had been long together, ripened into
what might almost be styled a friendship. They had many sympathies in
common. Both were athletic; both were mentally as well as physically
active, and, although Stanley Hall had the inestimable advantage of a
liberal education, Jim Welton possessed a naturally powerful intellect,
with a capacity for turning every scrap of knowledge to good use.

Their conversation was at that time, however, cut short by the springing
up of a breeze, which rendered it necessary that the closest attention
should be paid to the management of the vessel among the numerous shoals
which rendered the navigation there somewhat difficult.

It may be that many thousands of those who annually leave London on
voyages, short and long--of profit and pleasure--have very little idea
of the intricacy of the channels through which they pass, and the number
of obstructions which, in the shape of sandbanks, intersect the mouth of
the Thames at its junction with the ocean. Without pilots, and an
elaborate well-considered system of lights, buoys, and beacons, a vessel
would be about as likely to reach London from the ocean, or _vice
versa_, in safety, as a man who should attempt to run through an old
timber-yard blindfold would be to escape with unbroken neck and shins.
Of shoals there are the East and West Barrows, the Nob, the Knock, the
John, the Sunk, the Girdler, and the Long sands, all lying like so many
ground-sharks, quiet, unobtrusive, but very deadly, waiting for ships to
devour, and getting them too, very frequently, despite the precautions
taken to rob them of their costly food.

These sand-sharks (if we may be allowed the expression) separate the
main channels, which are named respectively the Swin or King's channel,
on the north, and the Prince's, the Queen's, and the South channels, on
the south. The channel through which the Nora passed was the Swin,
which, though not used by first-class ships, is perhaps the most
frequented by the greater portion of the coasting and colliery vessels,
and all the east country craft. The traffic is so great as to be almost
continuous; innumerable vessels being seen in fine weather passing to
and fro as far as the eye can reach. To mark this channel alone there
was, at the time we write of, the Mouse light-vessel, at the western
extremity of the Mouse sand; the Maplin lighthouse, on the sand of the
same name; the Swin middle light-vessel, at the western extremity of t