"OVER SANDS TO THE LAKES" by Edwin Wargh (1817-1890)

"A certain ancient mariner told me that people who get their living by following the sands hardly ever die in their beds. They end their days on the sands and even their horses are generally lost there.

"The channel", he continued, "is seldom two days together in one place. You may make a chart one day, and before the ink is dry, it will have shifted".

Those who travelled the sands longest are always most afraid of them. These silent currents, which shimmer so beautifully in the sunshine, have been "the ribs of death to thousands". The safe tracks are indicated by branches of furze, called "brogs", stuck in the sands; "brog" means a broken branch. In every village, upon the shores of the bay, i met with tales of danger and disaster which have occurred upon these sands. In Mrs. Hemans' letters she thus alludes to the journey:-

"I must not omit to tell you that Mr. Wordsworth not only admired our exploit of crossing the sands as a deed of "derring do", but as a decided proof of taste. The lake scenery he says, is never seen to such advantage as after the passage of what he calls its majestic barrier".

This impressive scene may now be traversed free from the uncertainties of the old route. Along the picturesque shores of this "majestic barrier", the new line of the railway from Lancaster to Ulverston often runs over large tracts of the sands, where the waves sometimes come lashing the embankment, like ocean skirmishers sent out from the main body to remonstrate with this bold invader of its old domain."