at 1 am we sighted the Island of Tucopia
and at 6am we got ready for anchoring getting soundings
at 17 fathoms at 6.20 the Captain gave the order to let go
the port anchor, but no sooner than it was let go our sound-
ings ran, 12,7.5,5 & 3 fathoms the leadsman not hav-
ing time to heave his lead but only taking in slack
line, suddenly a hard grating noise was felt through out
the ship and before we knew what was happening we had
we ran right on top of a coral reef close under the shore, we
began to bump considerable the tide being just on the
turn at the time, we closed water tight doors and went
full speed astern, but it was no go, we was hard
and fast, when the tide went down it left only 3 ft
of water forward, we had to shore up the ship up with
Booms & Beams to prevent her from healing over to
either side, this of course caused a great deal of hard
work, we had to take all the shot & shell out of the fore
mast shell room and carry them right aft in the stern
of the ship, as from the after gun to the stern there was
10 fathoms of water, it was no childs play carting 25 tons
of projectiles each shell weighing 100lbs, all the heavy gear that
was on deck was thrown overboard and buoyed and all the boats
in the ship lowered so as to lighten her as much as possible on
the returning tide we began to receive a great deal of bump-
ing our plates at the bottom being bulged in all ?????
began to give way and break up, we was aground in
four places, by each Cat Davit, by the Starboard Midship 6th Gun
and the port after 6 in Gun, the plates at the bottom seemed
to give rather than break away, and we was making
very little water, we had lit up the remaining boilers and
had got steam up to the highest pitch, when the tide was
at its full height, we went with all possible speed astern
and at 2.50 we had got clear off and was in deep water
we let go our starboard anchor, and had a good look
round at things, we had been on deck working hard every
soul in the ship from the time we stuck till the time we
anchored, with out having a bite all day, but they managed
to afford time to serve Grog at half past 12 which
came like a God send, during all this we had lost the port bower
anchor with 2 1/3 shackles of cable, Stream Anchor with 5 in
Hemp Hawser & 4 in Wire Hawser had a big hole
knocked int the bottom of the gig 2 gripping spars and
the blacksmith anvil making a very good days work especially
as it was Sunday, I did not require much rocking to get to sleep
that night, the natives of Tueopia are much different from the
other Islanders, especially in height, the average Man & Woman being
a lot over 6 ft and built in proportion the tallest man that
came on board stood 6ft 91/4 inches when measured, his photo was
taken standing alongside our 1st Lieut, by the Chief Engineer,
they also differed in colour some of them being almost white with
Chinese Features, but the general colour was a light brown, they
were very friendly and seemed very happy and contented always
laughing, at night time and early in the morning they
would sing in their native tongue beating their Tom Toms
all the time, they brought off all sorts of things in the way of
curios, fish, fruit & chickens asking in return scissors knives
Beads, pipes and tobacco the population of the island was 820,
We arranged a bit of a Cock Pit on the Forecastle, and made a
bit of sport during our stay here to change the monotony, we would
buy Cock Fowls from the Natives and back them up to fight
one another, but no sooner than one was knocked out
his neck was wrung and into the pot he went, but as long as
he could hold his own, he was all right and treated as a
Champion should be, but the first knock out he received into
the Pot he went it passed a few dull hours away, and we did
let them hurt one another much.
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