Four miles seawards from Deal lie the Goodwin Sands, and the deep water between the two is known as the Downs—the great historic resting-place for ships, naval and mercantile, the scene of the gathering together of many a noble fleet of British war-ships, whose broadsides have helped to make England the mistress of the seas. The Goodwins shelter the Downs: that is their one good service, and surely the mariner pays dearly for it! No more treacherous shoal exists than that ever-shifting mass, that greedy monster that lies beneath the surface of the water, and grasps in the clasp of death every luckless vessel driven within its reach. Deep in the Goodwin Sands lie the wrecks of centuries, the treasure of many lands. And the stories of those wrecks, what stirring reading they would be were they recorded! In the great storm of 1703—of which I shall speak later on in telling the story of the Eddystone—thirteen men-of-war were driven on the Goodwins, dashed to pieces, and their crews engulfed in the rising tide. Now, in our own day, each succeeding winter brings some fresh piteous tale of disaster from the Sands, some grievous loss of human life which happens, despite the undauntable courage of the men who man the lifeboats stationed along the coast from Broadstairs to Dover. Our hearts bleed as we read of the lifeboat which, notwithstanding all that human skill and pluck can do, reaches the Goodwin Sands too late: there has been no unnecessary delay since the signal of distress was first noticed, no hanging back by the crew, no thought for their own safety. Simply the actual impossibility of reaching the wreck in time. This is the story we read of yearly; and though it may fill us with sorrow for the sufferings of the luckless men and women on the wrecked ship, we can at least say, as we lay aside our newspaper, All was done that could be done to save them. Few, thank God, are now the occasions on which we cannot say this; but the loss of the Gutenberg, on the evening of New Year’s Day, 1860, is one of them. It was a wild night, bitterly cold, and the snow fell so thick that her pilot could not see the light from the lightship, and she struck the Goodwins about six o’clock. Her signals of distress were seen from Deal, but there was then no lifeboat stationed there, and the Deal boatmen telegraphed to Ramsgate, ‘Ship on the Goodwins.’ The lifeboat-men there were ready as usual, and they hastened, as was customary, to the harbour-master to get permission for the steam-tug to tow them out.