That the captain was in some degree ignorant of the exact spot where he was, and was but imperfectly acquainted with the coast, seems manifest from this,--when the hurricane gathered in its might, it was proposed that a barrel of tar should be fired and sent adrift, in order to light up the coast. 'When the vessel struck,' says one of the daily newspaper reports, 'signal guns were fired, rockets sent off, and every means adopted to attract attention from the shore; but the houses in the neighbourhood being few and far between, no practicable assistance was attracted. No life-boat could live in the raging sea, and the boats of the vessel herself were perfectly unavailable.' * * * * * From the foregoing, a picture only too vivid of the catastrophe may be realized. The Boatswain's Mate describes the storm; Mr. Russell paints the ship with all its intense and death-foreboding excitement; and Mr. Bradbury conveys, with dread distinctness, the manner in which the handful of saved fought their way from the jaws of death. One or two other narratives, purporting to be from survivors, have appeared, but as they are mere paraphrases of those I have given, I have some doubt in the first place of their genuineness, and in the second of the desirability of occupying space with repetitions. Let the description of the night of the wreck end here. The moment the news of the disaster reached London and Liverpool, agents from Lloyd's and the owners of the ship were despatched to Molfre Bay. They were accompanied by representatives of the principal London and Liverpool journals, and the communications which the reporters subsequently addressed to their several papers were affecting in the extreme. Here is the first:-- 'MOLFRA BAY, THURSDAY EVENING.--It is my very painful duty to record the total wreck of the screw steamship "Royal Charter," Captain Taylor, which took place at from three to eight o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, at Molfre, a rugged portion of the Anglesea coast, and about midway between Amlwch and Ruffin Island. The ill-fated vessel sailed from Melbourne on the 26th of August, having on board 388 passengers, of whom 63 occupied the saloon, and a crew, including officers, of 112 persons. While the ship was passing Queenstown, on Monday morning, 13 of the passengers landed in a pilot-boat. On Tuesday morning, at eleven o'clock, the "Royal Charter" spoke the steam-tug "United Kingdom," which, instead of returning to port with riggers who had been assisting in the working of a ship to Cardiff, transferred 11 of the riggers to the "Royal Charter," Captain Taylor having kindly agreed to take them to Liverpool; so that there were on board at the time of the wreck 498 souls, and of these only 39 were saved.