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Updated: June 12, 2025
Just as the sea-gangs in their raids upon the land were the Danes and "creekmen" of their time, so the land-gangsman was the true highwayman of the century that begot him. He kept every strategic point of every main thoroughfare, held all the bridges, watched all the ferries, haunted all the fairs. No place where likely men were to be found escaped his calculating eye.
With infinite ingenuity and foresight sea-gangs were picketed from harbour to harbour, from headland to headland, until they formed an almost unbroken chain around the coasts and guarded the sailor's every point of accustomed approach from overseas: This was the outer cordon of the system, the beginning of the gauntlet the returning sailor had to run, and he was a smart seaman indeed who could successfully negotiate the uncharted rocks and shoals with which the coast was everywhere strewn in his despite.
Enough to repeat that the land, always the sailor's objective in eluding the triple cordon of sea-borne gangs, was ringed in and surrounded by a circle of land-gangs in every respect identical with that described as hedging the southern coast, and in its continuity almost as unbroken as the shore itself. Both sea-gangs and coast-gangs were amphibious, using either land or sea at pleasure.
The ultimate destination of the sailor who by strategy or accident succeeded in eluding the triple line of sea-gangs so placed as to head him off from the coast, was thus never in doubt. His longest flights were those he made on land, for here the broad horizon that stood the gangs in such good stead at sea was measurably narrower, while hiding-places abounded and were never far to seek.
The composition of this chain of sea-gangs was mixed to a degree, yet singularly homogeneous.
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