The Wrecked Battleship.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8103, 1 June 1906, Page 5

The Wrecked Battleship.

ißy Electric Telegraph Copyright). (Per Press Association.) LONDON, May 31. The Montagu was badly torn, and filled with water. It is feared that she will become a total wreck. The officers and crew were landed. Received June 1, at 7.42 a.m. LONDON. May 31. The battleship Montagu struck heavily and lies across a ledge. Her bottom is pierced in several places. Some of the crew received broken arms and other injuries. (Received June 1, at 8.44 a mJ LONDON. May 81. The battleship Montague struck on the point where the wreck of the Santa Catharina took place as described in .Kingsley's book, " Westward Ho." The story of the wreck of the Spanish galleon Santa Catharina on the Shutter, a rock on the Devon coast, is one of the most thrilling incidents in Kingslev's book. The story of the pursuit of the Spaniard by Amyas Leigh ia the Vengeance, readies the climax when the galleon evades him only to meet her fate on the Shutter. Kingsley describes the rock in the following words : " On their left hand, as they broachedto, the wall of granite sloped down from the clouds towards the isolated piece of rock, some two hundred feet in height. Then a hundred yards of roaring breaker, upon a sunken shelf, across which the race of the tide poured like a cataract; then, amid a column of salt smoke, the Shutter, like a huge black fang, rose waiting for its prey; and between the Shutter and the land, the great galleon loomed dimly through the storm. He, too, had seen his danger and tried to broach-to. But his clumsy mass refused to obey •the.helm ; he struggled a moment, half hid in foam ; fell away again, and rushed upon his doom Another minute. The galleon gave a sudden jar, aud stopped. Then one long heave and-bound, as if to free herself. And then her bows lighted clean upon the Shutter. Ail awful silence fell on every English soul. They heard not the roaring of wind and surge ; they saw not the blinding flashes of the lightning ;*but they heard one long earpiercing wail to every saint in heaven rise from live hundred human throars ; they saw the mighty ship heel over from the wind, and sweep headlong down the cataract of tlie race."