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Away to the north-east we saw the Whistle buoy, and toward the east the East buoy, both of which mark the outer edge of the Goodwins.
They had a clear view of the dark hull and towering canvas of the barque as she swept along in front of them, intending evidently to take advantage of the wind in order to get outside the Goodwins before beating up Channel. "She's going about," Sampson remarked.
Few harbours are livelier with red and brown sails; few coasts more enjoyable than the cliff walk looking across towards the Goodwins, the low shore by Sandwich, the higher ground about Deal and Dover, and the dim white line of Cape Blancnez in the distance.
The passage has certainly a flavour of the Goodwins but at any rate the sea-bird does not sweep to the raging summit of a wave, or glide more easily from its seething crest down the dark deep blue slope to its windless trough, or more safely than the Deal boatmen in their luggers. Richard Roberts had been all that day afloat in the Downs in his powerful 'cat, the Early Morn.
Two boatmen remained in each boat, for neglect of this precaution has caused accidents frightful to think of, on the Goodwins; and the remaining four boatmen, daring fellows of the sea-dog and amphibious type, walked across the sands, dripping with the brine.
As to the depth of the great sandbank, borings have been made down to the chalk to a depth of seventy-eight feet a fact which might have been fairly conjectured from the depth of water inside the Goodwins, down to the chalky bottom being nine or ten fathoms, while the depth close outside the Goodwins, where the outer edge of the sands is sheer and steep, is fifteen fathoms, deepening a mile and a half further off the Goodwins to twenty-eight fathoms.
Under her reefed mizzen and reefed storm foresail the lifeboat came ramping over the four miles of tempestuous sea between the mainland and the Goodwins, the sea getting bigger and breaking more at the top of each wave, or 'peeling more, as the Deal phrase goes, the farther they went into the full fetch of the sea rolling up Channel.
Because I ventured to do so I have been forbidden to visit there again. They told me, without either preface or apology, that they will have no further intercourse with our family. Ferdora O'Connor is the chosen man." "It is false," said his sister, her eyes sparkling with indignation as she spoke; "it is abominably false; and, father, you are right; seek an explanation from the Goodwins.
They are quicksands of such character that if a ship strikes upon them she will in a few days be completely swallowed up. Modern precautions, however, have rendered them less formidable than formerly. The great storm of 1703, that destroyed the Eddystone Lighthouse, wrecked thirteen war-ships on the Goodwins, nearly all their crews perishing.
And I remember that, before making Deal, we saw a stranded Brig on the Goodwins, which was said to be a Leghorner, very rich with oils and silks; round which were gathered just as you may see obscene Birds of Prey gathered round a dead carcass, and picking the Flesh from its bones at least a score of luggers belonging to the Deal Boatmen.
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