3-065-978 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Scene of the wreck of the mail-steamer Nil on the Coast of Japan, 1874. 'The wreck of the French mail-steamer Nil, on the night of March 30, upon the coast of Japan, with the loss of eighty-eight lives, has been mentioned among the shipping disasters of this year. We are obliged to Mr. G. Cullen Pearson, of Yokohama, one of the firm of Pearson and Laurence, in Japan, for two sketches, taken a few days after this misfortune, in which his partner, Mr. Sydney Laurence, was among the lost...The place of the wreck is between the small fishing-villages of Iruma and Yoshida, nearly at the extreme point of Cape Idzu, and eight hours' steam Voyage from Yokohama, in Jeddo Bay. The mountains - at this season of the year snowcapped - are those bordering the Gulf of Suruga. The small beach to the right is that of Yoshida, where three of the survivors managed to get ashore in the ship's cutter, which they held head against the sea until morning. The fourth survivor managed to swim to the foot of the rock, and, though much cut, to scramble up the cliffs and get down to Iruma. These survivors are two sailors, cook, and baker, not a single officer or passenger escaping'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.