CHAPTER XXI.

SKETCHES OF OUR SOUTH COASTS—SOUTHAMPTON. Southampton: its Antiquity—Extensive Commerce—Great Port for 225 Leading Steamship Lines—Vagaries of a Runaway Steamer—The Isle of Wight—Terrible Loss of the _Eurydice_—Finding of the Court‐ martial—Raising Her from the Bottom—“London by the Seaside”—Newhaven and Seaford—Beachy Head—An Attempt to Scale it—A Wreck there—Knowledge Useful on an Emergency—Saved by Samphire—The Coast‐guard: Past and Present—Their Comparatively Pleasant Lot To‐day—The Coast‐guard in the Smuggler Days—Sympathies of the Country against them