SS Malabar was a P & O mail steamship of 917 tons launched in 1858 that was wrecked in Point de Galle harbor on 22 May 1860.
[1] The passengers had embarked on Malabar when a gale from the northeast drove the vessel's stern on to a reef.
However, the sand turned out to be loose and almost like quicksand, and it was decided to give the order to abandon ship.
[2] The passengers included James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros, the British and French plenipotentiaries to China, and The Times journalist Thomas William Bowlby, who later published an account of the wreck.
[3] It was reported that Malabar's cargo included 1,080 boxes of bullion, worth nearly £300,000 and 725 chests of opium.