of which the Deal and Ramsgate men made such a splendid effort,
that we so nearly ran; and an accident of this kind perhaps sealed the
fate of the four boatmen above mentioned.

On this north-west part of the Goodwins, on which hours of the deepest
interest could be spent, you can walk a distance of at least two miles,
but you are separated by the great north-east swatch of deep water from
getting to the extensive north-east jaw on the other side of the
swatch, which is also full of wrecks, and round and along the edges of
which, on the calmest day, somehow the surf and breakers for ever roar.
The southern part of the Goodwins is also full of memories, and of
countless wrecks. The ribs of the Ganges, the Leda, the Paul Boyton,
the Sorrento, all lie there deep down beneath the Sands, excepting when
some mighty storm shifts the sand and reveals their skeletons. Deep,
too, in the bosom of the Goodwins, masts alone projecting, is settling
down the Hazelbank, wrecked there in October, 1890; but this southern
part at lowest tide is barely uncovered by the sea, and only just awash.

At high water the depth is about three fathoms, varying of course in
patches, over this southern part or tail of the sea-monster. It is
clear that, being thus, even at low tide, nearly always covered with
water, and as the sand when thus covered is much more 'quick' and
movable, the southern part of the Goodwins is an exceedingly awkward
place to explore. If you made a stumble, as the sands slide under your
feet, it might, shall I say, land you into a pit or 'fox-fall,'
circular in shape, and very deep. The stumps of forgotten wrecks are
also a real danger to the boat which accompanies the investigator.

As to the depth of the great sandbank, borings have been made down to
the chalk to a depth of seventy-eight feet--a fact which might have
been fairly conjectured from the depth of water inside the Goodwins,
down to the chalky bottom being nine or ten fathoms, while the depth
close outside the Goodwins, where the outer edge of the sands is sheer
and steep, is fifteen fathoms, deepening a mile and a half further off
the Goodwins to twenty-eight fathoms.

The ships wrecked on the Goodwins go down into it very slowly, but they
sometimes literally fall off the steep outer edge into the deep water
above described.

One still bright autumn morning I witnessed a tragedy of that
description. On the forenoon of November 30, 1888, I was on the deck