[Pg 1]

"ALL HANDS SCRAMBLED UP THE RIGGING."

PERIL AND PRIVATION.

BY JAMES PAYN.

THE WRECK OF THE "JUNO."

Of all the sufferers from shipwrecks, women are the most to be pitied;for children do not know the full extent of their danger until deathrelieves them, while women usually overestimate it. Their mental agoniesare therefore greater than those endured by men, while their physicalprivations are as great, without the same strength to bear them.

Mrs. Bremner, wife of the Captain of the Juno, bound from Rangoon toMadras, had perhaps as terrible an experience of shipwreck as ever fellto the lot of any of her sex. The ship's crew consisted chiefly ofLascars, with a few Europeans, among whom was John Mackay, the secondmate, who tells this story.

Soon after the Juno set sail she sprang a leak, which increased moreand more on account of the sand ballast choking the pumps, until on thetwelfth evening she settled down. From the sudden jerk all imagined theywere going to the bottom, but she only sank low enough to bring theupper deck just under water.

All hands scrambled up the rigging to escape instant destruction,"moving gradually upward as each succeeding wave buried the ship stilldeeper. The Captain and his wife, Mr. Wade and myself, with a fewothers, got into the mizzentop. The rest clung about themizzen-rigging....