A Robber Stronghold. 109 



wall against the stormy west, many a good ship rides 

 safe on wild nights, when winds are raging up the 

 Channel, when the foam-flakes sing over the island, 

 and the caverns in the cliff are thundering with the 

 fierce Atlantic surge. 



Many a good ship, alas ! has made for it in vain, 

 hurried helpless to her doom among fatal sands or 

 still more cruel reefs. 



A Royal Commission reported thirty years ago that 

 of all points on the Channel, Lundy Island was the 

 best adapted for the much-needed Harbour of Refuge 

 on this dangerous sea. 



There is deep water all round it. The material, 

 too, is all at hand. The cliffs of the island furnish 

 granite well suited for the needful breakwaters. It is 

 twenty years since the works of the company who 

 quarried here for the Thames Embankment were 

 abandoned, and fern, and broom, and heather, since 

 then have done their best to cover up the traces that 

 remain. But better stone than they exported, needing 

 no wax to hide its faults, exists there in abundance. 



It is merely a question of expense. Scores of tall 

 ships are lost each year, hundreds of gallant fellows 

 meet their doom for want of a refuge that might easily 

 be paid for by the cost of one first-class ironclad. 



But we are nearing land. The iron heart of the 

 little steamer throbs no longer; we are drifting with 

 the tide on a current that rushes by like a mill-race. 

 The dinghy is lowered, and we pull for the beach. 



