Then one by one we piled aboard, each waiting the moment to jump, while the crew on the _France_ held the dancing shell away with poles. Four men and Morris formed the escort, and once aboard they gave away with a will as the close proximity to our tug threatened to upset us any minute. But once we got her head into the sea, and our four men tugging in rhythm at the oars, all went well. I had often been in a ship’s boat in a seaway, but nothing quite like this. Every minute a great sea would come racing in from the open waters and a mountain black it would sweep under our stern, lifting us high in the air, and then our little boat would go sliding back into the valley behind like a cat trying to climb a steep roof. Down, down we would go into the trough until our horizon was bounded only by the waves that had swept under us, and its big black brother following close behind. Each time we would mount the crest we would see the shore ahead and the _France_ astern of us; each time we dipped the ridges of spray capped seas would shut them from sight. But each dip brought us nearer shore. As we approached the pier I saw that there was a kind of breakwater jutting out from one side and behind it a still patch of water. Between the pier and the stone masonry was a channel of perhaps fifty feet. Each moment the seas would go roaring through this little opening, whose walls were flanked with clouds of spray breaking on both sides. Then the next second back would come the wash to meet the next wave. This looked to me to be our best place to land. In fact, it seemed the only place. Waiting just the right time and mounted on the crest of a roller we came sweeping down toward this veritable millrace. Standing up in the stern to steer I encouraged the crew to pull their hardest. For a moment we hung on the crest and then like a toboggan we bore down toward the narrow passage, the sailors pulling their oaken oars till they fairly bent. For an instant we were in a cloud of spray and ’midst the tumult of the seas breaking over the masonry at either side, and then we shot into the quiet waters like a sled gliding over smooth ice.