204 THE CALL OF THE SEA 



through every seam, and their weary crews ready 

 to he down and die from exhaustion, crawled past 

 the Blaskets, and were out of danger. . . . 



. . . Another galleon of a thousand tons, named 

 Our Lady of the Rosary^ which Calderon had 

 watched sadly falling away before the waves, had 

 also nearly weathered the headland of Kerry. She 

 had all but escaped. Clear of the enormous cliffs 

 of the Blasket Islands, she had no more to fear 

 from the sea. Between the Blaskets and the main- 

 land there is a passage which is safe in moderate 

 weather, but the gale, which had slightly moder- 

 ated, had risen again. The waves as they roll in 

 from the Atlantic on the shallowing shores of 

 Ireland boil among the rocks in bad weather with 

 a fury unsurpassed in any part of the ocean. 

 Strong tidal currents add to the danger, and when 

 Our Lady of the Rosary entered the sound, it was 

 a cauldron of boiling foam. There were scarcely 

 hands to work the sails. Out of seven hundred, 

 five hundred were dead, and most of the survivors 

 were gentlemen, and before she was half-way 

 through, she struck among the breakers upon the 

 island. A maddened officer ran the pilot (a 

 Genoese) through the heart, saying he had done it 

 by 'treason.' Some of the gentlemen tried to 

 launch a boat, but no boat could live for a moment 

 in such a sea. The pilot's son lashed himself to a 



