My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

154 MY LIFE" The cargo of the ship consisted of rubber, cocoa,anatto, balsam-capivi, and piassaba. The balsam wasin small casks, twenty stowed in sand, and twentysmall kegs in rice-chaff, immediately beneath thecabin floor, where the fire seemed to be. For sometime we had heard this bubbling and hissing as ifboiling furiously, the heat in the cabin was very great,flame soon broke into the berths and through the cabinfloor, and in a few minutes more blazed up throughthe skylight on deck. All hands were at onceordered into the boats, which were astern of the ship.It was now about twelve o'clock, only three hoursfrom the time the smoke was first discovered. I hadto let myself down into the boat by a rope, and beingrather weak it slipped through my hands and took theskin off all my fingers, and finding the boat still halffull of water I set to baling, which made my handssmart very painfully. We lay near the ship all theafternoon, watching the progress of the flames, whichsoon covered the hinder part of the vessel, and rushedup the shrouds and sails in a most magnificent conflagration.Soon afterwards, by the rolling of theship, the masts broke off and fell overboard, thedecks soon burnt away, the ironwork at the sidesbecame red-hot, and last of all the bowsprit, beingburnt at the base, fell also. No one had thought ofbeing hungry till darkness came on, when we had ameal of biscuit and raw ham, and then disposed ourselvesas well as we could for the night, which, youmay be sure, was by no means a pleasant one. Ourboats continued very leaky, and we could not ceasean instant from baling ;there was a considerableswell, though the day had been remarkably fine, andthere were constantly floating around us pieces of theburnt wreck, masts, etc, which might have stove in