SKETCHES OF OUR EAST COASTS:—NORFOLK—YORKSHIRE.
Harwich; its fine Harbour—Thorpeness and its Hero—Beautiful
Situation of Lowestoft—Yarmouth; its Antiquity—Quays, Bridges—The
Roadstead—Herring and Mackerel Fishing—Curing Red Herrings and
Bloaters—A Struggle for Life—Encroachments of the Sea—A Dangerous
Coast—Flamborough Head—Perils of the Yorkshire Fisherman’s
Life—“The sea gat him!”—Filey and its Quiet Attractions—Natural
Breakwater—A Sad Tale of the Sea—Scarborough; Ancient Records—The
Terrible and the Gay—The _Coupland_ Helpless—Lifeboat out—Her men
thrown out—Boat crushed against Sea Wall—Two Killed—Futile
Attempts at Rescue—A Lady’s Description of a Scarborough
Gale—Whitby—Robin Hood’s Bay—An Undermined Town.
Proceeding now to the east coast of our island, we come to a series of
places interesting to the men of the sea, and some of them renowned as
watering‐places. Leaving the mouth of the Thames, we soon arrive at
Harwich, which is acquiring considerable importance in view of the
Continental routes with which it is connected. It is situated on high land
at the mouth of the Stour, and near the confluence of the latter with the
Orwell, immediately opposite the well‐known Landguard Fort. The shore is
bold, and the views of the German Ocean, with its ever‐shifting fleets of
native and foreign vessels, are grand and extensive. It has a breakwater,
dockyard, and magnificent harbour, in which, it is said, more than 100
vessels of the Royal Navy and between 300 and 400 colliers have ridden at
one time. There are steamers constantly plying to Ipswich, about twelve
miles up the Orwell—a river famous for the beautiful scenery of its banks.
Ipswich itself, celebrated as the birthplace of Cardinal Wolsey, is the
largest market town and port of Suffolk, and possesses respectable‐sized
docks and ship‐yards, and any quantity of interesting buildings of the
mediæval period.
[Illustration: HARWICH.]
Thorpeness, a dreary little place near Aldborough, on our way up the
coast, would not attract the tourist, but it was long the residence of one
of Suffolk’s heroes. Joseph Chard commenced life as a carpenter, but was
soon found at Thorpeness, where he lived in a little cottage built by
himself, and owned an old boat, which cost him originally fifty shillings,
in which he followed the calling of bumboatman, or purveyor of provisions
and odds and ends to passing ships, from which he frequently conveyed
messages to shore. Gradually he saved money, and, uniting his old and new
trades, built a fine boat, which cost him twenty‐five pounds. In three or
four years more he was rich enough to purchase a fast‐sailing yawl, which
a gang of smugglers were obliged to relinquish about that time, and with
which Chard won the prize at the next Aldborough Regatta from a host of
born watermen. Not content with these successes, he bought and studied a
coasting‐book and chart, and soon emerged a full‐fledged pilot for one of
the most dangerous localities, the Sands of the Swin—a study almost as
difficult as biquadratic equations. He assisted at various times in saving
109 lives, no less than eighty of which were rescued in his own boat,
appropriately named the _Thorpeness Stormy Petrel_.
Farther north, and standing upon the most easterly point in all England,
the important seaport of Lowestoft is situated. The town is placed on a
lofty eminence, from which fine sea‐views are obtained, and the side of
the cliff descends gradually in hanging gardens or terraces covered with
trees and shrubs, below which is a long line of buildings appropriated to
the curing of fish. It has two harbours, with piers. The herring (more
especially) and the mackerel fisheries employ from 1,500 to 2,000 men and
boys, while the industries connected with the sea commence at twine and
rope making and end in ship‐building. There is a chapel for British and
foreign sailors, six almshouses for poor master fishermen, and two
lifeboats.
Yarmouth next demands our attention. It derives its name from its
situation at the mouth of the river Yare, and it is, as all know, both a
flourishing fishing‐town and a watering‐place. Its antiquity is great;
there are records of it anterior to Roman times. In the eleventh century,
at the time of the Conquest, it was known as _Moche Gærnemouth_, or Great
Yarmouth. In 1004, Sweyn, king of Denmark, arrived before it with a
powerful fleet, and plundered and burnt the town. It soon rose again. In
1132, artisans, implements, and looms were brought over from the
Continent, and spinning was commenced at Worstead, a small town which gave
to the yarn the name it still bears. The old town of Yarmouth was formerly
defended by walls of which the ruins still remain.
[Illustration: YARMOUTH.]
Among the features of Yarmouth are the great broad quays, extending about
a mile‐and‐a‐quarter, the principal streets running parallel with them.
There are several substantial bridges across the Yare and Bure rivers, one
over the latter having been erected on the spot where nearly eighty people
were suddenly precipitated into the water by the fall of the old bridge
some thirty‐eight years ago. There are several small docks and shipyards.
Yarmouth Roads afford safe anchorage, and are constantly resorted to by
vessels in distress, the captains of which do not dare to brave the
elements outside. Forty thousand sail, exclusive of fishing boats,
annually pass this part of the coast. The Roads are formed by several very
dangerous sands, which, in foggy weather, or when heavy gales sweep the
coasts, occasion many fearful shipwrecks. More than 500 vessels have been
stranded, wrecked, or utterly lost off this coast in the short period of
three years; as a necessary consequence, the loss of life is also
considerable, and the number of shipwrecked mariners who are landed at
Yarmouth year after year is very large. The Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society
has an important branch there. There is a fine Sailors’ Home, which has
lodged 600 to 700 poor seamen in a single year. It was established to
provide a home for the mariners of all nations, when wrecked, detained by
stress of weather, or paid off, in the latter cases giving them board and
medical attendance, if required, at the lowest possible charge. It
possesses a museum, library, and reading‐room, and a collection of charts
and nautical instruments. The two lifeboats of Yarmouth have been the
means of saving several thousand lives. There is also a little church and
mission for fishermen and sailors near the beach, and a mariners’ chapel.
The mackerel fisheries of Yarmouth alone employ one thousand men, but the
herring fishery is the most important source of revenue to the town, the
produce exceeding one hundred thousand barrels per annum, or one‐fifth of
the entire yield of the kingdom. A large number of persons of both sexes
are employed on shore in drying and curing the fish. The Yarmouth boats
with two masts (three during the mackerel season) are manned by twelve or
thirteen hands. They have the letters Y. H. and a number painted on the
bows. They are now of about sixty‐five tons builders’ measurement, many of
graceful forms, and are fast sailers. A single boat will often take a
hundred and twenty or thirty thousand fish in one night.
In salting herrings the fish are simply gutted and placed in the barrels
in alternate layers with salt. Having been allowed to remain in that
condition for some few days the barrel is found to contain a quantity of
floating liquid, which is poured off; more herrings and layers of salt are
added. The branding consists of affixing the month and day on which they
were caught and cured, the name and address of the curer, and the presence
or absence of the gills and alimentary canal. “Red” herrings are made so
by first being placed in salt for three or four days, then being hung on
spits which hold about twenty fish apiece. These spits are plunged several
times in cold water, and after being sufficiently washed, are then removed
to the open air and dried. Next they are suspended from the roof of the
smoking‐house, which has wood fires on the floor. Those for English use
are smoked for ten days or so, but those for exportation often remain as
long as three weeks before being packed. As has been mentioned elsewhere,
they are used by the negroes of the West Indies as a medicinal corrective
to the bad effects of a constant vegetable and fruit diet. Bloaters are
cured more speedily. They are placed for a few hours only in a strong
brine, are then spitted and well washed in cold water, and are smoked very
slightly for about eight hours only, when they are ready for packing.
And now for an incident which occurred some years since, and which was
indeed a “struggle for life,” although eventually the sufferer was landed
at Yarmouth. It is a sad truism that danger is never so near to us as when
we have least apparent cause to fear its presence, and the narrow escape
of a seaman, named Charles Hayman, from a melancholy death, with his
vessel in sight of his native soil, is only another of the many
exemplifications of this stern truth. He belonged to the schooner
_Osprey_, of London, and had just made a successful passage from Lagos, on
the West Coast of Africa, with a cargo of palm oil. The _Osprey_ was
brought up and anchored off the North Foreland, when a tremendous sea rose
and tore her from her anchors, driving her helpless and unmanageable into
the North Sea.
Those on board at once made signals of distress, which were seen by the
gallant little smack, _Fear Not_, truly a most appropriate name, and her
sturdy crew at once went to the assistance of the disabled schooner. The
master of the smack offered to take the crew of the _Osprey_ on board, and
the mate of the _Osprey_, believing her past all power of saving, gladly
accepted the generous offer. The hurricane was still raging furiously, and
it was with the greatest difficulty that a boat could be lowered from the
_Osprey_, but pluck and perseverance succeeded at last, and the valuables
and ship’s papers were, without delay, stowed away in the boat. The mate
and Charles Hayman were the first to embark in the tiny craft, which was
attached to the schooner by a rope, and the remainder of the crew were
about to follow them, when a heavier sea than they had had as yet to
contend against snapped the line and cast the boat adrift.
The waves washed over and into the boat, threatening to swamp it at any
moment. Hayman and the mate failed completely to bale the water out, in
spite of their incessant endeavours to do so, and Hayman, foreseeing the
inevitable, stripped himself to the skin, and waited for the moment to
come when the boat would capsize. He did not have to wait long in his
nudity and the bitter cold; the boat spun over, and carried both men under
water; however, they soon rose to the surface, succeeded in reaching the
boat, which was floating bottom upwards, and clung to it with the
despairing energy of drowning men. Heavy seas broke over them so
persistently that scarcely a minute was allowed them for respiration, and
the mate, a weakly man, with a low harrowing cry sank for the last time
and for ever. Hayman battled on with the courage of a tiger. The smack
bore down to him in the teeth of the gale. He was saved and succoured when
death seemed about to seize him, and he was supplied with raiment and
stimulants by his noble rescuers, and eventually landed at Yarmouth.
The sea has made, and still makes, many encroachments on the Norfolk
coasts. Thus at the not inconsiderable fishing station of Sherringham
several yards of cliff have been undermined and washed away in a few
years’ time; and in 1810 a large inn, placed too near the sea, was thrown
in a heap of ruins on the beach. The coast onward to Cromer, a now
fashionable watering‐place, protected by a breakwater and sea‐wall, is
extremely dangerous, and between it and Yarmouth there are five lights.
But we now approach a still more dangerous part of the coast—the eastern
shores of Yorkshire. Flamborough Head first demands our attention.
The Head is the termination of the chalky Yorkshire Wolds, and it is
surrounded by islands of chalk, showing plainly that the sea has cut them
off from their former connection with the land. The cliffs around
Flamborough Head are riddled and tunnelled by the sea waves, and there are
many arches and caverns. The “Matron of Flamborough” is a fine pyramidal
“needle,” standing boldly out of the water. Under the lighthouse are some
remarkable broken cliffs, and then two great pillars of chalk called the
“King and Queen” arrest attention. One of the largest and most rugged
caverns is called “Robin Lyth’s Hole,” and it can be easily explored from
the eastern side. The Head is, therefore, specially interesting to the
artist, and, for other reasons, it is equally so to the naturalist. Crowds
of sea birds startle the visitor, who is doubtless regarded as an
intruder, as they flock out from all the crevices of the cliffs filled
with their eggs, and cover both land and sea in their circling flight. The
somewhat giddy feat of descending the face of the cliff with the aid of
ropes, for the sake of the eggs, is one by which the Flamborough men gain
their living in the summer. “A more familiar hazard is run by the bold
fishers of this coast, who, in their little cobles, set forth from the
north or the south landing to visit, perhaps, the Dogger Bank, possibly to
return no more. ‘The sea gat him,’ is too often the reply to your inquiry
for some honest fisherman who may have been your boatman round the
promontory, or your guide through the windings of the caves.”(61) Many a
fisherman’s widow or mother thinks sadly there of the husband or son who
will no more return.
“Down on the sands, where the red light pales,
I sit and watch for the fisher’s sails;
And my heart throbs still with the old, old pain,
For the boat that will never come back again:
But a new world waits for my love and me,
A world of peace, where is no more sea.
“For God is good, and the gift He gave
Is held a while by the silver wave.
Not lost, but hidden; I may not weep,
While he is at rest in the silent deep,
And the voice of an angel speaks to me
Of the fair new home, where is no more sea.”(62)
Filey, a quiet watering‐place, is sheltered by the above‐named headland,
and its pretty terraces, squares, shrubs, trees, and flowers, its sands
where a band plays daily during the season, afford a strong contrast to
the ofttimes turbulent ocean without. The title of the place is derived
from the ancient name, “The File,” given to a rocky tongue of land which
shoots out into the sea, and serves in every respect as a breakwater to
the place. Outside, in heavy seas, great pieces of rock may be seen
rolling and tumbling about, swayed at the will of the waves. This is
called Filey “Brig” (bridge), and the promontory is said to have a great
resemblance to the mole at Tangiers. Its extremity can be reached at low
water, and from thence most lovely views of Scarborough cliffs and its
castle and Flamborough Head are obtained. At high water the Brig is
overflowed, and the waves often cause a white spray against its rocks,
which throw it high in the air. The effect from the esplanade is, for want
of a better simile, very much like a concentration of white plumes.
One Sunday afternoon, but one on which no Sabbath bell could be heard at
sea, nor on the usual quiet shores of Filey, a sad event occurred. It was
seven in the evening; the wind had suddenly chopped round from south to
north, and now there fell, with the noise of an angry sea rushing over a
sandy desert, a terrific shower of hailstones, and tempestuous weather
continued through the night. At daybreak the sea ran mountains high, and
the storm continued with unabated fury. The wind blew a hurricane; the
sleet came down as dense as a London fog, and obscured the sea from the
eyes of the anxious inhabitants of Filey, and Filey from the eager eyes
and listening ears of the tempest‐tossed sailor. At nine o’clock the sky
cleared, and the people of Filey beheld a stout brig, in company with
three or four more vessels, labouring on in the heavy sea under close‐
reefed topsails, and distant scarcely three miles.
She showed signs as if she had been in collision with some other vessel,
or was terribly battered and storm‐riven. After getting about two miles
south of the buoy, she was seen to heel over on to her beam ends, stagger,
struggle to right herself, and, as if aware of the entire fruitlessness of
the attempt, and giving up in despair, to go down with an awful
suddenness, taking all hands with her—her name unknown, her history
unrecorded. The only epitaph in memory of the brave fellows who had found
her both their coffin and their sepulchre was that stamped indelibly upon
the hearts of the loved ones they had left behind.
Of Scarborough there are most ancient records. Its name is Saxon—from
Scar, a rock, and Burg, a fortified place. A Northern historian records an
invasion by the Danes in the ninth and tenth centuries in the following
manner:—“Towards the end of the reign of Adalbricht, King of
Northumberland, an army of Danes under Knut and Harold, sons of Gorin,
invading England, subdued a great part of this province; upon which
Adalbricht, meeting the enemy, and fighting a battle at Clifland or
Cleveland, in the north, routed the Danes with great slaughter. But soon
after this the Danes, leading their forces to Scardaborga, fought and
obtained the victory; then marching to York, they subdued the inhabitants,
and passed some time in peace.” The venerable castle dates from the reign
of King Stephen.
[Illustration: SCARBOROUGH.]
The harbour of Scarborough is the only place of refuge on a dangerous
coast reaching from the Humber to Tynemouth Haven. It possesses lifeboats,
mortar apparatus for aiding ships, a Seamen’s Hospital, Trinity House, and
Mariners’ Asylum. The place itself has become a most fashionable watering‐
place. But sometimes here, as at many other seaside resorts, the terrible
mingles with the gay. Such was particularly the case in November, 1861,
when events occurred which threw a general gloom over both the inhabitants
and visitors.
A schooner, the _Coupland_, attempted the harbour during a fearful gale,
but could not succeed in entering. She drifted rapidly amid foaming
billows that chased each other like huge mad cataracts, until she struck
immediately opposite the Spa promenade. In the meantime the lifeboat was
manned, and sent out to the relief of the vessel, now in most imminent
danger. The sea broke upon the sea‐wall with such terrific violence that
the massive stones on the parapet were dislodged. The rebound of the waves
caused such a sea as no small craft but the lifeboat could have borne.
Arrived at this point, she was watched, and her crew spoken to by the
people on the Spa. The crew of the lifeboat seemed terror‐stricken at
their awful position. Suddenly a fearful lurch of the boat pitched out a
veteran boatman, the leading man in her, and one of great experience and
good judgment. He was quickly washed up to the Spa wall, and was saved by
a life‐buoy. Another of the crew was ejected a few minutes after, and was
saved by the same means, after a fearful struggle. The oars were now
dashed out of the hands of the lifeboatmen, and they were at once rendered
powerless. The boat was washed heavily up against the wall, and nothing
but her great strength and excellent qualities preserved her from being at
once dashed to pieces. Ropes were thrown from the boat to the promenade,
and she was drawn through the surf to a landing‐place at the southern end
of the wall. Here a fatal occurrence took place. Having touched the
ground, the men jumped out before the water had receded, and, seeing the
danger they were in, a rush down the incline was made to assist them. In
the momentary confusion that ensued another run of the sea came, and
nearly all the party were thrown from their feet, and were now scrambling
to save their lives. Many succeeded in getting up, but another wave washed
off those who were yet below. Two or three times they were carried out and
back again. Among these were Lord Charles Beauclerk, two of the boat’s
crew, and five or six others. A large wave was seen to lift the lifeboat
with fearful force against the wall; and as the boat sank down again, it
was found that Brewster, one of the crew, had been literally crushed to
death between it and the stone sea‐wall. Lord Charles Beauclerk
experienced the same horrible fate, but was not immediately killed; he was
washed to the foot of the cliff, when two gentlemen rushed to his
assistance. A rope had been previously thrown to him, but he was powerless
to grasp it. The gentlemen just named succeeded in fastening a rope round
him, and drew him up the incline, the life just ebbing out of him. He was
conveyed to the Music Hall adjoining (sad irony of fate!), where a
physician pronounced him dead. Two or three others were seen under the
boat, when the waves threw her up almost in the air. One of them was the
son of a Scarborough banker. All these men perished.
Attention was now given to the shipwrecked crew, who had been witnesses of
all these horrors, and they were eventually all hauled off safely by the
rocket apparatus. In the same gale fourteen poor fishermen of Scarborough
lost their lives. Twenty were lost at Yarmouth, and there were wrecks
strewed all over the east coast.
And now for a true story with a happier ending, very graphically told by a
lady visitor to Scarborough.(63) It occurred in the mid‐winter of 1872. “I
can’t write decently,” wrote she; “my hands are still trembling from the
excitement of the morning, such a tremendous storm we have had, and a
vessel lost in front of our windows again. The sea was one heaving,
surging mass of foam, and the wind blowing hard from the NE. right upon
this coast. Our sailor‐landlord came in from a look‐out seaward with the
report, ‘There’s a fine brig out to the north’ard, but there’s an awful
heavy sea on; I’m afraid there’s no chance for her, the wind is driving
her dead on shore, and I’m afraid she’ll be on the rocks before long.
She’s a Spaniard, I think, by the looks on her. God help ’em!’ and he took
his glass and went out, the big tears standing in his eyes, great sturdy
fellow as he is.
“Of course our hearts were in our mouths in a moment, and with straining
eyes we watched and watched. On she came; how one longed for some unseen
hand to drive her back from what seemed friendly houses, and people, and
land, and yet was so fatal! The snow, and hail, and rain made the air
thick every now and then, and when it cleared there was the vessel being
driven headlong before the wind. Would she get round the Castle rocks?
That was awful excitement; if she struck there, there was no hope for the
crew. An hour nearly the suspense lasted; yes, she is past! a slight lull
in the fierce storm, and in that lull a fishing‐smack, for which there
seemed no chance, had weathered it all, got round the lighthouse pier, and
was entering the harbour, a thing that, by the side of the brig, seemed a
mere child’s toy on those big waves, and had been lost to sight again and
again. The pier was one black mass of people, and on the sands thousands
had collected, all eyes on the brig.
“Now off goes the lifeboat—there is still a chance for the brig. It’s a
beautiful new boat, that was recently launched, and already she has saved
more lives (the sailors tell us) than the old one did all the time she was
here. Her crew have confidence in her, and ‘you know, miss, if her crew
haven’t confidence in her, it’s all no go; they’d better by half go off in
a coble, they’d liever too,’ said an old sailor to me. I felt as if every
one I loved in the world were in that vessel, thus tossing and struggling
with the winds and waves, in uncertainty as to her fate. The lifeboat is
off now, though, to the pier‐head, and the rocket apparatus is fixed at a
part where they think she’s coming on shore. She hasn’t enough sail on,
the sailors say. Her master seems to find this out, for up go two
topsails. She veers; now is her chance; if her master knows the harbour
well, he may yet get her in. He doesn’t, evidently; he has gone a little
too far to the south’ard, and can’t get back! One frightful gust, one
awful sea, and her chance is over, and she is driving right on to the
worst rocks of all, where, if she strikes, the men must perish—no lifeboat
and no rocket apparatus can reach her. The lifeboat is pulling
tremendously towards her now, and the sea is fearful; again she veers
slightly—the moments seem hours. How those men pull! they are close to
her, when one awful sea catches them, and the lifeboat is swamped. It
seemed as if I felt the waves dashing over me. I gave an awful scream, and
hardly dared look again; and yet I couldn’t keep my eyes away. She was all
right, and eagerly I counted her men, we could see so plainly from our
windows. They were all right, and now she is alongside the brig, though
once or twice dashed away again. Then comes the taking of the men off.
This was almost the worst moment of all, to see them one by one dropped
into the lifeboat. One man is going nearly in; the lifeboat is dashed
right away, and there he hangs. The sea dashes against him, injures his
leg, but they get him back into the brig, and then into the lifeboat when
she can get close again, and now all are in but the captain. He hesitates;
almost it seems as if he would rather go down with his ship; but he passes
some papers, or paper like books, into 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 of 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.
[Illustration: EARLY SWIMMING.]