On the night of Sunday the 31st of January 1892, the North-German Lloyd liner _Eider_, bound from New York to Southampton, stranded on a reef of rocks off the Isle of Wight. A dense fog prevailed at the time, and a very rough sea was running. Signal rockets were immediately sent up, and about eleven o’clock the Atherfield lifeboat proceeded to her assistance. There was no immediate danger to the passengers and crew, so the captain decided to telegraph for steam tugs. The telegrams were accordingly handed into the lifeboat, and she returned to the shore to send them off. At daylight next morning signals were made by the _Eider_, and the lifeboat again went out, and found that the captain wished to land some of the mails, and they were therefore brought ashore. Meanwhile news of the stranding of the steamer had been sent to the lifeboat stations at Brighstone Grange and Brooke, and these lifeboats at once put off and made for the scene of the disaster with all speed. The captain of the _Eider_ then decided that it would be best to land the passengers, and during the day the lifeboats made altogether eighteen trips to the ship, and safely landed two hundred and thirty-three passengers, besides specie and mails. Darkness, however, came on and put an end to the work. The next day eleven journeys were performed by the lifeboats, and one hundred and forty-six people were brought to land without accident. During Wednesday and Thursday the boats were engaged in bringing ashore bars of silver, specie, the ship’s plate, and passengers’ luggage. Forty-one journeys in all were made by the gallant lifeboatmen, who worked hard and nobly, and rescued three hundred and seventy-nine persons. The captain and several of the crew remained on board, and the vessel was eventually towed off the rocks and safely berthed in Southampton docks. In recognition of the devotion to duty and self-sacrifice shown by the lifeboatmen in the work of rescue, the Emperor of Germany presented each of the coxswains of the three lifeboats with a gold watch bearing His Majesty’s portrait and initials. The institution also awarded the second-service clasp to the coxswain of the Atherfield lifeboat, the silver medal to the coxswain of the Brighstone Grange lifeboat, and the third-service clasp to the coxswain of the Brooke lifeboat. We reproduce the following poem on the stranding of the _Eider_, by special permission, from _The Star_:-- The _Eider_ rode on the open sea With her safety in God’s own hand For a thousand miles--ay, two, and three, With never a sight of land. A shell of steel on the world of waves That severs the hemispheres, That covers the depths of a thousand graves And the wrecks of a hundred years. She bore, unhurt, through the storm-god’s din, Through shower, and shade, and sheen, With the death without and her lives within, And her inch of steel between.