trailed from her bows. Her head was thus kept up to the wind,
while there was no sufficient check to her drift astern and outwards
towards the Goodwins.

Efforts, but ineffectual efforts, were made to get rid of the trailing
cables, and therefore the vessel's head could not be got before the
wind, and she could not be steered, but drifted out faster and faster.
It is supposed that there was another anchor on the forecastle head,
which had somehow fouled, or, at any rate, could not be got loose from
some cause or other.

In the confusion, the sails of the great vessel--for she was a
full-rigged ship--having been either neglected or imperfectly furled,
were torn adrift and blew to ribbons. These great strips of heavy
canvas cracked like monstrous whips with deafening noise, thrashing the
masts and rigging, and rendering any attempt to furl them or cut them
away, perilous in the extreme.

The crew consisted of thirty-five hands 'all told,' of whom the
captain, mates, petty officers, and apprentices were English, while the
men before the mast were Lascars. Now I think my readers will agree
with me in believing that 'Jack,' with all his faults, is a more
reliable man to stand 'shoulder to shoulder' with in time of danger
than Ali Mahmood Seng, the Lascar. In cold and storm and peril most of
us would prefer 'our ain folk' alongside of us.

Some years ago a Board of Trade report contained a quotation from the
remarks of a firm of shipowners, to the effect that they largely
employed foreign sailors on board their vessels, because they were
(_a_) more sober, (_b_) more amenable to discipline, and (_c_) cheaper
than British sailors; but they added, 'we always keep a few Englishmen
among the crew to lead the way aloft on dark and stormy nights.'

What a heart-stirring comment on the character of the British sailor is
there in the passage above quoted! Is there no remedy, and no
physician for the frailties and degradations of poor Jack, who,
whatever be his faults, 'leads the way aloft on dark and stormy
nights?' 'If the constituents of London mud can be resolved, if the
sand can be transformed into an opal,' to use the noble simile of a
great living writer, 'and the water into a drop of dew or a star of
snow, or a translucent crystal, and the soot into a diamond such as

On the forehead of a queen
Trembles with dewy light,--

if such glorious transformations can be wrought by the laws of Nature
on the commixtur