SOUNDING SHORES 



163 



shrouds, twisting planks and bulwarks and 

 stanchions. Up into the rigging the white 

 crests reach, striking and wrenching at the 



sailors clinging there, until one by one, ex- 

 hausted by cold and bewildered with spray, 

 the men are shaken loose and drop into the 

 seething foam. It is an old old story along 

 this coast. Everyone between Margate and 

 Dover has the same tale to tell. 



When the tide is at ebb the dunes are nearly 

 a mile from the sea. A great stretch of wet, 

 glittering sand, flat as a floor, reaches down to 

 the water's edge. Here and there are shallow 

 pools where shore birds wade and the images 

 of shrimpers and bait-diggers, seen in reflec- 

 tion, look stilted and uncanny as though elon- 

 gated by mirage. A long line of black kelp 

 stretches where the last high tide washed, shells 

 and blue flints are scattered everywhere, ribs 

 of wrecked schooners push up like fire-eaten 

 stumps from the sand. As you move down 

 toward the water the footing grows less secure, 

 the sands become muddier, more grimy, black- 

 ish, a half submerged flat spreads out; and at 

 an indefinable edge there is the break of the 

 -a greenish-gray wave with a foam upon 



An old, old 

 story. 



wave- 



it like yellow cream. 



It is not a lovable shore. 



Tke stretch 

 of wet 

 beach. 



The half 



submerged 



fiat. 



There is nothing 



