The harbour of Scarborough is the only place of refuge on a dangerous coast reaching from the Humber to Tynemouth Haven. It possesses lifeboats, mortar apparatus for aiding ships, a Seamen’s Hospital, Trinity House, and Mariners’ Asylum. The place itself has become a most fashionable watering-place. But sometimes here, as at many other seaside resorts, the terrible mingles with the gay. Such was particularly the case in November, 1861, when events occurred which threw a general gloom over both the inhabitants and visitors.
A schooner, the Coupland, attempted the harbour during a fearful gale, but could not succeed in entering. She drifted rapidly amid foaming billows that chased each other like huge mad cataracts, until she struck immediately opposite the Spa promenade. In the meantime the lifeboat was manned, and sent out to the relief of the vessel, now in most imminent danger. The sea broke upon the sea-wall with such terrific violence that the massive stones on the parapet were dislodged. The rebound of the waves caused such a sea as no small craft but the lifeboat could have borne. Arrived at this point, she was watched, and her crew spoken to by the people on the Spa. The crew of the lifeboat seemed terror-stricken at their awful position. Suddenly a fearful lurch of the boat pitched out a veteran boatman, the leading man in her, and one of great experience and good judgment. He was quickly washed up to the Spa wall, and was saved by a life-buoy. Another of the crew was ejected a few minutes after, and was saved by the same means, after a fearful struggle. The oars were now dashed out of the hands of the lifeboatmen, and they were at once rendered powerless. The boat was washed heavily up against the wall, and nothing but her great strength and excellent qualities preserved her from being at once dashed to pieces. Ropes were thrown from the boat to the promenade, and she was drawn through the surf to a landing-place at the southern end of the wall. Here a fatal occurrence took place. Having touched the ground, the men jumped out before the water had receded, and, seeing the danger they were in, a rush down the incline was made to assist them. In the momentary confusion that ensued another run of the sea came, and nearly all the party were thrown from their feet, and were now scrambling to save their lives. Many succeeded in getting up, but another wave washed off those who were yet below. Two or three times they were carried out and back again. Among these were Lord Charles Beauclerk, two of the boat’s crew, and five or six others. A large wave was seen to lift the lifeboat with fearful force against the wall; and as the boat sank down again, it was found that Brewster, one of the crew, had been literally crushed to death between it and the stone sea-wall. Lord Charles Beauclerk experienced the same horrible fate, but was not immediately killed; he was washed to the foot of the cliff, when two gentlemen rushed to his assistance. A rope had been previously thrown to him, but he was powerless to grasp it. The gentlemen just named succeeded in fastening a rope round him, and drew him up the incline, the life just ebbing out of him. He was conveyed to the Music Hall adjoining (sad irony of fate!), where a physician pronounced him dead. Two or three others were seen under the boat, when the waves threw her up almost in the air. One of them was the son of a Scarborough banker. All these men perished.
Attention was now given to the shipwrecked crew, who had been witnesses of all these horrors, and they were eventually all hauled off safely by the rocket apparatus. In the same gale fourteen poor fishermen of Scarborough lost their lives. Twenty were lost at Yarmouth, and there were wrecks strewed all over the east coast.
And now for a true story with a happier ending, very graphically told by a lady visitor to Scarborough.[63] It occurred in the mid-winter of 1872. “I can’t write decently,” wrote she; “my hands are still trembling from the excitement of the morning, such a tremendous [pg 255]storm we have had, and a vessel lost in front of our windows again. The sea was one heaving, surging mass of foam, and the wind blowing hard from the NE. right upon this coast. Our sailor-landlord came in from a look-out seaward with the report, ‘There’s a fine brig out to the north’ard, but there’s an awful heavy sea on; I’m afraid there’s no chance for her, the wind is driving her dead on shore, and I’m afraid she’ll be on the rocks before long. She’s a Spaniard, I think, by the looks on her. God help ’em!’ and he took his glass and went out, the big tears standing in his eyes, great sturdy fellow as he is.
“Of course our hearts were in our mouths in a moment, and with straining eyes we watched and watched. On she came; how one longed for some unseen hand to drive her back from what seemed friendly houses, and people, and land, and yet was so fatal! The snow, and hail, and rain made the air thick every now and then, and when it cleared there was the vessel being driven headlong before the wind. Would she get round the Castle rocks? That was awful excitement; if she struck there, there was no hope for the crew. An hour nearly the suspense lasted; yes, she is past! a slight lull in the fierce storm, and in that lull a fishing-smack, for which there seemed no chance, had weathered it all, got round the lighthouse pier, and was entering the harbour, a thing that, by the side of the brig, seemed a mere child’s toy on those big waves, and had been lost to sight again and again. The pier was one black mass of people, and on the sands thousands had collected, all eyes on the brig.
“Now off goes the lifeboat—there is still a chance for the brig. It’s a beautiful new boat, that was recently launched, and already she has saved more lives (the sailors tell us) than the old one did all the time she was here. Her crew have confidence in her, and ‘you know, miss, if her crew haven’t confidence in her, it’s all no go; they’d better by half go off in a coble, they’d liever too,’ said an old sailor to me. I felt as if every one I loved in the world were in that vessel, thus tossing and struggling with the winds and waves, in uncertainty as to her fate. The lifeboat is off now, though, to the pier-head, and the rocket apparatus is fixed at a part where they think she’s coming on shore. She hasn’t enough sail on, the sailors say. Her master seems to find this out, for up go two topsails. She veers; now is her chance; if her master knows the harbour well, he may yet get her in. He doesn’t, evidently; he has gone a little too far to the south’ard, and can’t get back! One frightful gust, one awful sea, and her chance is over, and she is driving right on to the worst rocks of all, where, if she strikes, the men must perish—no lifeboat and no rocket apparatus can reach her. The lifeboat is pulling tremendously towards her now, and the sea is fearful; again she veers slightly—the moments seem hours. How those men pull! they are close to her, when one awful sea catches them, and the lifeboat is swamped. It seemed as if I felt the waves dashing over me. I gave an awful scream, and hardly dared look again; and yet I couldn’t keep my eyes away. She was all right, and eagerly I counted her men, we could see so plainly from our windows. They were all right, and now she is alongside the brig, though once or twice dashed away again. Then comes the taking of the men off. This was almost the worst moment of all, to see them one by one dropped into the lifeboat. One man is going nearly in; the lifeboat is dashed right away, and there he hangs. The sea dashes against him, injures his leg, but they get him back into the brig, and then into the lifeboat when she can get close again, and now all are in but the captain. He hesitates; almost it seems as if he would rather go down with his ship; but he passes some papers, or paper like books, into [pg 256]the lifeboat, and then he follows, and the men pull back. The crew of the brig are faint and exhausted; they have had three awful days of it, but the lifeboat lands them all safely at length at the pier. I felt as if I had been up for nights, the excitement had been so great. If she hadn’t been a new ship and a good one, she would have been all to pieces long ago, the sailors say; but she’s lying almost on her beam ends and her deck to windward, with every sea dashing against her, now the tide is ebbing.”
Whitby is the last point to be treated here in connection with the dangerous east coast. It is an ancient town, dating long before the eleventh century, at which latter period it had become a noted fishing-place. At the present time it possesses perhaps 500 vessels, large and small, exclusive of fishing boats. There are a great number of seamen belonging to the place who are engaged in ships on the coast, Baltic, and Indian trade, seldom returning home, but for a few weeks in winter. That the men must be generally provident is witnessed by the fact that there are 800 subscribers to the Mariners’ National Mutual Pension and Widows’ Fund, a benefit society under the auspices and management of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society.
Standing on the cliff above Whitby, near the ruins of the old abbey, there is a most delightful view seawards. The town is below, mapped out in all its varieties of streets, squares, and quays; its terraces mounting one above another; its piers projecting into the sea; its lighthouses, docks, and shipyards alive with busy artisans; and a capacious harbour, divided by a bridge across the Esk, the outer part of which has accommodation for 300 sail of ships, while above there is also a large basin. “All this and much more the eye takes in from this elevated stand-point, which, in fine weather, and at high tide, is most imposing. The harbour, filled to the brim with the blue element, glitters like a polished mirror beneath the rays of the sun. The stately vessel, spreading her snowy canvas to the breeze, is seen passing from point to point along its winding shores. The maze-like coursing of the little yacht, with its slender masts and tiny sails, skimming the surface of the water like a swallow on the wing, lends animation to the scene. The cry of the sea-bird as it wheels in graceful curves, or checks its flight to pounce upon its prey in the bright flood beneath, arrests the ear; whilst the loud ‘hurrah’ with which the brawny shipwright greets the majestic vessel as she glides along the well-greased ‘ways,’ and cleaves a passage for herself into the flood which is to be her future home, re-echoes from the cliffs and shore.”
Southward of Whitby lies the romantic Bay of Robin Hood, alias Robert Earl of Huntingdon, who lived in Richard I.’s reign. Robin, it is said, when about to select a site for a marine residence, resolved to take up his abode on the first spot where the next arrow from his bow should alight, and this being the place, his name has ever since been attached to it. The little town there is one of the most irregular and comical-looking places in the world, from the ravages of the sea in undermining the cliffs. Built on the ledges of these cliffs, at all heights where foothold could be obtained, and perched on dizzy crags that overhang the sea, or hid in nooks approached by perilous paths, or tottering on the brink of cliffs that vibrate as the breakers roll with smothered sobs into the caves that perforate their base, there stand isolated houses, terraces and streets, whole sides of which have erewhile slipped into the sea below. The town itself is in a hole which cannot be seen till close upon it, being so entirely locked in by peaks and promontories.
