The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 4Whymper, Frederick
History
The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 4
Whymper, Frederick
Adventure and adventurers; Arctic regions; Ocean; Voyages around the world
centre pieces of iron, or bosses, still remaining. The arrangement of the
shields is the same as that in the famous Bayeux tapestry, on which are
represented (among other things) the ships of William the Conqueror. The
old vessel had been used as the last resting‐place of a great Viking. It
was their custom so to bury their chiefs. The ship was usually placed with
its stem towards the sea, so that when Odin, the Jove of the northern
mythology, should call the gallant chief, he could set sail straight off
land for Valhalla, the heaven of his hopes.
Newhaven, a little farther to the east, has a fair tidal harbour and some
local commerce, but its chief feature is the very rapidly‐increasing
passenger traffic between it and Dieppe, for Paris or London, and the
traveller who has not tried that route can be recommended to do so. The
boats, some of them of steel and containing all modern improvements, are
among the finest in the Channel service, making the trip to Dieppe usually
in five or five‐and‐a‐half hours. The trip through Normandy and the valley
of the Seine is varied and interesting, and preferable to that from Calais
or Boulogne. Near Newhaven is the once flourishing town of Seaford, though
it is now little better than a picturesque fishing‐village, in the bay of
which mackerel are sometimes taken in prodigious quantities, and which
affords shelter and anchorage for large vessels during the prevalence of
strong easterly winds.
Still farther east, and at the extreme southern point of Sussex, stands
the bold promontory Beachy Head, the scene of many a shipwreck in days
gone by. It would be a most difficult feat to scale this great chalk
cliff; and yet the slope of broken _débris_, mingled with scanty grass and
samphire, steep though it be, does not look impracticable, nor indeed is
it up to a certain point. The writer and his brother once managed to get
within a very respectable distance of the top, but then the rocky stones
commenced rolling down, bringing both climbers with them. After many an
ineffectual attempt to secure a hold by clinging to the samphire, and
intervals of momentary rest, neither was very sorry to reach the stony
beach, albeit considerably bruised, battered, and torn. There they found
the sea had cut off their retreat towards Eastbourne, and before they
could reach the shore they had to wade through the fast‐rising tide round
one or two projecting corners of the cliff.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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