FLAPPER SHOOTING 289 



was sent at a good ten miles an hour along the dusty 

 road leading to the sands. 



A twenty- minutes' drive took us to W — stairs, and 

 then a strange and beautiful scene lay before our eyes. 

 Far away to the eastward stretched a vast expanse of 

 yellow tide-lapped sands, the hazy outline of the Kentish 

 coast and hills being dimly visible across the wide, blue 

 waters of the North Sea. Great flocks of gulls and waders 

 were to be seen assembled on the sands and black grounds, 

 or nimbly quartering the ooze in search of food. 



Looking inland, mile upon mile of perfectly level and 

 almost treeless marshes were to be observed. In most cases 

 these marshes take the form of small islands, and in the 

 reign of William of Orange they were reclaimed from the 

 sea by Dutch engineers, who erected high sea-walls 

 round them and so prevented the inroads of the tide. 

 The islands form deltas to numerous creeks and small tidal 

 rivers, and on most of them are to be found fresh-water 

 lagoons, or, as they are locally called, fleets. Some of 

 these pieces of water were doubtless depressions in the 

 land before reclamation, but others were artificially cut 

 by dead and gone marshmen for the purpose of concealing 

 their boats, in the bad old days when armed bodies of 

 Scandinavians landed on different parts of the east coast 

 to indulge in a little plundering and filibustering. Sedges, 

 bulrushes and wild-rice flourish in rank profusion round 

 the shores of these fleets, and unless frozen out by hard 

 weather, waterfowl of many different species resort to 

 them during the winter, while in spring and summer they 



