At the present day, the bed of mud has been overlaid by a coat of sand, taken advantage of for bathing facilities still too dependent on the tide, ebbing out beyond an unfinished pier that serves as a swimming bath at certain hours. By means of groynes, the sand is now being coaxed to gather less thinly on the shore, where a battery of bathing machines stands in position. Else Ryde is no very good bathing place; nor, exposed to cold winds, does it invite invalids like the other side of the Island. Its interests have been rather in yachting and boating; and its frequenters those who relish a breezy marine flavour in life. August, gay with regattas, is the great time for this Solent shore. The broad pier, 2000 feet long, sets the tide at defiance, carrying out both a railway and a tramway to meet the steamers that land holiday crowds as well as passengers for all parts of the Island. For the amusement of youthful visitors a canoeing lake has been made in the gardens, behind the sea-wall running eastwards, with its fine view of Spithead and the chequered forts islanded in the Solent.
It was off this Esplanade that in 1782 went down the _Royal George_, one of our finest men-of-war, upset by a land breeze when heeled over safely enough, as was supposed, in calm weather. The story goes that a pig-headed officer of the watch would not attend to the carpenter’s report that she was filling; then naval discipline cost the loss of seven hundred lives. Great numbers of bodies came ashore at Ryde, to be buried under what is now a trim promenade. Others found a resting-place in Portsea Churchyard, where a monument to their memory stands under the noble tower of the new Church, so well seen from the railway as it enters Portsmouth. The catastrophe is best remembered by Cowper’s epitaph, “Toll for the Brave!” and by the narrative in Marryat’s _Poor Jack_. Less well known are Sir Henry Englefield’s lines, written when the graves could still be seen near the shore.
“Thou! who dost tread this smooth and verdant mead, Viewing delighted the fair hills that rise On either hand, a sylvan theatre; While in the front with snowy pinions closed, And thunders silent, Britain’s guardian fleet On the deep bosom of the azure sea Reposes aweful--pass not heedless by These mould’ring heaps, which the blue spiry grass Scarce guards from mingling with the common earth. Mark! in how many a melancholy rank. The graves are marshall’d--Dost thou know the fate Disastrous, of their tenants? Hushed the winds, And smooth the billows, when an unseen hand Smote the great ship, and rift her massy beams: She reeled and sunk.--Over her swarming decks The flashing wave in horrid whirlpool rushed; While from a thousand throats, one wailing shriek Burst--and was heard no more. Then day by day, The ebbing tide left frequent on the sand, The livid corpse; and his o’erloaded net The shuddering fisher loathed to drag ashore. And here, by friends unknown, unmarked, unwept, They rest.”[1]