The Burmah was a passenger ship

Passenger ship

A passenger ship is a ship whose primary function is to carry passengers. The category does not include cargo vessels which have accommodations for limited numbers of passengers, such as the ubiquitous twelve-passenger freighters once common on the seas in which the transport of passengers is...

, which disappeared en route from England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 to New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 in 1859 or 1860.

Last voyage

The Burmah was chartered by Willis,Gann & Co. line. The ship left London for New Zealand on the 27th or 28 August 1859. Burmah was seen by the ship Regina on the 17th of November, about 14 days sailing distance west of New Zealand, at 97E 48S. The Regina passed icebergs the day after it passed Burmah. Burmah never arrived at New Zealand and was officially declared lost by Lloyds on May 6, 1860.

Burmah was carrying passengers and an assortment of breeding livestock

Livestock

Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...

.

The novelist Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Samuel Butler was an iconoclastic Victorian author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh...

was booked to travel on the Burmah to New Zealand, but he changed to a different ship, the Roman Emperor at the last moment, and therefore avoided the wreck of the Burmah.