The “Laconia” rescuing the crew of the “Amalia” in the Bay of Biscay. 1867. Source: Illustrated London News. Click on image to enlarge it.
Article accompanying the illustration above
The passage below was created using ABBYY FineReader to render the Hathi Digital Library images into text. The only change from the original text has been to italicize the names of the ships. — George P. Landow
The Amalia, one of the new line recently established in connection with an overland route to India, left Liverpool for Alexandria on the same day as the London left Plymouth, got into the same latitude about the same time, enoountered the same weather, and met with the same fate, though, happily, her crew and passengers were saved. She was a first-class steamer, 3000 tons burden, and owned by Messrs. Pagavanni and Co., Liverpool. She left Liverpool on the 6th inst. On the 10th, the day on which the London experienced her worst weather, she was in a hurricane. Nearly everything on deck was swept away, the bunker-lids were washed off, and the water got down to the fires and extinguished them; the engines soon stopped, the ship became unmanageable in the heavy seas, in which she rolled helplessly. The crew did their best at the pumps, and tried to make sail. All day on the 11th these efforts were persevered with. Meantime another vessel, the Laconia, had come up, and remained by the Amalia all night. But the night made matters worse. Despite all the pumping the water increased from 9 ft. to 12 ft. in the engine-room. At nine on the following morning it increased to 11 ft. The crew and passengers then gave up in despair, got on board the Laconia, and in the course of the afternoon the Amalia went down. Insurances were effected upon her to the amount, it is said, of a quarter of a million.
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Bibliography
“Loss of the Amalia.” Illustrated London News (27 January 1866): 97. Hathi Trust Digital Library version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library. Web. 18 December 2015.
Last modified 18 December 2015