or."

"And so the anchor holds them," said Jennie, "I suppose, and keeps them
from going against the land."

"Yes," said the captain, "generally, but not always. Sometimes the
bottom is of smooth rock, or of some other hard formation, which the
flukes of the anchor cannot penetrate, and then the ship drifts on
toward the land, dragging the anchor with her."

"And what do they do in that case?" asked Rollo.

"Very often there is nothing that they can do," said the captain,
"except to let out more cable, cautiously, so as to give the anchor a
better chance to catch in some cleft or crevice in the bottom. Sometimes
it does catch in this manner, and then the ship is stopped, and, for a
time, the people on board think they are safe."

"And are they safe?" asked Rollo.

"Perhaps so," replied the captain; "and yet there is still some danger.
The anchor may have caught at a place where the cable passes over the
edge of a sharp rock, which soon cuts it off, in consequence of the
motion. Then the ship must go on shore.

"At other times," continued the captain, "the ground for the anchor is
too soft, instead of being too hard; and the flukes, therefore, do not
take a firm hold of it. Then the anchor will drag. Every sea that
strikes the ship drives her a little in toward the shore, and she is, of
course, in great danger."

The captain would, perhaps, have gone on still further in his
conversation with the children, had it not happened that just at this
time, on rising to look out forward, he saw a large ship, under full
sail, coming down the channel. So he rose, and went up upon one of the
paddle boxes, to see that a proper lookout was kept, to avoid a
collision.

The seas which lie between England and Ireland are so wide, and they are
so provided with lighthouses and buoys, that no pilot is necessary for
the navigation of them; and the pilot boats, therefore, which contain
the pilot who is to take the vessel into port, generally await the
arrival of the ship off the month of the Mersey, at a place which the
steamer reaches about twenty-four hours after making Cape Clear. When
the steamer in which Rollo made his voyage arrived at this place, almost
all the passengers came on deck to witness the operation of taking the
pilot on board. There were ships and steamers to be seen on every side,
proceeding in different directions--some going across to Ireland, some
southwardly out to sea; and there were others, still, which we