference to taking a passage in the over‐crowded steamers running to Panama and New York. Let her open the story. “The sun,” says she, “was shining as it always does in California, until the sea and the rocks and the vast city seemed literally glittering with sunlight. One long look back to the happy home of the last six years, to the home still of the husband and brothers obliged to remain behind, and at last I had only the sea that parted us to look at through my tears. Our friends had seen us set sail in what seemed a gallant ship. It had been chosen from all others as the one to send us home in for its show of perfectness. There were men in San Francisco who knew that the ship was unseaworthy (having been frightfully strained in her last voyage to China), and that she was in no fit condition to be trusted with the lives of helpless women and children, yet they let us sail without a word of warning.” The dreaded Horn had been easily rounded in good weather, and on the evening of January 4th, 1862, they had been eighty‐six days out; in ten more they expected to be in England. The sailors had predicted a stormy night, and a terrific gale followed closely on that prophecy. The wind increased in fury, and the ship rolled till those on board were often thrown from their feet. That night a child was born on board, and the kindly lady passengers did all in their power for the poor mother. “At dawn,” says Mrs. Murray, “taking my little girl by the hand, I went on deck. The storm had in some measure abated, but the sea looked black and sullen, and the swell of the vast heavy waves seemed to mock our frailty. The sailors had been up all night, and were as men playing at some ferocious game: some working in desperation at the pumps, and singing at the pitch of their voices wild sea‐songs to time their common efforts; others employed in throwing hundreds of bags of grain into the sea, that they might thus lighten the ship. This, I think, more than all, showed me our peril. I wandered about, too miserable to remain in any one spot, till the captain assembled us all once more in the cabin to get some food, saying that it was impossible to save the ship, and that we should have need of all our fortitude. I remembered my own vain attempt to eat some bread, but the poor little children took their breakfast and enjoyed it. “We were then each provided with a large bag made of sailcloth, and were advised by the captain to fill it with the warmest articles of clothing we possessed.