safety-valves was well made out by the blackness of the windward
horizon; and contrasted with the dense puffs of smoke from her funnel,
which were instantly dispersed or carried in heavy patches to leeward.
The glory of modern discoveries is unpopular with our coasting-seamen,
and the mate of a coaster, who was watching her movements, observed that
"we should not have a lad fit to hand a sail or man a yard soon with
their cursed machinery."

As she passed on her course "cleaving blast and breaker right ahead,"
with her weather-wheel often spinning in the air, and as the sky
darkened and the waves roared louder, I thought with deep interest on
what might even now be the fate of those, without whose friendly aid I
should have been lying on a rocky pillow and seaweed for my shroud, near
Dawlish's Hole. The weather now became entitled to the formidable name
of a storm, but some time had yet to elapse before darkness added its
horrors to the scene of desolation.

Heavy masses of breakers were continually striking the pier-head with
fearful crashes; now bursting over, amid seas of spray, with resistless
impetuosity, drenching every one under its lee; now recoiling for a
brief moment, as if to gather strength, leaving a smooth, hollow waste
of oily sea--like the treacherous pauses of human passion,--and then
returning with wilder haste and tenfold added fury to the onset.

The morning was waning away. I left the pier, and bent my course away
from Landwithiel.

The path I pursued led along the summit of the cliffs; oftentimes
winding so close round the edge of a projecting acclivity, that it
required a clear head and a steady foot, for one false step would have