The Sea Rovers

ason for this, since they have been, for generations, the aristocrats of their calling. The pilots who sail out of Sandy Hook are no hardier than their rugged and fear

ew Jersey shores are a revelation to the tourist, who, having never heard of them, sees them for the first time. The latter, in most cases, expects to watch a rough-and-ready sort of fellow in homespun, with a swaggering air and a boisterous manner, climb from the pilot's yawl up the black hull's towering side. Instead, he sees a man of mode

of a pilots' commission of five members, named by the Governor of New York, and each pilot is appointed after a long and severe apprenticeship. He must first serve, boy and man, before the mast until he masters every problem in the management of every form of rig. Then he must contrive to obtain the position of boat-keeper or pilot's mate. In that capacity he must s

ng eighteen feet. If he passes a satisfactory examination the third year, he then receives a full license, entitling him to pilot vessels of any draught, and is then first called a branch or full pilot. On receiving his license, the pilot must give bonds for the proper discharge of his duty, and he is liable to heavy fines if he declines to fil

the certainty with which these ocean scouts discharge the task of sighting vessels, for often they are able to tell the name of a steamship before unaccustomed eyes can discern aught but a waste of waters and a wide expanse of sky. Still, a part of this skill may be due to the fact that pilots are always posted before going out as to what vessels are expected, and from what direction they are coming, the watch being made all the keener by the fact that the bigger the ship the bigger is the pilot's pay. A ship, mor

hers know that the vessel has already been boarded by a pilot from some boat that has sailed farther away from port in the hunt for a ship. When a ship is sighted at night she is signalled by means of a torch charged with benzine and giving forth an

rly always pitches and tumbles in most uncomfortable fashion, while the ship is rarely if ever brought to a full stop, and the pilot, watching his chance, must grasp the rope ladder let down its side, and scramble aboard as best he can. Sometimes he gets a ducking, and if the weather is tempestuous he is pretty certain to be drenched, but for that he cares not a jot, and he is sure to show a smiling

GNALING

and ere the yawl had come within hailing distance of the ship, of a sudden the breeze sprang up, and the vessel making sail, glided slowly over the horizon line. The breeze grew into a gale, and in the gathering storm and gloom the men could no longer discern the whereabouts of the pilot-boat. Nor, there being no compass on board the yawl, could they determine the direction in which they were being blown. The nearest land was miles away and the only thing that could be done was to keep the boat's head to the wind and wait. Thus the minutes lengthened into ho

er to get steamers taking the northern courses. In the same way pilot-boats cruised long distances to the southward and straight out to sea to meet the incoming steamers and sailing vessels. Thus, unrestrained in its movements and left to seek out its own salvation, each boat sought to outdo the other in secu

ead of cruising about indiscriminately as formerly, each boat is now assigned a certain beat. An imaginary arc has been described extending from Barnegat to Fire Island, a distance of seventy-five miles, and all pilot boats are expected to confine themselves within this line. Four pilot-boats patrol this line, each covering a beat of about nineteen miles. Inside of the circle are stationed two more pilot-boats, while still further in is a boat known as the inner pilot-boat. Just off the bar another boat is stationed to receive the pilots drop

-reaching to the north on the port tack. The wind was blowing a gale from the northwest, and an ugly sea was running, with the weather clear, but cold. She plunged deeply into the heavy sea, and heeled to the force of the wind until her lee rail was awash. The wind whipped off the top of the waves and filled the air with spray. When the steamship sighted the boat off Fire Island, her course was changed to make a lee for the boat's yawl. She seemed to stop when the yawl was launched and two men and a pilot went over the side of the boat and dropped into her, but

fearful night. Its hero, according to the evidences of all, was Pilot Thomas Freeborn, who to the very last struggled manfully to succor the hapless women and children who clung to the deck around him. It was bitter cold, and every wave that washed over the stranded ship left its coating of ice on deck, rigging, passengers and crew. Freeborn and brave Captain St

d one day, and when the yawl of the pilot-boat drew alongside, Devere hailed a boy at the wheel. The boy seemed to be stupefied, and the pilot was obliged to hail him several times before he started up, leaned forward into the companionway, and called feebly to somebody below. Then a gaunt man came on deck and said that the crew had been stricken by fever. Most people in the face of a menace of this sort would have turned back, but Devere was not that kind of man.

ead, and the increasing wind raised a furious sea, but Pilot Gideon Mapes, in charge of the vessel, had her under double-reefed sails, and standing up against the wind and waves in fine shape. Then came a deluge of rain, and the wind increased to hurricane force. Soon a thick mist covered the water and shut out everything in sight. The boat reached off and on, expecting to keep out of shoal wa

score or more of pilots are sure to be sitting about spinning yarns, playing cards and checkers and reading the newspapers and magazines. Their well-furnished clubrooms contain a great number of precious curios-relics from all quarters of the globe. There are firearms of curious antique pattern; autograph letters by such famous

to $16,000. That was about the cost of the Caldwell H. Colt, a good example of the typical pilot-boat. She is eighty-five feet long with twenty-one feet beam, 61.43 tons, custom-house register, and a rig as trim and jaunty as that of an ordinary yacht. The pride, however, at present writing, of the New York Sandy Hook fleet is the New York, built of steel, propelled by steam, and able to stand as much buffeting in cyclonic seas as the stanchest of the liners. She was built on the Delaware from designs by A. Cary Smith, is 155 feet long, 28 feet beam, 19 feet 7 inches deep, and is driven by a compound surface-condensing engin