234 By Stream and Sea. 



patriot who loves to behold material signs of his country's 

 prosperity cannot do better than steam up the Tyne; the 

 artist going forth in search of the beautiful should choose 

 another way. The outward-bound traveller wishing for final 

 glimpses of home that shall be pleasant to recall upon distant 

 shores could not do a worse thing than sail from the Tyne 

 on a foggy January afternoon, when the smoke hangs like a 

 funeral pall over the grimy docks and dingy river banks, and 

 the pervading gloom penetrates one's inner being. 



The east coast of England has neither the variety of the 

 indented western shores of our islands, nor the bold charac- 

 teristics of the southern cliff-land, but it has its agreeable 

 points. At any rate, it is better than none. But good or 

 bad it availed us little, as, the land wholly obscured, our 

 noble vessel crawled through the foggy night at slow speed, 

 the dismal steam-whistle hooting at frequent intervals to 

 warn other belated ships of our neighbourhood. After 

 trying our best during four-and-twenty hours of thick fog 

 and piercing cold, the anchor was cast, and, according to 

 the maritime law in- such cases made and provided, the 

 clangorous bell, in lieu of the whistle, was kept going night 

 and day. There is — as we had often heard and read, but 

 now knew from chilling experience — no such dangerous or 

 disagreeable navigation as that in the shoal water of which 

 the Goodwin Sands are a dreaded and terminating feature. 



We were lying somewhere near a fishing ground, which 

 to me was a kind of native heath. Now and then my old 

 friends the fishing smacks came and went ghostlike, magni- 

 fied by the fog into gigantic and weird figures. 



During a partial clearance of the thickness, a smack ap. 

 peared a short distance at sea, and we found some occupation 

 in watching the men shooting their long line for cod-fishing. 

 This is purely a winter pursuit of the East Anglian fishermen, 



