conveyed to the
Bank of England[1]. That merchandise, curiosities, and treasures lie
engulfed in the capacious maw of the Goodwin Sands is very probable,
although we may not quite endorse Mr. Pritchard's statement that 'if
the multitude of vessels lost there during the past centuries could be
recovered, they would go a good way towards liquidating the National
Debt.'

From its mystery and 'shippe-swallowing' propensities, the word
'monster' is peculiarly appropriate to this great quicksand, which
still craves more victims, and still with claws and feelers
outstretched--Scylla and Charybdis combining their terrors in the
Goodwins--lies in ambush for the goodly ships that so bravely wing
their flight to and fro beyond its reach. But it is only in the storm
blast and the midnight that its most dreadful features are unveiled,
and even then the lifeboatmen face its perils and conquer them.

Independently of the breakers and cross-seas of stormy weather, the
dangers of the Goodwin Sands arise from the facts that they lie right
in the highway of shipping, that at high water they are concealed from
view, being then covered by the sea to the depth of from ten to
twenty-five feet, varying in different places, and that furious
currents run over and around them.

Add to this that they are very lonely and distant from the mainland,
and, being surrounded by deep water, are far from help; whilst, as an
additional and terrible danger, here and there on the sands, wrecks,
anchors, stumps, and notably the great sternpost of the Terpsichore,
from which a few months ago Roberts and the Deal lifeboatmen had
rescued all the crew, stick up over the surface. And woe be to the
boat or vessel which strikes on these!

On September 12, 1891, on my way to the North Sandhead lightship,
which, however, we failed to reach by reason of the strong ebb tide
against us and the wind dropping to a calm, we revisited this sternpost
of the Terpsichore. We got down mast and sails and took to our oars.
The light air from the north-east blew golden feathery cloud-films
across the great blue arch above our heads, and for once in the arctic
summer of 1891 the air was warm and balmy. Starting from the
North-west Goodwin buoy, we soon rowed into shallow water, crossing a
long spit of sand on which, not far from us, a feathery breaker raced.
Again we get into deep water, having just hit the passage into an
amphitheatre in the Goodwins of deep water bordere