5th June 1898

at 1 am we sighted the Island of Tucopia and at 6am we got ready for anchoring getting soundings at 17 fathoms at 6.20 the Captain gave the order to let go the port anchor, but no sooner than it was let go our soundings ran, 12,7.5,5 & 3 fathoms the leadsman not having time to heave his lead but only taking in slack line, suddenly a hard grating noise was felt through out the ship and before we knew what was  happening we had we ran right on top of a coral reef  close under the shore, we began to bump considerable the tide being just on the turn at the time, we closed water tight doors and went full speed astern, but it was no go, we was hard and fast, when the tide went down it left only 3 ft of water forward, we had to shore up the ship up with Booms & Beams to prevent her from healing over to either side, this of course caused a great deal of hard work, we had to take all the shot & shell out of the foremast shell room and carry them right aft in the stern of the ship, as from the after gun to the stern there was 10 fathoms of water, it was no childs play carting 25 tons of projectiles each shell weighing 100lbs, all the heavy gear that was on deck was thrown overboard and buoyed and all the boats in the ship lowered so as to lighten her as much as possible on the returning tide we began to receive a great deal of bumping our plates at the bottom being bulged in all ????? began to give way and break up, we was aground in four places, by each Cat Davit, by the Starboard Midship 6th Gun and the port after 6 in Gun, the plates at the bottom seemed to give rather than break away, and we was making very little water, we had lit up the remaining boilers and had got steam up to the highest pitch, when the tide was at its full height, we went with all possible speed astern and at 2.50 we had got clear off and was in deep water we let go our starboard anchor, and had a good look round at things, we had been on deck working hard every soul in the ship from the time we stuck till the time we anchored, with out having a bite all day, but they managed to afford time to serve Grog at half past 12 which

came like a God send, during all this we had lost the port bower anchor with 2 1/3 shackles of cable, Stream Anchor with 5 in Hemp Hawser & 4 in Wire Hawser had a big hole knocked int the bottom of the gig 2 gripping spars and the blacksmith anvil making a very good days work especially as it was Sunday, I did not require much rocking to get to sleep that night, the natives of Tueopia are much different from theother Islanders, especially in height, the average Man & Woman being a lot over 6 ft and built in proportion the tallest man that came on board stood 6ft 91/4 inches when measured, his photo was taken standing alongside our 1st Lieut, by the Chief Engineer, they also differed in colour some of them being almost white with Chinese Features, but the general colour was a light brown, they were very friendly and seemed very happy and contented always laughing, at night time and early in the morning they

would sing in their native tongue beating their Tom Toms all the time, they brought off all sorts of things in the way of curios, fish, fruit & chickens asking in return scissors knives Beads, pipes and tobacco the population of the island was 820, We arranged a bit of a Cock Pit on the Forecastle, and made a bit of sport during our stay here to change the monotony, we would buy Cock Fowls from the Natives and back them up to fightone another, but no sooner than one was knocked outhis neck was wrung and into the pot he went, but as long as he could hold his own, he was all right and treated as a Champion should be, but the first knock out he received into

the Pot he went it passed a few dull hours away, and we did let them hurt one another much.