46 ALONGSHORE i 



and their own stroke, they are able to estimate the 

 distance they have covered — they cannot explain. 

 Simply, they feel they are near land. And that, 

 indeed, may be the correct explanation; for if the 

 human body is so sensitive to changes of pressure 

 that its health varies with the height of the ba- 

 rometer, and if, as scientists have proved, high 

 masses of land can deflect a pendulum sideways, 

 against gravity, it is possible that a cliff, by slightly 

 altering the pull of gravity on a man, may make 

 him aware of its nearness. 



The stretch of coast where we follow the fishing 

 is so far free from mistiness that it was not till 

 long after I ceased going to sea as a mere gen'le- 

 man, well-nigh as irresponsible as a steamboat pas- 

 senger; not, in fact, till my first night's herring- 

 drifting as mate, that the compass which I always 

 carried after the cakes and cream trip was of any 

 real use in steering home through a fog of the worst 

 kind — one of those black north-easterly fogs that 

 come in the wind as well as in the absence of wind. 



We were drifting in Seaton Bay in February. 

 When we arrived there after six or seven miles 

 rowing with the sweeps, we remarked on the black- 

 ness of the sky behind Seaton, and laughed, because 

 against such a background the houses of Seaton, 



