Ben Hadden

On the east coast of England there is a small hamlet surrounded by high sand-hills with scarcely a blade of grass or even a low shrub to be seen in its neighbourhood. The only vegetable productions indeed which can flourish in that light soil are the pale green rushes whose roots serve to bind the sand together and to prevent the high easterly winds so constantly blowing on that coast affecting it as much as they would otherwise do. Even in spite of the opposition of the rushes several deserted huts have been almost entirely covered up by the drifting sand. See Note 1. The population of the village consists of seafaring people and their families. The men form the crews of the numerous vessels employed in the herring fisheries which belong to the various fishing-places on the coast. Nowhere along the shores of England are finer sea-boats or more hardy crews to be found.