From the Abbey we returned to Ulverston, and from thence crossed the
sands to Lancaster, a ride singularly interesting and sublime. From
the Carter's house, which stands on the edge of the Ulverston sands,
and at the point, whence passengers enter them, to Lancaster, within
the furthest opposite shore, is fifteen miles. This noble bay is
interrupted by the peninsula of Cartmel, extending a line of white
rocky coast, that divides the Leven and Ulverston sands from those of
Lancaster. The former are four miles over; the latter seven.
We took the early part of the tide, and entered these vast and desolate
plains before the sea had entirely left them, or the morning mists
were sufficiently dissipated to allow a view of distant objects; but
the grand sweep of the coast could be faintly traced, on the left, and
a vast waste of sand stretching far below it, with mingled streaks of
gray water, that heightened its dreary aspect. The tide was ebbing fast
from our wheels, and its low murmur was interrupted, first, only by
the shrill small cry of seagulls, unseen, whose hovering flight could
be traced by the sound, near an island that began to dawn through the
mist; and then, by the hoarser croaking of sea-geese, which took a
wider range, for their shifting voices were heard from various quarters
of the surrounding coast. The body of the sea, on the right, was still
involved, and the distant mountains on our left, that crown the bay,
were also viewless; but it was sublimely interesting to watch the heavy
vapours beginning to move, then rolling in lengthening volumes over
the scene, and, as they gradually dissipated, discovering through their
veil the various objects they had concealed--fishermen with carts and
nets stealing along the margin of the tide, little boats putting off
from the shore, and, the view still enlarging as the vapours expanded,
the main sea itself softening into the horizon, with here and there
a dim sail moving in the hazy distance. The wide desolation of the
sands, on the left, was animated only by some horsemen riding remotely
in groups towards Lancaster, along the winding edge of the water, and
by a muscle-fisher in his cart trying to ford the channel we were
approaching.
The coast round the bay was now distinctly, though remotely, seen,
rising in woods, white cliffs and cultivated slopes towards the
mountains of Furness, on whose dark brows the vapours hovered. The
shore falls into frequent recesses and juts out in promontories, where
villages and country seats are thickly strewn. Among the latter,
Holker-hall, deep among woods, stands in the north. The village and
hall of Bardsea, once the site of a monastery, with a rocky back-ground
and, in front, meadows falling towards the water; and Conishead priory,
with its spiry woods, the paragon of beauty, lie along the western
coast, where the hills, swelling gently from the isle of Walney, nearly
the last point of land visible on that side the bay, and extending
to the north, sweep upwards towards the fells of High Furness and
the whole assemblage of Westmoreland mountains, that crown the grand
boundary of this arm of the sea.
We set out rather earlier than was necessary, for the benefit of the
guide over part of these trackless wastes, who was going to his
station on a sand near the first ford, where he remains to conduct
passengers across the united streams of the rivers Crake and Leven,
till the returning tide washes him off. He is punctual to the spot
as the tides themselves, where he shivers in the dark comfortless
midnights of winter, and is scorched on the shadeless sands, under
the noons of summer, for a stipend of ten pounds a year! and he said
that he had fulfilled the office for thirty years. He has, however,
perquisites occasionally from the passengers. In early times the Prior
of Conishead, who established the guide, paid him with three acres of
land and an annuity of fifteen marks; at the dissolution, Henry the
Eighth charged himself and his successors with the payment of the guide
by patent.
Near the first ford is Chapel Isle, on the right from Ulverston, a
barren sand, where are yet some remains of a chapel, built by the monks
of Furness, in which divine service was daily performed at a certain
hour, for passengers, who crossed the sands with the morning tide. The
ford is not thought dangerous, though the sands frequently shift, for
the guide regularly tries for, and ascertains, the proper passage. The
stream is broad and of formidable appearance, spreading rapidly among
the sands and, when you enter it, seeming to bear you away in its
course to the sea. The second ford is beyond the peninsula of Cartmel,
on the Lancaster sands, and is formed by the accumulated waters of
the rivers, Ken and Winster, where another guide waits to receive the
traveller.
The shores of the Lancaster sands fall back to greater distance and are
not so bold, or the mountains beyond, so awful, as those of Ulverston;
but they are various, often beautiful, and Arnside-fells have a higher
character. The town and castle of Lancaster, on an eminence, gleaming
afar off over the level sands and backed by a dark ridge of rocky
heights, look well as you approach them. Thither we returned and
concluded a tour, which had afforded infinite delight in the grandeur
of its landscapes and a reconciling view of human nature in the
simplicity, integrity, and friendly disposition of the inhabitants.