[ 257 ] CAPT. MANBY'S METHOD OF RESCUING PERSONS FROM (Continued from p. 167.) ANOTHER mode of bringing the crew on shore, after communication is once gained, is by a basket or cot, as in the subjoined figure *. It is furnished with lashings, to prevent the person within it from falling or being washed out. The want of a bottom of canvas is supplied by a strong netting, by which the water is let through, that otherwise collecting in it in its passage and repassage between the ship and the shore, would retard or stop it by greatly increasing its weight, and, possibly, drown the person conveyed by it. This mode is peculiarly adapted for bringing on shore helpless women and children, or the sick and wounded. In employing this cot the following directions are to be minutely observed and practised: First, drive three strong stakes deep into the ground, in such a position with regard to one another that they form a triangle, and from a wide base meet close at their heads, which are to be lashed firmly together, and have a gun-tackle purchase made fast to them. As soon as communication has been effected with the distressed vessel, by the rope carried out by the shot from the mortar, the crew will haul on board by it from the shore a large rope, and also a tailed block, rove with a smaller rope, both ends of which are to be kept on shore. When these are made fast on board, the large rope, after it is passed through the roller at each end of the cot, is to have the gun-tackle purchase fast to the stakes lashed to it. The ends of the small rope are then to be made fast one to each end of the cot, and the cot travelling by the rollers on the large rope is to be worked by the bite of it to the ship, and back by the people on shore t. The gun-tackle purchase is for the purpose of keeping the rope, on which the cot runs, at a proper degree of tension. It is to be most carefully attended to, for, if it be slackened, as the vessel rolls out towards the sea, the liability of the rope to be broken will be prevented; and if gathered in, on the other hand, as the ship rolls in again towards the shore, the too great slackness of the rope, which would hinder the free passage of the cot, and plunge it more than is necessary in the water, will be avoided. The basket or cot should be made buoyant by corks or kegs of air. But where the coast is extremely rocky, or the beach very rugged, it will be necessary, to protect the person coming to the shore from injury when dashed by the violence of the sea against the side of a cliff or beach; this will effectually be prevented, as well as the danger of drowning, by a hammock stuffed with cork shavings: buoyant jackets may be made upon this principle, at the expense of a very few shillings. If there are several persons at hand, the large rope may be hauled tort by them without using the purchase-tackle. GENT. MAG. September, 1821. Another 258 Capt. Manby on Preservation of Shipwrecked Persons. [Sept. Another method of passing the crew to the shore, in the absence both of a boat and the cot, is by a grummet of rope, in the manner described in an extract from the narrative of Lieutenant Woodger of the Royal Navy, on the 20th of January, 1814. "In firing the second shot from the top of the cliff, I had the satisfaction of throwing the line over the vessel, which was full two hundred and thirty yards from the cliff. On signs being made to the people on board, they hauled a sufficient quantity of the line on board for the bite to return to the shore, they then made a hawser fast to it, that was fortunately lying abaft: as soon as the people on the cliff had hauled the said hawser on shore and tort from the vessel, I cut a piece of the hawser off, and made a grummet on the hawser with it, sufficiently large for a man to sit in, to which I made the bite of the line fast: on waving to the people on board, they hauled the grummet along the hawser to the vessel, and one man got into it at a time, and was hauled on shore hanging on the hawser; and the grummet was hauled to the vessel again, by which method the whole of the crew, consisting of five men and two boys, were saved. The vessel immediately afterwards broke up." In case of shipwreck, under circumstances of great destitution, in which none of the modes above described can be put in practice, the crew, on receiving the rope thrown on board by the shot from the mortar, will secure it; and then, drawing on board so much as will fully reach from the vessel to the shore, make a clove hitch in it, like the figure; which is to be put over the shoulders and arms of the person to be brought on shore, and drawn tort, close under the arm-pits; care being taken to fix the knot on the breast-bone, as described in the annexed design. て Ө Terrible as this alternative may appear, its success may be relied on. NINE FOREIGNERS have been saved by it in cases of extraordinary peril on the coast of Norfolk; and some time ago, the MASTER, FOUR SEAMEN, a BOY, and the MASTER'S DAUGHTER, were brought in safety to the shore by it, at Winterton, in the same county, just before the vessel went to pieces. The attempt to swim on shore, without some such aid, is almost certain destruction to the strongest and most skilful swimmer, although he be furnished 1821.] Capt. Manby on Preservation of Shipwrecked Persons. 259 with corks or other buoyant substances; for if he venture, he will most probably either be killed by the violence with which he is dashed by the waves against the beach, or drowned in struggling against the regurgitation of the surge. The rope, designed for the purpose of affording prompt relief to those who fall or are washed overboard from vessels at sea, may, in some cases, be useful in bringing persons on shore from vessels wrecked near the shore. This rope has a noose that can be enlarged or contracted by the small wooden slide or button, through which the spliced or double part of the rope passes. This noose is kept open by a piece of whalebone that passes, with the rope, through a number of corks which keep it afloat. A buoy, made of piece of wood, shaped like an egg (which, as well as the corks, is painted white, that it may be better seen in the dark), is fixed on the rope, that when grasped by a person in danger is prevented by it from slipping through his hands, as might happen with a common rope. By this buoy too he can support himself while he is putting the noose over his head and arm; having done which, he can secure himself in it by pulling the slide or button to him, and may be drawn to the ship, and up the ship's side, without any injury; the corks performing the additional service of protecting him from being galled by the rope. A mortar, so small as to be with its apparatus very light and portable, will afford the great benefit of hastening the moment of communication in cases where the vessel in distress is stranded at a considerable distance from the depôt of the larger mortar and apparatus (which cannot be moved with so much expedition), and is every minute in danger of going to pieces. If any of the crew be at all able to assist themselves, they may draw on board to them, by the logline that is projected to them from this small mortar, a rope strong enough to perform all the subsequent process requisite to their escape. This mortar may be dispatched with its apparatus by a man on foot, as was shown before a Committee of the House of Commons on the 14th of May, 1814. The engraving beneath represents the man as he was equipped with the small mortar and every appendage to it. 260 Capt. Manby on Preservation of Shipwrecked Persons. [Sept. He had slung at his back, in the manner of a knapsack, a frame with conical pegs (as before described, but of proportionably reduced size), on which two hundred yards of log-line were wound, a two-pounder mortar in a socket hanging by a leather strap across his shoulder, and a box, belted round his waist, containing gunpowder in cartridges, prepared tubes, a bottle of sulphuric acid for firing them; and pieces of primed port-fire, and slow-match. The whole weighed not more than 32lbs. The mortar, charged with two ounces of powder, was fired, and projected the shot with the log-line attached to it upwards of 120 yards. The powers of a small mortar may, however, be considerably increased by an additional weight given to the shot by the shape here represented. This shot has been used with much success. It has been ascertained, by experiment, that the range of the mortar with it is considerably more than a spherical shot of the same calibre. When it is made to fit the mortar as closely as possible, a great increase of velocity is gained, by the decrease of what is called the windage; and when it is wedged in, the range will be greater still. This consequently adds to the recoil, and care should be taken not to stand behind the mortar. It often occurs, when a vessel can no longer keep the sea, that she bears up, as her only chance of safety, for a harbour, which she makes, and which would afford her a refuge, if there were a sufficient flow of tide at its entrance; but, unfortunately, not finding depth of water enough for her draught, she grounds on the bar, and offers not the least distressing species of shipwreck. Although boats can readily go from the harbour with the ebb tide, yet they are not able to approach the distressed vessel, from want of resistance to the blade of the oar amidst the broken water of the breakers that surround her; and, near as they may approach to the vessel, assistance is as far off as ever. My attention was consequently drawn to the construction of a small piece of ordnance to be fixed in the bows of boats, with a crate by its side, containing a line to be carried over the vessel by a shot projected from the mortar. In proceeding on this service, the mortar should be loaded and primed ready for instantaneous application, and, together with the crate, should be covered with a cloth or tarpaulin, that the ammunition may not be wetted by the spray of the sea in the one, or the line displaced in the other. The man who steers will watch the moment when the boat is stem on with the object, and give the word to the person attending in the bow for that purpose, who will instantly fire the mortar. Communication thus gained, the boat may be hauled by the rope to the vessel, and the crew saved. The best method of rescuing persons from vessels wrecked under a steep promontory, or inaccessible cliff, is by a rope ladder, such as in the figure, which may be projected, like the plain rope, by a shot from the mortar. In 1821.] Capt. Manby on Preservation of Shipwrecked Persons. 261 In order to make this rope ladder, stiff loops, large enough to admit the foot, are spliced into a rope at the distance of a foot and a half from each other. It may, however, be much improved, when not required to be projected by the mortar, but merely lowered by the hand to the person requiring son who is to ascend it. assistance, by distending the bottom of each loop with a broad and flat piece of wood in this shape, which will serve at once as a rest for the foot, and to keep the rope at a more convenient distance from the rock to the per The life-rope, already described, might also be found eminently useful in giving assistance to vessels driven in storms under high and steep parts of the coast. (To be continued.) ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES. MONUMENT AT SIGANFU. It would afford considerable gratification to many studious readers, if any of our Correspondents would (of their own knowledge, or from the numerous and intelligent Missionaries who are sent to China by the two Societies, or indeed by any other societies for that purpose), furnish some correct information of the celebrated Chinese Monument which was discovered at Siganfu by the Jesuits, during the last or preceding Century. Mosheim says (Cent. 7. ch. 1. I. i.) that it was by the labours of the Nestorians that the light of the Gospel first penetrated into the immense empire of China, about the year 637, when Jesuiabas of Gadala was their Chief. Some have indeed esteemed this Monument to be a mere fiction of the Jesuits, though perhaps without reason. There are other unexceptionable proofs that the Northern parts of China, even before the 7th Century, abounded with Christians, who, for many succeeding ages, were under the inspection of a Metropolitan sent there by the Chaldean or Nestorian patriarch. Kircher, Muller, and Renaudot, have mentioned this antient relick,-as also Asemanni in the Vatican Library; and Liron also, and Bayer, bear testimony to its existence. De Guignes has shown that the Christians were settled in China so early as the 7th Century, and remarks that the Nestorians and other Christians were for a long time confounded in the Chinese annals with the worshippers of Fo, an Indian idol, whose rites were introduced into China about 65 years after the birth of Christ; and that this circumstance has deceived De la Croze, Beausobre, and some other learned men, who have raised spurious objections against the hypothesis that maintains the early introduction of Christianity into that great empire. A reader properly informed, will lend little or no attention to the account given of this matter by Voltaire, in his Essai sur l'Histoire Generale ;-a poet who recounts facts or denies them, without deigning to produce his authorities, must not expect to meet with the credit that is due to an historian.-Whatever be the progress of Christianity in China during the 18th Century, it is probable that the persons concerned in its promotion must have passed the spot where this antient Monument is said to have been erected; and though the time is great since that period, yet in a climate very little subject to the variations of its more Northern parts, it is very fair to suppose that at least some fragments may yet remain, DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT. Rome, Aug. 1821.-A young Englishman, of the name of Wadtington, who has lately arrived in this city, has penetrated upwards of 600 leagues above the second cataract, in following the army of the Pacha of Egypt. In the whole of the way, he fell in with only a few small Egyptian monuments, in isolated situations, and of no very remote date; but, on his arrival at Schayni, where the Pacha encamped, he discovered 35 pyramids of from 50 to 120 feet in height, but in a very ruinous state. He also saw seven or eight temples, of which one (upwards of 300 feet in length) was covered with hieroglyphics. It is probably in the neighbourhood of these ruins that search should be made for Nabatha, and not the Meroe of the ancients. This traveller has copied some very curious Greek inscriptions. He assures us that he has seen nothing in his travels comparable to the monuments of Nubia, and that he considers that province as the cradle of the Arts in Egypt. M. Tedenat, |