3-078-134 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Daedalus Lighthouse in the Red Sea, the scene of the wreck of the Dacca, 1890. '...the "Two Brothers" are two very small islands close together...Very dangerous these rocks are, being low in the water and not easily seen; but much worse, in comparison, is the Daedalus Reef, which extends for some distance, showing almost nothing above the sea but a white surf. These risky places are on the direct track of ships sailing up or down the Red Sea. The Daedalus Reef is about four hundred miles south from Suez; it is known to the Arabs as Abdul Kheeson. Its present name was given to it from H.M.S. Daedalus, which surveyed the Red Sea, but this word has been altered by the sailors into the "Deadlies," a term truly expressive of the character of the reef. When the Red Sea became the route to India, a lighthouse was put up here, which is maintained by the Egyptian Government...It was on this reef that the British India Steam Navigation Company's steamer Dacca, bound for Queensland, struck on May 16, at six a.m. Her bows were stove in, the passengers were landed in the lighthouse, part had to find shelter on the reef, where at one time some of them were up to the waist in the water...luckily, no lives were lost'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.