3-047-055 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Burning of the Pacific Mail Company's ship America, at Yokohama, 1872. '...the America, which had arrived that day from San Francisco, was destroyed by fire, with her valuable cargo, and sixty or seventy human lives...The lowest class of passengers were Chinese,...and many of these were on board at the hour when the fire broke out. The cargo included specie to the amount of 1,600,000 Mexican dollars...We are indebted to Captain S. T. Bridgford, of the Royal Marine Artillery, for a sketch of the scene...she was in a blaze from stem to stern...with the spread of the flames, came a wild and piercing shriek, which rang through the stillness of the night...The first boats now reached the ladders, which were crowded by a shrieking crowd of passengers...Suddenly, with a crash, one of the ladders gave way and precipitated eighty or ninety people into the water. Many, clinging together..., or clutching the boxes which held their money, were drowned before the boats could pick them up...The huge funnel became red hot, and flames issued from its top...of the two long lines of port-holes (some two hundred in number) each one glowed like the mouth of a furnace...And so the noble ship burned on through the small hours of the night'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.