A few years since the ship Ariadne, freighted principally with live cattle, started on a voyage from Quebec, bound to Halifax.  A gale came on, which continued to increase in fury, until it became a perfect hurricane.  The ship was dismasted, and when the mainmast fell, three poor fellows were crushed to death.  A little before sunset, on the second day of the gale, the appalling cry of “Breakers ahead!” was raised.  All eyes were instinctively turned in one direction; and, about a mile off, the sea was as a boiling caldron.  Toward the breakers the hull was now drifting, unmanageable, every moment threatened with destruction.  For about half an hour, there was intense anxiety, and an agony of suspense on board.  At length she entered the breakers.  A large wave raised her, and she struck heavily on the rocks as the waves receded; it was evident, from constant striking upon the bottom, that the vessel must soon go to pieces; and the sea made a clean break over her, about half of the length from the stern.  The officers and crew were huddled together upon the deck forward, intent upon devising means of escape; at last the captain thought of a plan, which, though novel, proved successful.  He fastened ropes to the horns of several bullocks, and drove them into the sea, their strong, instinctive love of life impelled them forward, and several of them reached the shore.  The ropes were fastened by some men, who had assembled for the relief of those on the vessel, and after much exertion and danger all on board were rescued from their perilous situation, and landed in safety.

DESTRUCTION OF A SHIP BY A WHALE.

The following thrilling account of the destruction of the whale ship Ann Alexander, Captain John S. Deblois, of New Bedford, by a large sperm whale, is from the lips of the captain himself.  A similar circumstance has never been known to occur but once in the whole history of whale-fishing, and that was the destruction of the ship Essex, some twenty or twenty-five years ago, and which many of our readers fully remember.  We proceed to the narrative as furnished by Captain Deblois, and which is fully authenticated by nine of the crew, in a protest under the seal of the United States Consul, Alexander Ruden, Jr., at Paita.

The ship Ann Alexander, Captain J.S.  Deblois, sailed from New Bedford, Mass., June 1st, 1850, for a cruise in the South Pacific for sperm whale.  Having taken about five hundred barrels of oil in the Atlantic, the ship proceeded on her voyage to the Pacific.  Nothing of unusual interest occurred until when passing Cape Horn, one of the men, named Jackson Walker, of Newport, N.H., was lost overboard in a storm.  Reaching the Pacific, she came up the coast and stopped at Valdivia, on the coast of Chili, for fresh provisions, and the 31st of May last, she called at Paita for the purpose of shipping a man.  The vessel proceeded on her return voyage to the South Pacific.