Recently, I went down to this "metropolis of the lifeboat service," for the express purpose of interviewing one of those warriors of the sea. The place was crowded with holiday-makers, and the harbour presented a busy scene. Four fine large yachts were getting their passengers on board for "a two-hours’ sail." A yellow-painted tug was puffing to and fro, towing coasting vessels and luggers out of the harbour, and threatening to run down several small boats which repeatedly tried to cross her bows. At some distance from where I was standing lay the lifeboat _Bradford_, motionless and neglected, and looking strangely out of place in such smooth water. How the sight of the boat recalled to my mind all that I had ever read or heard of the perils of "those who go down to the sea in ships"--the storm, the wreck, the dark winter night, the midnight summons to man the lifeboat, the struggle for a place, the sufferings from cold, the happy return with the crew all saved,--these and other similar incidents seemed to pass before my eyes like a panorama--the centre object ever being the blue-painted _Bradford_. "Have a boat this morning, sir?" said a thick muffled voice quite close to me. Turning round I saw a little, old man with a bronzed, weather-beaten face. "Not this morning, thank you," I replied; "unless you will let me have the lifeboat for an hour or two." He shook his head and turned away. Then it suddenly seemed to strike him that possibly I did not know the uses of the lifeboat, and would be none the worse if I received a little information on the subject. [Illustration: A RAMSGATE BOATMAN] "The lifeboat’s not a pleasure boat, sir," he said, "and never goes out unless in cases of distress. I reckon if you went out in lifeboat weather once, you’d never want to go again." "I suppose you have heavy seas here at times?" I remarked. "Nobody that hasn’t seen it has any idea of the water here, and the wind is strong enough to blow a man off his feet. Great waves come over the end of the pier, and carry everything, that’s not lashed, into the sea. One day, a few winters ago, a perfect wall of water thundered down on the pier and twisted that big iron crane you see out there as if it had been made of wire. The water often comes down the chimneys of the watch-house at the end of the pier and puts out the fires; and every time the sea comes over, the whole building shakes, as if an earthquake was going on. What’s worse almost than the sea is the terrible cold. Why, sir, I’ve seen this pier a mass of ice from end to end, and the masts and shrouds of the vessels moored alongside also covered with ice; so that a rope, which was no thicker than your finger, would look as big as a man’s arm. As you know, sir, it’s a hard frost that freezes salt water, and yet the lifeboat goes out in weather like that." "It’s a wonder to me," I said, "that under such circumstances the boat is manned."