THE PITILESS GOODWINS 293 



proved quite an easy morsel for the monster to absorb. 

 She vanished. 



The " shippe-swallower " is not the place that one 

 would choose voluntarily as a cricket-ground or cycling- 

 track, yet adventurous spirits have pitched their wickets 

 on the Sands, and wheelmen have taken their machines. 



Cricket matches have been few and far between, 

 and there seems to be only one record of cyclists 

 braving the dangers of the bank. Seventy years ago, 

 a party of young bloods from Deal set forth in a small 

 boat to the Goodwins, played a game of cricket more 

 or less drank, and were merry and would have 

 perished if a lugger had not been sent post-haste to 

 save them, for the sea got up, and their little craft would 

 have had no chance of keeping afloat. 



North, south, east, and west of the shoals a lightship 

 is stationed, and bobbing buoys, wailing syrens, and 

 deep-throated guns and screaming rockets are always 

 ready to raise the warning that a ship is ashore and 

 lives are in peril. 



The Sands are ever lurking for their prey, and, just 

 as police precautions must be taken to warn peaceful 

 wayfarers of the dangers of notoriously unsafe districts, 

 so the lightshipmen and shoremen between the Fore- 

 lands are ceaselessly alert to indicate the perils of the 

 long and fatal bank. The shrill whistle of the constable 

 is the alarm signal in time of stress ; in the region of 

 the Goodwins the boom of the gun and the flare of the 

 rocket tell the tale of danger. 



Take Ramsgate, for example, the best known of 

 all the towns which face the Sands. In the watch-house 

 at the end of the East Pier, adjoining the quay at which 



