Few people except sailors and passengers who may have witnessed it can fully realise how difficult it must be to keep an eye on a person in the sea, even if it is perfectly smooth.  It is one of the most exciting experiences of sea-life.  All except the rescuing party and the man at the wheel run up the rigging and gaze with frantic eagerness to keep in view and direct the boat towards where they think the object of their mission is.  It often happens that all their efforts are unavailing, and when the search has to be given up a creepy sensation, like some shuddering hint of death, takes possession of you.  I have more than once felt it.  Sailors on these occasions are subdued and divinely sentimental, though their courage remains undaunted.

There are, however, phases of bravery, endurance, and resourcefulness that test every fibre of the seaman’s versatile composition; and a communication to the outer world of the tremendous struggles he is called upon to bear would be calculated to stagger the lay imagination.  It would take a spacious library to contain all that could be written of his bitter experiences and toilsome pilgrimages throughout ages of storm and stress.  The pity is so much of it is lost to us, but this again is owing to the sailor’s habitual reticence about his own career.  A characteristic instance of this occurred to me about six months ago.  I had business in a shipyard, and the gateman who admitted me is one of the last of the seamen of the middle of the century.  He was for many years master of sailing vessels belonging to a north-east coast port.  He is a fine-looking, intelligent old fellow.  I knew him by repute in my boyhood days; he had the reputation then of being a smart captain, and owners readily gave him employment.  After greeting me with sailor-like cordiality, he commenced to converse about the old days, and as the conversation proceeded the weird sadness of his look gradually disappeared, his eyes began to sparkle, and joy soon suffused his ruddy face.  His soul was ablaze with reminiscences, and his unaffected talk was easy and delightful to listen to.  I was reluctant to break the charm of it by introducing a subject that might be distasteful to him.  It was my desire to hear from his own lips a tale of shipwreck which is virtually without parallel in its ghastly tragedy.  I instinctively felt myself creeping on to sacred ground.  As soon as I mentioned the matter his countenance changed and he became pensive.  A far-off look came over him, which indicated that a tender chord had been touched.  Obviously his thoughts were revisiting the scene of a fierce conflict for life.  The sight was sublime, and when I saw the moisture come into his eyes and his breast heave with emotion, it made me wish that I had not reminded him of it.  At length he began to unfold the awful story.  He was master of a brig called the Ocean Queen.  I think he said it was in the month of December, 1874.  They sailed from a Gulf of Finland port laden with