About 1785 a coach was started between Ulverston and Lancaster, going daily across the sands. The scene at its crossing was curious. The Carter, on horseback, headed it, and in its wake generally followed a number of carts and other country vehicles, forming a procession not unlike an Eastern caravan crossing the deserts of Arabia. The Carter’s guidance was absolutely necessary, for although the track might at every ebb be beaten out by a multitude, the incoming tide inevitably obliterated every trace of it, and the channels were constantly shifting. A contemporary account says: “The Carter seems a cheerful and pleasant fellow. He wore a rough great-coat and a pair of jack-boots, and was mounted on a good horse, which appeared to have been up to the ribs in water. When we came to him, he recommended us to wait till the arrival of the coach, which was nearly a mile distant, as the tide would then be gone further out. When the coach came up, we took the water in procession, and crossed two channels in one of which the water was up to the horses’ bellies. The coach passed over without the least difficulty, being drawn by fine, tall horses. Arrived at the other side, the Carter received our gratuities and we rode on, keeping close to a line of rods which have been planted in the sands to indicate the track. The channel is seldom two days together in the same place. You may make the chart one day, and before the ink is dry it will have shifted.” A sufficient testimony to the dangers of the sands is found in the fact that those who have known them best have ever been the ones to most dread them and the “cruel crawling tide” that with the shifting of the wind can readily change from a crawl to a hissing seething gallop across the perilous flats. It is the shout of the coming foe, Ride, ride for thy life, Sir John; But still the waters deeper grew The wild sea foam rushed on. The proper time to attempt the crossing is five hours after high water, but even then only in fine weather. A strong sea-breeze will bring the flood in, fully an hour before the tide-tables; while after heavy rains the crossing is impossible, owing to the flood-water from the rivers permeating the sands in every direction and converting the whole route into one vast quicksand. Never at any time should the stranger attempt the passage without competent assistance. The dangers of the Lancashire coast were illustrated once more at the very moment of these lines being written, in the inquest held, September 1907, on John Richardson, a farm-labourer who was engulfed in the quicksands at Broadfleet Bridge, Pilling, near Garstang. While walking on the sands, he sank to the waist, and being far from any human habitation, his cries could not be heard; with the result that he met a fearful death by slow drowning, as the cruel tide crept up across the lonely shore.