In attempting to recall the incidents of the terrific hurricane, which for three days raged with more or less fury through the length and breadth of the Black Sea, causing a vast sacrifice of human life, and an incalculable destruction of the most valuable property, it is impossible not to feel that the ordinary powers of description fail in the presence of the grandeur of the elemental strife and the colossal proportions of the catastrophe. The incidents of horror and desolation, the rapid alternations of hope and agony, the gloomy sights and the appalling sounds, with which the genius of Byron has invested the narrative of the shipwreck of a single vessel, here were multipHed and intensified to a degree which transcends the wildest flights of fancy, and baffles the grasp of the boldest conception. Fortunately this is one of the scenes to which the pencil is more capable of doing justice than the pen, and the terrible majesty and resistless power of the mighty tempest are brought home so vividly and forcibly to the eye and to the heart, by the magnificent picture which now claims our attention, that we shall not pretend to do more than accompany it with a few brief words of elucidation and comment.
On the evening of the 13 th November the barometer fell so rapidly, and so low, as to presage, beyond the possibility of a doubt, the approaching storm. Warned in time, Admiral Lyons prudently steamed out to sea in the Agamemnon to secure a wide berth; but when, on the following morning, the strong wind arose, and rushed in its impetuous career across the sorely troubled waters of the Euxine, in search of its prey, it found a ready-prepared holocaust, such as never was offered on the altars of the most implacable of heathen deities.
Thirty transports and several ships of war lay in the offing of the Port of Balaklava, whose narrow entrance is with difficulty made, by all but the smaller craft, even in the most favourable weather, — with a precipitous and iron-bound coast on their lee, and water of immense depth up to the very rocks, whose inhospitable sides offered only the gloomy alternative of doubtful captivity to those who should escape from certain death.
The morning dawned dark and cheerless, masses of black and angrylooking clouds shut out the sun and obscured the sky, or, at times, through their rifts, gave passage to gleams of wild and lurid light, which displayed at once and augmented the horrors of the scene. It had blown heavily during the night, but the wind now rapidly increased to a violence and fury such as the oldest pilots never before remembered to have witnessed. The sea rose with its own peculiar abruptness, and, as it dashed its gigantic waves upon the iron barrier of the coast, they broke into clouds of spray, which mounted for hundreds of feet up the precipitous cliff, and dispersed themselves far away inland. Blinding vapours of scud and mist, mingled with hail, came driving down the gale, shutting out the horizon, and wrapping the fearful waste of seething waters in a still more fearful gloom. Anon they lifted only to discover the strongest ships snatched from their anchors, and hurled with inconceivable violence upon the rocks, where a few minutes sufficed for the work of their destruction.
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The Prince, a magnificent new screw steamer, of 2700 tons burden, which had arrived only a few days previously with the 46th regiment on board, and with a cargo valued at half a million sterling, consisting of large quantities of munitions of war, medical stores, and a complete supply ofi winter clothing, was among the earlier and the most costly victims of the tempest. Providentially the troops had been landed, but the cargo stiU remained intact, and her crew numbered 150 souls. Torn from her anchors, the cable of one of which it was stated had been improperly clinched, and did not hold at all, every efibrt was made by her Captain and by the Admiralty Agent to avert her fate, but in vain. The masts were all cut away to lighten her, and steam was turned on in order to get her to sea; but the rigging of the mizenmast unfortunately got entangled with the machinery of the screw, every revolution of which only served more effectually to hamper it, till at last her steam-power became null, and she hopelessly drifted towards the coast. So tremendous was the sea, at the moment when she struck, that within ten minutes afterwards not a vestige of her was to be seen. Some floating pieces of wreck, scarce any of which were more than a yard long, and a few lifeless bodies, maimed, bruised, and mangled, alone remained to mark the spot where perished this noble vessel, and where 150 human beings, who, but a short space before, had trodden her decks in confidence and hope, met their untimely fate. Of the whole crew only six men and a midshipman escaped.