Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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THE WRECK OF THE “ROYAL GEORGE.”

One of the survivors,52 who got through a porthole, looked back and saw the opening “as full of heads as it could cram, all trying to get out. I caught,” said he, “hold of the best bower-anchor, which was just above me, to prevent falling back again into the porthole, and seizing hold of a woman who was trying to get out of the same porthole, I dragged her out.” The same writer says that he saw “all the heads drop back again in at the porthole, for the ship had got so much on her larboard side that the starboard portholes were as upright as if the men had tried to get out of the top of a chimney, with nothing for their legs and feet to act upon.” The sinking of the vessel drew him down to the bottom, but he was enabled afterwards to rise to the surface and swim to one of the great blocks of the ship which had floated off. At the time the ship was sinking, an open barrel of tar stood on deck. When he rose, it was floating on the water like fat, and he got into the middle of it, coming out as black as a negro minstrel!