Battles with the Sea | Page 3

from the window of her house, which is built on the
rocks overhanging the bay at Furzeham Hill. Scores of poor
shipwrecked men are wandering distractedly about Brixham and
Churston, the greater part of them having lost all they possessed. The
total loss of life arising from these disasters is variously estimated at
from seventy to a hundred.
Is not this a tremendous account of the doings of one gale? And let it be
observed that we have lifted only one corner of the curtain and revealed

the battlefield of only one small portion of our far-reaching coasts.
What is to be said of the other parts of our shores during that same wild
storm? It would take volumes instead of chapters to give the thrilling
incidents of disaster and heroism in full detail. To convey the truth in
all its force is impossible, but a glimmering of it may be obtained by a
glance at the Wreck Chart which is published by the Board of Trade
every year.
Every black spot on that chart represents a wreck more or less
disastrous, which occurred in the twelve months. It is an appalling fact
that about two thousand ships, upwards of seven hundred lives, and
nearly two millions sterling, are lost every year on the shores of the
United Kingdom. Some years the loss is heavier, sometimes lighter, but
in round numbers this is our annual loss in the great war. That it would
be far greater if we had no lifeboats and no life-saving rockets it will be
our duty by-and-by to show.
The black spots on the Wreck Chart to which we have referred show at
a single glance that the distribution of wrecks is very unequal--naturally
so. Near the great seaports we find them thickly strewn; at other places,
where vessels pass in great numbers on their way to these ports, the
spots are also very numerous, while on unfrequented parts they are
found only here and there in little groups of two, three, or four. Away
on the nor'-west shores of Scotland, for instance, where the seal and the
sea-mew have the ocean and rugged cliffs pretty much to themselves,
the plague-spots are few and far between; but on the east coast we find
a fair sprinkling of them, especially in the mouths of the Forth and Tay,
whither a goodly portion of the world's shipping crowds, and to which
the hardy Norseman now sends many a load of timber--both log and
batten--instead of coming, as he did of old, to batten on the land. It is
much the same with Ireland, its more important seaports being on the
east.
But there is a great and sudden increase of the spots when we come to
England. They commence at the border, on the west, where vessels
from and to the busy Clyde enter or quit the Irish Sea. Darkening the
fringes of the land on both sides, and clustering round the Isle of Man,

they multiply until the ports have no room to hold them, and, as at
Liverpool, they are crowded out into the sea. From the deadly shores of
Anglesea, where the Royal Charter went down in the great and
memorable storm of November, 1859, the signs of wreck and disaster
thicken as we go south until we reach the Bristol Channel, which
appears to be choked with them, and the dangerous cliffs of Cornwall,
which receive the ill-fated vessels of the fleets that are perpetually
leaving or entering the two great channels. But it is on the east coast of
England that the greatest damage is done. From Berwick to the Thames
the black spots cluster like bees. On the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk,
off Great Yarmouth, where lie the dangerous Haisborough Sands, the
spots are no longer in scattered groups, but range themselves in dense
battalions; and further south, off the coast of Kent, round which the
world's commerce flows unceasingly into the giant metropolis, where
the famous Goodwin Sands play their deadly part in the great war, the
dismal spots are seen to cluster densely, like gnats in a summer sky.
Now, just where the black spots are thickest on this wreck chart,
lifeboats and rocket apparatus have been stationed in greatest numbers.
As in ordinary warfare, so in battles with the sea, our "Storm Warriors"
[See an admirable book, with this title, written by the Reverend John
Gilmore, of Ramsgate. (Macmillan and Company)] are thrown forward
in force where the enemy's assaults are most frequent and dangerous.
Hence we find the eastern shores of England crowded at every point
with life-saving apparatus, while most of the other dangerous parts of
the coast are pretty well guarded.
Where and how do our coast heroes fight? I answer--sometimes on the
cliffs, sometimes on the