SMUGGLING ENCOUNTERS. 235 



The contraband goods, in kegs and bags of convenient size for easy landing, were trans- 

 ferred from the ship to che Loat, from the boat to the beach, from the beach to the 

 pack-saddle, with incredible celerity; and when the mounted caravans set themselves in 

 motion, those who had assisted at the landing hastened to vanish as they had come. 

 On these occasions the smugglers scored a trick in the game, and the coastguard had 

 nothing for it but to wait their turn of revenge with redoubled vigilance. More fre- 

 quently, however, they succeeded in spoiling sport, for it paid the smuggler amply to 

 run one cargo in three. The Government people would keep such a sharp look-out that, 

 oftener than not, the friends of the free-traders could only help them by signalling clanger, 

 and the richly-freighted lugger had to put up her helm in despair, perhaps with one of 

 the revenue cutters in hot pursuit; or, what was better still, the enemy was surprised 

 in the very act of unlading, and a valuable capture was effected. Of course a successful 

 exploit of this kind was by no means all pleasure and pride. The smugglers with their 

 friends, disguised by blackened faces, were sure to show fight if they had any chance. 

 As they were busy in the bay, and the unloading was going briskly forward, their sentinels 

 would give the signal of alarm, and the long galleys of the coastguard would be seen 

 pulling fast inshore, and stealing like wolves on their prey from round the nearest headland. 

 The attacking force would make free play with its muskets and carbines, if it came 

 within reach, and the attacked had to consider that their enemies on the water had 

 probably allies on the land in the shape of excise officers backed up by soldiers. So the 

 next act in the drama was a sauve qni pent, conducted with more or less order, and covered 

 with a lavish use of cutlasses and firearms. Very possibly the victors had to count the 

 dead, and pick up the wounded ; and thus the romance and excitement of those days were 

 spiced with a very sensible element of danger." 



CHAPTER XXII. 



SKETCHES OF OUR SOUTH COASTS (concluded}. 



Eastbourne and its Quiet Charms Hastings Its Fishermen -The Battle of Hastings Loss of the Grosser KurfiirstTlie 

 Collision The Catastrophe- -Dover The Castle Shakespeare's Cliff "O'er the Downs so free" St. Margaret's Bay 

 Kingsdown Deal A Deed of Daring Ramsgate and Margate The Floating Light on the Goodwin Sands 

 Ballantyne's Voluntary Imprisonment His Experiences The Craft The Light One Thousand Wild Ducks caught 

 A Signal from the " South Sand Head "The Answer Life on Board. 



THE coast north-east from Beachy Head is rugged and interesting till Eastbourne is reached,, 

 one of the quietest and prettiest of the south-coast watering-places, and one which has been 

 very greatly improved of late by the lavish expenditure of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, 

 the principal landowner in the neighbourhood. Some of the promenades are planted with 

 trees a la loulevard. The bathing and boating are both excellent; while in the neighbour- 

 hood are the ruins of Pevensey, an old Norman castle, and Hurstmonceaux, a red-brick castle 

 of the mediaeval period, ivy- and creeper-covered, and emboAvered in trees. It is the delight of 

 artists, who annually besiege it in great numbers. Eastbourne has some hundred fishermen 



