ontory, seen in our engraving, projects into the
river at the mouth of the ford, narrowing it to less than half
the breadth. The two ridges of the Cartmel and Ulverstone
Fells, the former clothed with wood and the latter with
verdure, run up inland, and carry the eye back to the
mountains, round the head of Coniston Water and Windermere. On
the Ulverstone shore, to the left of the town, are the grounds
of Conishead Priory, which adorn with their rich woods and
lawns the gently-waving side of the hill; and the mouth of the
Leven opens out to the Bay of Morecambe, the shores of which
are visible to a great extent.

The sands forming the Bay of Morecambe, covered by the sea at high
water, are crossed every day by travellers whose time or inclination
leads them to choose this route rather than one more circuitous, and
nearly thrice the distance, inland. Yet the sands are by no means
without danger, especially to the uncautious or unwary. Scarcely a
year passes without some loss of lives, generally owing to the
obstinacy or foolhardiness of the victims. Guides are appointed to
conduct strangers across this trackless waste, whose duty it is to
examine daily, on the receding of the tide, the several routes by
which passengers may accomplish their journey. The places where danger
is to be apprehended are the fordings of the several rivers or
watercourses, which, even when the sands are bare, still pour forth a
considerable stream to the ocean. These fords are continually changing
by reason of the shifting of the sands, so that one day's path may on
the morrow prove a dangerous and impassable quicksand.

The principal guide has a small annuity from government, and is
obliged, in all weathers, to perform this disagreeable but
highly-important duty. The priory of Conishead was charged with this
office over the Leven or Ulverstone sands, and the guide whom they
appointed, besides perquisites, had an allotment of three acres of
land, with fifteen marks per annum. Henry the Eighth, on the
dissolution of the monasteries, charged himself and his successors
with the payment of a certain sum to the person that should be guide
for the time being, by patent under the seal of the duchy of
Lancaster. Such was the importance and the idea of danger attached to
this journey, that on a little rocky island midway between the shores
of Cartmel and Furness, there stood a small chapel or oratory