AN INTRODUCTORY DISASTER Early in the spring of the year 1884 the three-masted schooner _Castor_, from San Francisco to Valparaiso, was struck by a tornado off the coast of Peru.

The storm, which rose with frightful suddenness, was of short duration, but it left the _Castor_ a helpless wreck.

Her masts had snapped off and gone overboard, her rudder-post had been shattered by falling wreckage, and she was rolling in the trough of the sea, with her floating masts and spars thumping and bumping her sides.
The _Castor_ was an American merchant-vessel, commanded by Captain Philip Horn, an experienced navigator of about thirty-five years of age.

Besides a valuable cargo, she carried three passengers--two ladies and a boy.

One of these, Mrs.William Cliff, a lady past middle age, was going to Valparaiso to settle some business affairs of her late husband, a New England merchant.