iSo WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL. 



WHEN I see a cob or a great black-backed gull in 

 a collection of stuffed birds, my thoughts fly to a 

 bare expanse of sands, the monotonous level broken 

 by the timbers of ill-fated vessels which stick up 

 here and there ; with these, the never-to-be-forgotten 

 sight of dead men's bodies, storm-tossed and bat- 

 tered from their contact with wreckage that had, 

 in our homely phrase, " come ashore." When the 

 same sands are sleeping under the hot sun, the gulls 

 daintily stepping along their edge, or floating light 

 as a cork on the calm water beyond, one can hardly 

 realise the danger of those treacherous deadly quick- 

 sands, the Goodwins, the name of which has struck 

 terror to the heart of so many a gallant sailor. 



