558 THE WINDSOR MAGAZINE.
For ordinary wheeled horse-drawn traffic
there is little or no difficulty. Mr. Reginald
A. Beckett, in a delightful account of his
rambles through Essex, says (" Romantic
Essex," 1901) : " One of the most curious
sights I have ever beheld was when, reaching
the Stairs just before dark, there appeared a
procession of market-carts (coming from
Foulness and) rapidly driven across the
sands, through water about a foot deep,
with two or three fishing-smacks beyond and
a distant steamer on the horizon." Then,
again, pedestrians who do not mind getting
their feet wet may pass easily over the
Broomway. Walter White, in his " Eastern
England (1865), tells how he traversed it
barefoot. Leaving Eastwick Head, he says,
" I took off my boots, bared my legs to the
knee, and stepped into the sludgy track. It
was something to ascertain by actual experi-
ence that mud varying from six inches to a
foot in depth is ' nothing much to speak of '
[as a local publican had told him] at Fowl-
ness. I struggled through it [he continues]
to a rude beacon staff about a furlong
distant. . . . Near the beacon the mud gives
place to firm sand, but so wet and overspread
with shallow pools that you will perhaps
find most pleasure in continuing barefoot."
Further, there is, in ordinary circumstances,
not the least danger of the traveller losing
his way, for the road is so absolutely straight
for at least five miles that one can scarcely
miss it. When midway, one may see it
stretching away for miles, both behind and
before, in an absolutely straight line across
the level sands, till the two ends are lost
below the horizon. No Roman road could
be straighter. There could be, indeed, no
better place for the flat-earth faddist to
convince himself, by personal observation,
that this old world, in spite of wars and
all other worries, does really still possess
a quite aldermanic rotundity of figure.
Further, the road, on its seaward side, is
" broomed out " (as the local phrase is),
throughout its entire length of six miles,
by means of " brooms "—small tufts of
bush, about a foot high, like short-handled
besoms, stuck firmly in the ground : whence
its name of " Broomway." On the main
portion of the road there are 366 of these
brooms, placed at intervals of thirty yards.
It is said that their maintenance costs the
parishes concerned fifteen pounds yearly.
Moreover, even by night, the quaintly named
Thames-mouth lights (the Nore, the Mouse,
the Maplin, and the Swin) afford guidance
to anyone on the sands who knows them,
just as effectively as they guide the sailor
afloat.
How pleasant a crossing of the Broomway
is in favourable circumstances, and how
strange the view over the desert-like
expanse of wet sands, may be gathered
from the photographs which accompany
this article. One of them shows, not only
the party crossing and their conveyance,
but also the waste of sand and puddles,
the straightness of the main road, the
" brooms " marking it, one of its forks, and
one of the " sea sign-posts." Two more
illustrate other stages of the journey, one
of them showing the ripple-marks left in the
sand by the retiring tide ; and another
shows the party disembarking at Fisherman's
Head, on Fowlness Island, their romantic
journey completed. In short, with the
exercise of reasonable care, the Broomway
may be traversed in perfect safety, even
by night, provided there is light enough to
see the " brooms."
Yet at times the crossing of the Broomway
may be attended with the direst peril.
There are on record, especially in. the pages
of Philip Benton, a local historian, many
cases in which persons traversing it have lost
their lives or have been in the greatest
danger of so doing. The road is available
daily, in ordinary circumstances, for two
periods of six or seven hours each, between
half-ebb and half-flood; and anyone who,
before crossing, foolishly neglects to inform
himself as to the state of the tide (or, having
ascertained this, runs things too close)
courts disaster. An even greater danger
arises from the sudden oncoming of fog—
a not uncommon occurrence on a low, marshy
coast in winter. Even a native so thoroughly
familiar with the Broomway as to be able
to traverse it with ease in ordinary circum-
stances, either by day or by night, may find
himself in the gravest danger when overtaken
by fog and unable to see either the brooms
or the lights.
Some twenty years ago there was pub-
lished in The Essex Review a most graphic
account of the adventures of a then rector
of Fowlness, who, returning from a Ruri-
decanal Conference in Great Britain, and
over-confident in his knowledge of the road,
attempted to reach the island by night on
foot, laden with two bags filled with parish
books and papers. It was pouring with rain,
and he was soaked through before he reached
the Broomway. There in the darkness he
soon lost the line of brooms, and wandered
about on the sands, stumbling over kiddles