A CALL TO THE MARSHES 



LET us board farmer Mole's " one-hoss " chaise that 

 awaits to convey our baggage and ourselves to Dunlin 

 Island, which lies six miles from the nearest station, the 

 greater portion of the way traversing a wide expanse of 

 treacherous sands and ooze flats, the track being marked 

 out by a long line of beacons. This weird and solitary 

 highway across the sands is passable during low tide only, 

 and woe to any unfortunate traveller who attempts to 

 use it at half-flood even, or when overtaken by fog or 

 darkness. The chances are he would meet with a watery 

 grave. Far out in the estuary a pile lighthouse stands 

 upon the fringe of a sand bar dreaded by mariners. 

 Beyond a colony of noisy gulls and a number of herons 

 which stand like so many grey-clad sentinels along the 

 serrated margin of the sands there are but few signs of 

 life. But out on the main a rusty-hulled, squat-masted 

 tramp steamer churns her way " down along," and the rich 

 tan sails of a fleet of bawley boats trawling in the fairway, 

 lend their bit of colour to the grey seascape. Nor is the 

 view shoreward of much more enlivening aspect. It 

 consists of one long line of high stone-faced escarpments 

 broken here and there by a small tidal creek. Beyond 

 the sea-walls lie thousands of acres of fertile but treeless, 

 dyke-intersected marshes. Dreary and desolate-looking 

 enough they are, but it is here that wildfowl love to 



22 



