256 THE SEA. 



the lifeboat, and then he follows, and the men pull back. The crew of the brig are faint 

 and exhausted ; they have had three awful days of it, but the lifeboat lands them all safely 

 at length at the pier. I felt as if I had been up for nights, the excitement had been so- 

 great. " If she hadn't been a new ship and a good one, she would have been all to pieces 

 long ago, the sailors say; but she's lying almost on her beam ends and her deck to 

 windward, with every sea dashing against her, now the tide is ebbing." 



Whitby is the last point to be treated here in connection with the dangerous east coast. 

 It is an ancient town, dating long before the eleventh century, at which latter period it had 

 become a noted fishing-place. At the present time it possesses perhaps 500 vessels, large and 

 small, exclusive of fishing boats. There are a great number of seamen belonging to the place 

 who are engaged in ships on the coast, Baltic, and Indian trade, seldom returning home, 

 but for a few weeks in winter. That the men must be generally provident is witnessed by 

 the fact that there are 800 subscribers to the Mariners' National Mutual Pension and 

 Widows' Fund, a benefit society under the auspices and management of the Shipwrecked 

 Mariners' Society. 



Standing on the cliff above Whitby, near the ruins of the old abbey, there is a most 

 delightful view seawards. The town is below, mapped out in all its varieties of streets, squares., 

 and quays ; its terraces mounting one above another ; its piers projecting into the sea ; its 

 lighthouses, docks, and shipyards alive with busy artisans ; and a capacious harbour, divided by 

 a bridge across the Esk, the outer part of which has accommodation for 300 sail of ships, 

 while above there is also a large basin. " All this and much more the eye takes in from this 

 elevated stand-point, which, in fine weather, and at high tide, is most imposing. The harbour, 

 filled to the brim with the blue element, glitters like a polished mirror beneath the rays of the 

 sun. The stately vessel, spreading her snowy canvas to the breeze, is seen passing from point 

 to point along its winding shores. The maze-like coursing of the little yacht, with its slender 

 masts and tiny sails, skimming the surface of the water like a swallow on the wing, lends 

 animation to the scene. The cry of the sea-bird as it wheels in graceful curves, or checks its 

 flight to pounce upon its prey in the bright flood beneath, arrests the ear ; whilst the loud 

 ( hurrah ' with which the brawny shipwright greets the majestic vessel as she glides along the 

 well-greased ' ways,' and cleaves a passage for herself into the flood which is to be her future 

 home, re-echoes from the cliffs and shore." 



Southward of Whitby lies the romantic Bay of Robin Hood, alias Robert Earl o 

 Huntingdon, who lived in Richard I.'s reign. Robin, it is said, when about to select a site for 

 a marine residence, resolved to take up his abode on the first spot where the next arrow from his 

 bow should alight, and this being the place, his name has ever since been attached to it. The 

 little town there is one of the most irregular and comical-looking places in the world, from the 

 ravages of the sea in undermining the cliffs. Built on the ledges of these cliffs, at all heights 

 where foothold could be obtained, and perched on dizzy crags that overhang the sea, or hid in 

 nooks approached by perilous paths, or tottering on the brink of cliffs that vibrate as the 

 breakers roll with smothered sobs into the caves that perforate their base, there stand isolated 

 houses, terraces and streets, whole sides of which have erewhile slipped into the sea below. The 

 town itself is in a hole which cannot be seen till close upon it, being so entirely locked in by 

 peaks and promontories. 



