A TIMELY RESCUE.
One of the most singular escapes from drowning at sea perhaps ever recorded, is related in the letter of an officer of the eighty-third regiment, addressed to friends in Canada Borne years ago. While the division to which the writer belonged was on its way to Orient, being at that time a short distance eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, one of the men was ordered, for some trifling offence, to be severely flogged. Irritated to madness by the disgrace of the punishment, and by the cruelty with which it was administered, the poor fellow was no sooner released from the cords which had bound him than he ran to the bulwarks of the vessel, and, before the ship's crew and his soldier comrades, sprang overboard. The vessel was at the time making rapid way, with a high sea running, so that, as the man swept astern, all hope of saving him appeared to be at an end. Assistance, however, came from a quarter which the spectators could hardly have anticipated. While the crew were vainly endeavouring to lower the boat, which, as generally happens, was found to be no easy matter, a huge bird was seen in the distance to swoop down upon the struggling man. As the form of the man grew more indistinct in the distance, it seemed fluttering over him, as if puzzled by the unusual object. By the time the vessel had put about, and the boat, which had at length been lowered, was approaching, the bird was seen to be a huge albatross, which had descended upon the struggling soldier, doubtless to prey upon the body; but the man, in the agonies of his struggle, had instinctively seized the bird firmly, and retained his grasp in spite of the embarrassment of the creature, and its strenuous efforts to release itself. In this position his comrades found him, and finally restored him safely to the vessel. "Incredible as this story seems," says the original narrator, "the name and position of the writer of the letter, who was an eye-witness of the scene, sufficiently attests its truth."