The Ship Seen On The Ice.

This nig ht it was a bit muddy and dark , with a moderate breeze out of the south-west , as far as we could guess at the bearings of the wind . I was awakened from a deep slumber by an extraordinary convulsion in the ship . I was half-stupefied with sleep , and can therefore but imperfectly recall my sensations and the character of what I may term the throes and spasms of the vessel . I was thrown

from the locker and lay for some moments incapable ot rising by the shock of the fall . But one thing my senses , even when they were scarce yet half-awake , took note of , and that was a prodigious roaringnoise , similar in effect to what might be produced by a cannon-ball rolling along a hollow wooden floor , only that the noise was thousands of times greater than over could have been produced by a

cannonball . The lamp was out , and the cabin in pitch blackness . 1 heard Sweers , from some corner of the cabin , bawling out my name ; but before I could answer , and even whilst I was staggering to my feet , a second convulsion threw me down again ; the next instant there was a sensation as of tlie vessel being- hove up into tlie air , attended

by an extraordinary grinding noise , that thrilled through every beam of her ; next , in the space of a few beats of the heart , she plunged into the sea , raising such a boiling and roaring of waters as , spite of the sounds being dulled to our ears bj our being in the cabin , persuaded us that the vessel was foundering ! ~

But even whilst I thus thought , holding my breath and waiting for the death that was to come with the pouring of the water down the open companion-way , I felt the ship right ; she lifted buoyant under foot , and I sprang to the steps which conducted on deck , with Sweers—as I mig ht know by his voice—close at , my heels , roaring out , " By tnnder , we ' re adrift and afloat ! "

The stars were shining , there was a red moon low in the west , the weather had cleared , and a quiet wind was blowing . At the distance of some hundred yards from the ship stood a few pallid masses—the remains of the berg . It was just possible to make out that the water in the neighbourhood of those dim heaps was covered with fragments of ice . How the liberation of the ship had come about

neither Sweers nor I did then pause to consider . We were sailors , and our first business was to act as sailors , and as quickly as might be we loosed and hoisted the jib and foretopmast staysail , so that the vessel might blow away from the neighbourhood of the dangerous remains of her jail of ice . We then sounded the well , and finding

no water , went to work to loose the foresail and foretopsail , which canvas wo made shift to set with the aid of the capstan . I then lig hted the binnacle lamp whilst Sweers held the wheel ; and having sounded the well afresh , to make sure of the hull , we headed away to the eastwards , the wind being about W . S . W . Before the dawn broke we had run tlie ice out of si ght . Sweers

The Ship Seen On The Ice.

and I managed , as I have no doubt , to arrive at the theory of the liberation of tlie ship by comparing our sensations and experiences . There can be no question that the berg had split in twain almost admidships . This was the cause of the tremendous noise of thunder which I had heard . The splitting of the ice had hoisted the shelf or

beach on which the barque lay , and occasioned that sensation of flying into the air which I had noticed , But the lifting of the beach of ice hap also violently and sharply sloped it , and the barque , freeing herself , had fled down it broadside on , taking the water with a mi ghty souse and crash , then rising buoyant and lifting and falling upon the seas as we had both of us felt her do .

And now to bring this queer yarn to a close , for I have no space to dwell upon our thankfulness and our proceedings until we obtained the help we stood in need of . We managed to handle tlie barque without assistance for three days , then fell in with an American shi p bound to Liverpool , who lent us three of her men , and within three weeks of the date of our release from tlie iceberg we were in soundings in the Chops of the Channel , and a few days later had safel y brought the barque to an anchor in the river Thames .

The adventure yielded Sweers and I a thousand pounds apiece as salvage money , but we were kept waiting a long time before receiving our just reward . It was necessary to communicate with the owners of the barque in America , and then the lawyers got hold of the job , and I grew so weary of interviews , so vexed and sickened by needless correspondence , that 1 should have been thankful to have taken two hundred pounds for my share merely to have made nn end .

It seems that the President had been abandoned two years and five months by her crew before the Lightning sighted her on the ice . Her people had stuck to her for ei ght months , then had made off in a body with the boats , carrying their captain and mates along with them . They regarded the situation of their ship as hopeless , and , indeed , as it turned out , they were not very wrong , so

far as their notion of reasonable detention went ; for they never could have liberated the vessel b y their own efforts ; they must have waited , as Ave had , for the ice to free her ; and this would have signified to them an imprisonment of two years and a half over and above the eight months they had already spent in her whilsticebound .

Sweers gave up the sea , started in business , and died about ten years since a fairly well-to-do man . And shall I tell you what I did with my thousand pounds ? . . . Bat my story has already run to a greater length than I had intended when sitting down to write it . * * *

A Masonic Family.

A Masonic Family .

THE DUNDASES .

FSSEE ^ lpMl ^ tejSwFigK : T is a well-authenticated fact , and one of which the ' § H lw 9 Craft of Freemasonry has every reason to be proud , ¦ « H S | S ; that when once a connection has been established -O y iy § P between a famil y and the Order , that connection stands bST ^ ZTB ) a ! a very fair chance of being continued , or at all events renewed , at some period more or less remote , by a

member , or members , of a later generation . The annals of the Craft in the United Kingdom prove this beyond the possibility of question , the most conspicuous case in point being that of our Royal Family , which , with one brief interval of 16 years , has been intimately and prominently associated with Freemasonry for upwards of a century and a half . The first to join our Society was Frederick Prince of

Wales , father of George III ., who was initiated m his palace at Kew in 1737 , but , dying in 1751 , for the few years that followed English Royalty was unrepresented in Masonry . In 17 C 6 , however , the Dukes of York and Gloucester , and in 1767 , the Duke of Cumberland , sons of Frederick , were initiated and had conferred upon them the rank of Past Grand Master , the Duke of Cumberland being

subsequently—in 1782—elected Grand Master , and so remaining until his death in 1790 . In 1787 George Prince of Wales , the Duke of York , and Prince William , afterwards Dnke of Clarence , became Masons , while Edward Duke of Kent , Ernest Duke of Cumberland , and Augustus Duke of Sussex were initiated in 1790 , 1795 , and 1798 respectively . Of these George Prince of Wales and the Duke of

Sussex were successively elected Grand Masters of the regular Grand Lodge of England , and Edward Duke of Kent of the "Ancient" or "AthoJe" Gi-and Lodge , while Ernest Duke of Cumberland on his accession to the throne of Hanover in 1837 became Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of that country . His Majesty was succeeded at his death b y his son George V ., first cousin of our Queen , who

A Masonic Family.

became , first of all Protector , and after his initiation , Grand Master . In 1868 the present Prince of Wales was initiated in Sweden , and in 1885 the late lamented Duke of Clarence was " made" b y his illustrious father in the Alpha Lodge , No . 16 . Thus every one of the six generations of our Royal Family , beginning with Frederick Prince of Wales , great-grandfather of her Majest y , and ending with

the Into Duke of Clarence , has furnished one or more members to the Craft . But , though from its exalted rank , this is the most conspicuous case within our knowledge , it is very very far from being a solitary one . If we turn to the annals of Freemasonry in Scotland , we shall find many instances in which successive generations of both titled and untitled families have maintained more or less

uninterruptedly the connection with Masonry which some one of their members had once established . Thus , in glancing down the roll of Grand Master Masons of Scotland , we find the 15 th Earl of Morton G . M . in 1739 , and the 17 th G . M . in 1790-91 ; the Sth and 6 th Earls ' of Leven , G . M . ' s in 1741 and 1759-60 respectivel y ; Henry David 10 th Earl of Buchan , G . M . in 1745 ; David , 11 th Earl , in

1782-83 : and David , 12 th Earl , in 1832 ; and , above all , tJio Dukes of Athole , of whom John , the 3 rd Duke , was G . M . of Scotland in 1773 , and G . M . of the "Ancient" Grand Lodge in England from 1771 till his death in 1774 ; John , the 4 th Dnke , G . M . of Scotland in 1778-79 and G . M . of the " Ancients " from 1775 to 1781 , and again from 1791 to 1813 ; George , the 6 th Duke , having been G . M . of Scotland ,

first , as Lord Glenlym , from 1843 to 1845 , and then , as Duke of Athole , from 1846 till his death , in 1863 ; while the 7 th and present Duke was , till within the last fewyear-s , Grand Master of one of the Provinces in Scotland . In Ireland the most prominent , though by no means the only , case is that of the Dukes of Leinster , of whom the second Duke was G . M ., when Marquis of Kildare , in 1771 , and again when he had succeeded to the dukedom in 1778 ; and the third G . M

from 1813 till his death in 1874 . In England , as a peep into our Grand Lodge Calendar will show , we have also quite a number of what , for the sake of convenience , may be described as " Masonic Families , " one of tlie best known cases being that of the present Marquis of Zetland , Prov . G . M . of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire ; the last four generations of the Dundases—thoug h the famil y is of Scottish origin—having been prominentl y connected