h and
danger which all brave men have and which discipline intensifies, was
never shown more grandly than in this moment of supreme peril. The
men fell in on the upper deck as if on parade, and there they stood,
bearing themselves as stoutly before that dread foe death, as ever they
had or would have done before an earthly enemy, while the weeping,
helpless, women and little ones were being saved. And standing there,
while the officers shook hands and wished each other good-bye, the
_Birkenhead_ sank beneath their feet. Of 630 souls on board, only 194
were saved, and among them, Captain Wright of the 91st.

Similarly, in 1857, sheer coolness and discipline saved an entire ship.
For the 54th were on their way to Mauritius, when the vessel caught
fire. It was only through the exertions and steadiness of the men that
the ship was saved at all, and then she reached her destination a mere
burnt-out shell.

Nor was the case of the _Birkenhead_ the only one in which the greatest
of all bravery--facing death in cold blood--was evidenced by men of
the 91st. In 1846, the reserve battalion was taking passage in the
_Abercrombie Robinson_, when the vessel was wrecked near Cape Town. But
the 500 men of the 91st assembled on deck as if on parade, and kept the
grim silence of discipline until the women and children were safely in
the boats.

Noteworthy is the discipline and patience of the gallant 78th, when the
transport _Charlotte_, in which they had embarked, for transference
from Batavia to Calcutta in 1816, ran ashore on a sunken rock a
few miles from the island of Preparis, and that so violently, that
in fifteen minutes she filled to her main deck. Though death was
apparently imminent, the men behaved like the heroes and soldiers they
were. Every man waited for orders, and there was no sign of panic or
disobedience. The women, children, and sick were transported to the
island, with a few bags of rice only, and a few pieces of salt pork.
It was four days before the rest of the men and crew were landed on
the inhospitable s