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Show SURVIVORS FROM WRECK TELL STORY OF DISASTER Many Acts of Heroism Performed in Saving Passengers of Wrecked Penguin. Fifty-two Lives Lost. Wellington, X. Z Fifty-two bodies have been recovered from the wrecked steamer Penguin of the Union Steamship Steam-ship company of Wellington, which went on the rocks off Cape Terawhitl. Six of those aboard the Penguin are unaccounted for. In all, the passengers passen-gers and crew numbered about one hundred. The ship struck about 10 o'clock at night, say some of the survivors, but the captain remained on the bridge and, after his vessel slid into deep water, was able to steer her closer into shore. The seas were running high and the small boats and rafts which were hastily launched could not withstand the waves. The boats and rafts were overturned, but while the boats practically sank, the rafts righted themselves a number of times. Many acts of heroism were performed, some of the stronger of those struggling strug-gling in the water helping the weaker to regain the frail erafts. After several sev-eral hours of buffeting, the majority of the survivors on thje rafts reached the shore, demonstrating the rafts are more serviceable than boats in a heavy sea close to a rocky shore. One of. the rafts with ten men thrice capsized cap-sized when but a short distance from the land, but all scrambled back and were ultimately cast up on the cliff and were saved. Four boats came ashore some hours later and all were badly crushed. |
