A Miraculous Escape.

The most wonderful escape the Wellington had was in 1893, when she was bound from Picton to London with frozen meat. The story was told me by Mr. Andrew Aitken, the burly Scottish mate of the Takapuna ferry steamer Pupuke, who was one of the crew of the Wellington on this memorable voyage. The ship left Picton on May 12, 1893. It was not until three weeks later that she got clear of the land. About halfway between New Zealand and Cape Horn, while running out of a hurricane, with goose-winged main topsail, the ship pooped a sea, which broke the arm of the man at the wheel and sent the mate through the hen coop, breaking his legpage 48in two places. During this gale the ship logged fourteen knots, which it must be admitted was pretty good for a vessel under bare poles except for the goose-winged main topsail. For the landsman it may be as well to explain that a square sail is "goose-winged" when the middle part is furled to the yard and only the corners (clews as they are called) are hauled out, this giving the sail the appearance of a goose's wing.

From New Zealand to the Horn there is usually a fair wind, and in the case of the Wellington it was considerably more than that; so much so that the ship found herself away to the south-east of that stormy corner. Right up to the Horn the course was by dead

the Wellington At Port Chalmers.

reckoning (the weather had been so bad) and Mr. Aitken says they were so far to the eastward that they sighted South Georgia.