hich cause the stoutest crafts of human build to reel and quiver to
their centres.

The steam-tug had not to contend with the ordinary straightforward rush
of a North Sea storm. She was surrounded and beset by great boiling
whirlpools and spouting cross-seas. They struck her on the bow, on the
side, on the quarter, on the stern. They opened as if to engulf her.
They rushed at as if to overwhelm her. They met under her, thrusting
her up, and they leaped into her, crushing her down. But she was a
sturdy vessel; a steady hand was at the wheel, and her weather-beaten
master stood calm and collected on the bridge.

It is probable that few persons who read the accounts of lifeboat
service on the Goodwin sands are aware of the importance of the duties
performed and the desperate risks run by the steam-tug. Without her
powerful engines to tow it to windward of the wrecks the lifeboat would
be much, very much, less useful than it is. In performing this service
the tug has again and again to run into shallow water, and steer, in the
blackest nights, amid narrow intricate channels, where a slight error of
judgment on the part of her master--a few fathoms more to the right or
left--would send her on the sands, and cause herself to become a wreck
and an object of solicitude to the lifeboat crew. "Honour to whom
honour is due" is a principle easy to state, but not always easy to
carry into practice. Every time the steam-tug goes out she runs her
full share of the imminent risk;--sometimes, and in some respects, as
great as that of the lifeboat herself, for, whereas, a touch upon the
sand, to which it is her duty to approach _as near as possible_, would
be the death-warrant of the tug, it is, on the other hand, the glorious
prerogative of the lifeboat to be almost incapable of destruction, and
her peculiar privilege frequently to go "slap on and right over" the
sands with slight damage, though with great danger. That the
death-warrant just referred to has not been signed, over and over again,
is owing almost entirely to the courage and skill of her master and
mate, who possess a thorough and accurate knowledge of the intricate
channels, soundings, and tides of those dangerous shoals, and have spent
many years in risking their lives among them. Full credit is usually
given to the lifeboat, though _not too much_ by any means, but there is
not, we think, a sufficient appreciation of the services of the
steam-tug. She may be