THE voyage of Mr and Mrs Duff in the East
Indianman, Lady Holland, began with a storm, in which they narrowly
escaped being wrecked. Thereafter a derelict was passed. At Madeira,
while they were on shore, the ship had to put out to sea in order to
avoid being driven ashore, and on account of stormy weather could not
return for three weeks. As pirates were infesting these seas, a
British frigate convoyed them to the Cape Verde Islands. They were
detained there another week. Soon after they left these islands one of
the pirates sailed past them with the frigate in hot pursuit. On
Dassen Island the ship became a total wreck.
Early in February they
approached the African coast, in doubt as to where they were, because
cloudy weather had prevented the taking of observations. When the
watch was changed at four bells, the lookout said to his successor: "I am very much mistaken if that is not land ahead of us." The sailor
ran forward, followed by the captain and second officer, and almost at
once the chilling cry rang out: "Breakers ahead!
helm hard to weather." The warning came too late, for most of the
passengers who had retired for the night were roused by the crash as
the vessel struck a reef. Soon the waves dashing over the reef broke
the ship's back, and the forepart sank. The passengers soon gathered
in the " Cuddy," but so violent was the motion of the vessel that they
could neither sit nor stand without holding on to some support.
After the Wreck
After
the stupefaction produced by the suddenness of the catastrophe wore
off, they all gathered round Duff as he commended them to God in
prayer. The masts were cut down, and the gig with three sailors sent
to find out where the party were. After some hours the sailors
reported having found a sandy bay where landing was possible. The long
boat was then launched, but, with the sailors' shout "there goes our
last hope," the rope broke and the boat drifted away, giving a
startling meaning to the sailors' cry.
Soon, however, to the surprise of all, the boat was discovered to be
returning to the ship, and a voice calling for a rope was heard. It
turned out that one of the most wicked of the sailors, who had
concealed himself in the bottom of the boat, as it drifted near to the
rocks and was in danger of being dashed to pieces, had, with the
energy of despair, seized the oars and made his way back to the ship.
The ship's company was now safely landed upon what they found to be
Dassen Island, 20 miles south of Suldanha Bay, where there is now a
lighthouse. Two Dutchmen, who were on the island gathering penguin
eggs, ferried the ship's doctor to the mainland; he then made his way
to Cape Town some eighty miles overland. When the governor heard the
details he at once sent a brig of war, which was actually weighing
anchor for other duty, to the rescue of the ship's company, for he
said: "Humanity has the first claim."
On
the morning after the wreck a sailor picked up a parcel, which had
been cast ashore, containing a quarto copy of Bagster's Bible and a
Scottish Psalm Book, somewhat shattered, but with Alexander Duff's
name on both. These volumes, which had been wrapped in chamois leather
and put in a box with other books, were all that was left of a library
of eight hundred volumes and manuscripts. The company, who were all
deeply affected when the sailor with glistening face brought them to
the missionary, at once fell on their knees, while Duff, laying the
book on the white sands read the 107th Psalm, and then returned thanks
to God for the deliverance of the company. Never before or since, he
tells us, did he hear such responses as accompanied that service. How
did the missionary regard his loss? "They are gone, I can say without
a murmur," for it appeared to him a message by which he was at length
delivered, through the special intervention of an overruling
Providence, from his struggle over his love for languages.
Two more Hurricanes
The
voyage was resumed from Cape Town in the Lady Moira. The sailors sang
their chanty "Sunday sail, never fail," but the ship soon ran into
weather so rough that, struck by a hurricane, she nearly foundered off
Mauritius. A second hurricane, at Sauger Island in the mouth of the
Hoogly, tossed the ship on to the left bank of the river; When morning
dawned the gig boat was warped to the shore by means of a hawser which
had been made fast to a tree, and from that point, waist deep in
water, the passengers waded ashore to a village. Caste, the most
precious Hindu heritage, prevented the villagers from receiving the
strangers, shipwrecked though they were, into their homes, so that the
ship's company, drenched with water and covered with mud, passed that
day and night huddled together in a ruined mud temple. Next day they
reached Calcutta, eight months after leaving England. When a newspaper
account of Duff's eventful voyage appeared, many of the people
remarked: "Surely this man is a favourite of the gods, who has a
notable work to do in India." No time was lost by the young Perthshire
divine in putting his hand to that work, inauspicious though the
prospect seemed to be.