WAIF FROM THE OCEAN.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 141, 14 November 1874, Page 2

WAIF FROM THE OCEAN.

We, says the South Australian Chronicle , are favored with the perusal of one of those messages occasionally committed to the mighty deep, to be picked up on a far-off shore, and tell perhaps of the fate of some goodly vessel, or merely to throw light upon the course of the ocean currents, or gratify a harmless fancy for sending a friendly communication by such a medium. In this case Mr Benjamin Dening, of Denington, near Robe, found a bottle on the 9th instant on the coast, about eight miles east from Guichen Bay, containing the following letter, which he asks us to forward to its destination, a request that will be complied with. “ To Messrs F. Green and Company, 140, Leadenhall street, London. This leaves the Malabar, from Cardiff to Bombay, 54 days out, all well. Have had very strong gales from W. N. W. the last fortnight, and very high seas, evidently bad weather to the southward and westward of us. Kept to the northward to avoid it, and to-day got into finer weather. Wind still strong at W. N. W. with heavy seas, but weather finer and glasses higher. Barometer 29.75, steering E.N.E. “ Please send this to Lloyd’s Agents, and oblige, “ lours sincerely, “Charles Douglas, “Master Malabar. “39-00 South; 25-00 East, “ 12th Dec., 1872.” It will be seen by this that the bottle was thrown overboard a little east, and about four degrees south of the Cape of Good Hope, but how long it was reaching the spot where it was picked up it is of course impossible to say. The paper is in a good state of preservation, though a little stained, as if it had been put into a wet bottle, or the cork had become leaky.