CHAPTER XXI 

 WRECKS AND RESCUES 



THE most popular heroine of the old generation that is 

 passing, and has nearly gone, won her renown on the 

 North Sea. She was Grace Darling. More than sixty 

 years after she made the world ring with praise of her 

 achievement, one of the most appalling of maritime 

 disasters occurred on the North Sea. That was the 

 loss of the Elbe, a North-German Lloyd's express mail 

 steamer soon to be followed by the terrible loss of the 

 Berlin. 



Grace Darling, a true daughter of the North Sea, 

 helped to row a coble through a heavy sea, to save the 

 survivors of the steamer Forfarshire, on 6th September 

 1838; and Skipper Wright, a North Sea smacksman, 

 and his crew, in the Wild/lower, rescued the handful of 

 people who escaped from the sinking Elbe. Both 

 events are memorable because of the courage and 

 endurance that were shown in the work of salvation. 

 The story of Grace Darling has been made known by 

 many writers ; that of the Elbe was told to me, on a 

 bright day in a sunny south coast watering-place, by the 

 only woman who was saved from the liner, Miss Anna 

 Bocker. 



The Forfarshire, a small steamer engaged in the 



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