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Last year the number saved by lifeboats was 741, besides 143 lives saved by shore-boats and other means, for which rewards were given by the Institution; making a grand total of 884 lives saved in that one year. The number each year is often larger, seldom less.

Forward, in the glare of her cargo lights, to the puffing and creaking of derricks and donkey engines, bundles of beeswax, of rawhides, and precious tusks of ivory were being hurled into the hold; from the shore-boats clinging to the ship's sides came the shrieks of the Zanzibar boys, from the smoking-room the blare of the steward's band and the clink of glasses.

In fact, for a good deal of the time it was not a waterway at all. But usually, when a half tide or more was in, a rowboat could be taken up to the landing near the road. So, one afternoon an untenanted houseboat was left lying in the sunshine and the marshes, all aboard having taken to the shore-boats and gone in search of the more solid portions of Weyanoke.

The landing-place was crowded with boats; and it was not without sundry exchanges of foul words and oaths, and the bow-men dashing the points of their boat-hooks into the shore-boats, to make them keep clear of us, that we forced our way to the beach. The marine officer and all the stewards then left the boat, and I had to look after the men.

The landing-place was crowded with boats, and it was not without sundry exchanges of foul words and oaths, and the bow-men dashing the point of their boat-hooks into the shore-boats, to make them keep clear of us, that we forced our way to the beach. The marine officer and all the stewards then left the boat, and I had to look after the men.

And you will see ships building and ships in ordinary; and ships repairing and ships fitting; and hulks and convict ships, and the guard-ship; ships ready to sail and ships under sail; besides lighters, men-of-war's boats, dockyard-boats, bum-boats, and shore-boats.

The Downs was crowded with hundreds of vessels of every form and size, as well as of every country, all waiting for a favourable breeze to enable them to quit the roadstead and put to sea. Pilot luggers and other shore-boats of various kinds were moving about among these; some on the look-out for employment, others intent on doing a stroke of business in the smuggling way, if convenient.

As we crept slowly at half speed into the harbor of Yokohama, among the merchant shipping, surrounded by a myriad of little shore-boats, steering in and out through the Russian, English, and Japanese men-of-war, the twilight was gradually approaching; and when we rounded to, three hundred yards from the shore, under the lee of the United States sloop-of-war Richmond and let go our anchor, she fired her evening gun.

And you will see ships building and ships in ordinary; and ships repairing and ships fitting; and hulks and convict ships, and the guardship; ships ready to sail and ships under sail; besides lighters, men-of-war's boats, dockyard-boats, bumboats, and shore-boats.

It was pleasant, certainly, to laugh at Joinville's admiral's flag floating at his foremast, in yonder black ship, with its two thundering great guns at the bows and stern, its busy crew swarming on the deck, and a crowd of obsequious shore-boats bustling round the vessel and to sneer at the Mogador warrior, and vow that we English, had we been inclined to do the business, would have performed it a great deal better.