the safety afforded by the noble life-boat. So safe, indeed, that it was not too soon for the poor sailors to rejoice in their rescue, and to express with heartfelt cheer their gratitude to the brave men who had rescued them from their position of deadly peril. The steamer does not take long in towing the boat to Ramsgate, where all receive the usual warm greeting, and the shipwrecked the needful care. The crew of the wrecked vessel, the _Amoor_ of Elswick, are Germans; their consul takes care of them, and sends them to the Sailors' Home. They proved so thankful for the rescue effected, that they wrote to their home authorities, and the life-boat men soon received from the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg Schwerin an expression of gratitude and admiration for their conduct, accompanied by a Silver Medal, a Certificate of Merit, and ten shillings each man. CHAPTER XVIII. THE RESCUE OF THE CREW OF THE "EFFORT"--THE DANGERS OF HOVELLING. "All where the eye delights, yet dreads to roam, The breaking billows cast the flying foam Upon the billows rising; all the deep Is restless change; the waves so swelled and steep, Breaking and sinking; and the sunken swells, Not one, one moment, in its station dwells." _Crabbe._ The famous old life-boat _Northumberland_ had done her work, and had done it nobly and well. Staunch, and true, she had breasted the hardest gales, stemmed the fiercest seas, and had been the means of rescuing hundreds of perishing men, women, and children from that which, without her, and the brave hearts and strong hands that sailed her, must have been swift, certain, and terrible death; but at last her time had come--weather beaten, wrenched, and worn, with her thousand battles with the gales, she was condemned as being no longer to be intrusted with the precious lives that she contained, as she went forth to contend with the wild seas that rage over the Goodwin Sands. The _Bradford_, a very powerful and excellent boat presented to the Life-boat Institution by the good people of Bradford, and by the Institution appointed to Ramsgate, had not yet been sent down, and a smaller boat called the _Little Friend_ was occupying her place for the time. But it was a clear fine morning, with the waves fretting and fuming somewhat, but dancing and gleaming brightly in the sunshine; it had been squally during the night, and at times had blown very hard, but the morning promised better, and the life-boat was rocking gently at her moorings, no one thinking it likely that her services would be required for some time. But the boatmen must be doing something, if only drawing their bow at a venture, and now the _Champion_ is getting ready for sea; she is one of the Ramsgate hovelling-luggers, a noble boat of twenty-two tons, fit for any weather. In summer time she is fitted as a pleasure-boat, and, as such, takes many a holiday cruise; but now she is in winter gear, and ready for rougher scenes and harder work.