Such are our coasting vessels; but it must be borne in mind that ships of their class are not confined to the coast. When built very large they are intended for the deep ocean trade, and many schooners approach in size to full-rigged "ships."

Reference having been made to life boats, we shall, before leaving this department of our subject devote a chapter to them, and to an account of the heroism of a young woman who dwelt in a lighthouse on our stormy coasts not many years ago.

THERE are not many women who, like Joan of Arc, put forth their hands to the work peculiarly belonging to the male sex, and achieve for themselves undying fame. And among these there are very few indeed, who, in thus quitting their natural sphere and assuming masculine duties, retain their feminine modesty and gentleness.

Such an one was Grace Darling. She did not, indeed, like those to whom we have just referred, altogether quit

her station and follow a course peculiar to the male sex; but she did once seize the oar and launch fearlessly upon the raging sea and perform a deed which strong and daring men might have been proud of; which drew forth the wondering admiration of her country, and has rendered her name indissolubly connected with the annals of heroic daring in the saving of human life from vessels wrecked upon our rock-bound shores.

Grace Darling was born in November 1815, at Bamborough on the Nothumberland coast. Her father was keeper of the lighthouse on the Longstone, one of the Farn Islands lying off that coast; and here, on a mere bit of rock surrounded by the ocean, and often by the howling tempests and the foaming breakers of that dangerous spot, our heroine spent the greater part of her life, cut off almost totally from the joys and pursuits of the busy world. She and her mother managed the domestic economy of the lighthouse on the little islet, while her father trimmed the lantern that sent a blaze of friendly light to warn mariners off that dangerous coast.

In personal appearance Grace Darling is described as having been fair and comely, with a gentle modest expression of countenance, about the middle size, and with nothing in the least degree masculine about her. She had reached her twenty-second year when the wreck took place in connection with which her name has become famous.

The Farn Islands are peculiarly dangerous. The sea rushes with tremendous force between the smaller islands, and, despite the warning light, wrecks occasionally take place among them. In days of old, when men had neither heart nor head to erect lighthouses for the protection of their fellows, many a noble ship must have been dashed to pieces

there, and many an awful shriek must have mingled with the hoarse roar of the surf round these rent and weatherworn rocks.

A gentleman who visited the Longstone rock in 1838, describes it thus :

"It was, like the rest of these desolate isles, all of dark whinstone, cracked in every direction, and worn with the action of winds, waves, and tempests, since the world began. Over the greater part of it was not a blade of grass, nor a grain of earth; it was bare and iron-like stone, crusted, round all the coast as far as high-water mark, with limpet and still smaller shells. We ascended wrinkled hills of black stone, and descended into worn and dismal dells of the same; into some of which, where the tide got entrance, it came pouring and roaring in raging whiteness, and churning the loose fragments of whinstone into round pebbles, and piling them up in deep crevices with sea-weeds, like great round ropes and heaps of fucus. Over our heads screamed hundreds of hovering birds, the gull mingling its hideous laughter most wildly."

One wild and stormy night in September 1838, such a night as induces those on land to draw closer round the fire, and offer up, perchance, a silent prayer for those who are at sea, a steamer was battling, at disadvantage with the billows, off St. Abb's Head. She was the Forfarshire, a steamer of three hundred tons, under command of Mr. John Humble, and had started from Hull for Dundee with a valuable cargo, a crew of twenty-one men and forty-one passengers.

It was a fearful night; the storm raged furiously and would have tried the qualities of even a stout vessel; but this one was in very bad repair, and her boilers were in

such a state that the engines soon became entirely useless, and at last they ceased to work. We cannot conceive the danger of a steamer left thus comparatively helpless in a furious storm and dark night off a dangerous coast.

In a short time the vessel became quite unmanageable, and drifted with the direction of the tide, no one knew whither. Soon the terrible cry arose, "breakers to leeward," and immediately after the Farn lights became visible. A desparing attempt was now made by the captain to run the ship between the islands and the mainland, but in this he failed, and about three o'clock she struck heavily on a rock bow foremost.

The scene of consternation that followed is indescribable. Immediately one of the boats was lowered, and with a freight of terror-stricken people pushed off, but not before one or two persons had fallen into the sea and perished in their vain attempts to get into it. This party in the boat, nine in number, survived the storm of that awful night, and were picked up the following morning by a Montrose sloop. Of those left in the ill-fated ship some remained in the after part, a few stationed themselves near the bow thinking it the safest spot. The captain stood helpless, his wife clinging to him, while several other females gave vent to their agony of despair in fearful cries.

Meanwhile the waves dashed the vessel again and again on the rock, and at last a larger billow than the rest lifted her up and let her fall down upon its sharp edge. The effect was tremendous and instantaneous; the vessel was literally broken into two pieces, and the after part, with the greater number of the passengers in the cabin, was swept away through the Pifa Gut, a tremendous current which is considered dangerous even in good weather. Among those