ips, hardly justify
the remark that some people have not hesitated to make, namely, that I
have a tendency to draw the long bow. I feel almost sensitive on this
point, for I have always laboured to be true to fact, and to nature,
even in my wildest flights of fancy.

This reminds me of the remark made to myself once by a lady in reference
to this same _Coral Island_. "There is one thing, Mr Ballantyne," she
said, "which I really find it hard to believe. You make one of your
three boys dive into a clear pool, go to the bottom, and then, turning
on his back, look up and wink and laugh at the other two."

"No, no, Peterkin did not `_laugh_,'" said I remonstratively.

"Well, then, you make him smile."

"Ah, that is true, but there is a vast difference between laughing and
smiling under water. But is it not singular that you should doubt the
only incident in the story which I personally verified? I happened to
be in lodgings at the seaside while writing that story, and, after
penning the passage you refer to, I went down to the shore, pulled off
my clothes, dived to the bottom, turned on my back, and, looking up, I
smiled and winked."

The lady laughed, but I have never been quite sure, from the tone of
that laugh, whether it was a laugh of conviction or of unbelief. It is
not improbable that my fair friend's mental constitution may have been
somewhat similar to that of the old woman who declined to believe her
sailor-grandson when he told her he had seen flying-fish, but at once
recognised his veracity when he said he had seen the remains of
Pharaoh's chariot-wheels on the shores of the Red Sea.

Recognising, then, the difficulties of my position, I formed the
resolution always to visit--when possible--the scenes in which my
stories were laid, converse with the people who, under modification,
were to form the _dramatis personae_ of the tales, and, generally, to
obtain information in each case, as far as lay in my power, from the
fountain-head.

Thus, when about to begin _The Lifeboat_, I went to Ramsgate, and, for
some time, was hand and glove with Jarman, the heroic coxswain of the
Ramsgate boat, a lion-like as well as lion-hearted man, who rescued
hundreds of lives from the fatal Goodwin Sands during his career. In
like manner, when getting up information for _The Lighthouse_, I
obtained permission from the Commissioners of Northern Lights to visit
the Bell Rock Lighthouse, where I hobnobbed with the three