II. THE SAIL AND THE STEAMER.

shallowness of their river, every day more and more increasing and filling up; so that no vessel of any burden can come up nearer the town than fourteen miles, where they must unlade and send up their timber in rafts, and all other commodities by three or four tons of goods at a time, in small cobbles or boats, of three,

If there is one truth which, more than another, would be admitted in these days of steam, it is, that modern arrangements for travelling economise time. Whether we compare the old Gravesend tilt-boat with the modern Star' or 'Diamond'-the Leith smack with the Edinburgh steamer-the old Ostend or Calais boats with the present Ostend or Boulogne railway-four, or five, and none above six tons a boat."—Here packets the Clyde or Forth boats of past days with we have a key to much of the energy of the " Glasgow the Clyde or Forth steamers of the present-the Ame- folk:" their river was very shallow, and they could not rican, or Mediterranean, or East India ships with the embark in an extensive foreign trade without adopting fine steamers which now leave our shores for those some remedial measures. As we are not here writing parts-in whichever way we look, the same accelera- a history or a description of Glasgow, it will suffice to tion is exhibited. It seems tolerably clear that saving say, that by constructing a harbour at Port Glasgow, of time is the most powerful of the circumstances which lower down the Clyde; by dredging the river from end have led to the preference of new modes of voyaging to end; by straightening the banks, and making quays over the old. The object of the present paper is to and jetties; by deepening the bed so considerably as take a rapid glance at some of the most prominent to enable vessels drawing fourteen feet of water to exemplifications of this contrast. Let us begin with come up to the city itself; and by laying out basins our enterprising Glasgow neighbours. and piers-the Glasgow merchants have wrought a wondrous change: only vessels of thirty or forty tons could approach Glasgow at the beginning of the present century; whereas now the busy Broomielaw exhibits its ships of 700 or 800 tons burden.

THE CLYDE.

If we look at the Clyde in regard to its actual size, we must deem it one of the most extraordinary rivers in existence. On walking along the banks, from Glasgow Meanwhile the genius of James Watt has been doing towards Bowling, it is scarcely possible to believe its work. In the present century, when steam navithat such a river should be an artery for so much ship-gation opened a new era in the modes of travelling, ping. It is so narrow, for a great part of the distance from Glasgow to Greenock, that nothing but the most energetic measures could have fitted it for the reception of large and abundant shipping. Steamers and Clyde improvements have gone on simultaneously; the steps of advance being highly interesting in a commercial point of view. It has been well observed, that the Clyde not only "bears along ships of heavy burden and deep draught of water, and is plentifully dotted with yawls and wherries, but is kept in constant foaming agitation by large steam-ships bearing heavy cargoes from the shores of England and Ireland, by numerous coasting steam-vessels careering over its surface with live freights of human beings, and by steam tug-boats dragging behind them trains of sailing craft too unwieldy to pilot their own way within its narrow channel."

The traffic of Glasgow, near about two centuries ago, was thus described in a letter written by Commissioner Tucket, a government agent, in 1651:-"Nearly all the inhabitants are traders; some to Ireland with small smiddy coals, in open boats, from four to ten tons, from whence they bring hoops, rings, barrelstaves, meal, oats, and butter; some to France, with plaiding, coals, and herrings; from which the return is salt, pepper, raisins, and prunes; some to Norway, for timber. There hath likewise been some that ventured as far as Barbadoes; but the loss which they sustained, by being obliged to come home late in the year, has made them discontinue going there any more. The mercantile genius of the people is strong, if they were not checked and kept under by the

Glasgow and, the neighbourhood possess all the elements necessary for the establishment of such a system: she had steam-engines and steam-engine factories— black band' to yield iron, and iron works to cast or roll it-manufactures to export, and a market for the return cargo-pleasant lochs and isles to visit by steam trips, and a population able and willing to visit them. It was in 1812 that the little 'Comet,' made by Wood and Co., of Port Glasgow, and brought out by Henry Bell, first glided down the Clyde by steam power, after having been tried in the previous year on the Forth. She made five miles an hour against a head wind; and ought to have brought her ingenious projector both fortune and fame-fame, to hardly an adequate extent, has come since his death;

but fortune never reached him.

In

For five or six years the Clyde was the scene of experimental steam-trips, before the Glasgow people would venture out to sea by such guidance; but in 1818 David Napier decided this matter in the most efficient way. "It is to this gentleman," says Mr. Scott Russell, "that Great Britain owes the introduction of deep-sea communication by steam vessels, and the establishment of Post-office steam-packets. 1818 Mr. Napier established between Greenock and Belfast a regular steam communication by means of the 'Rob Roy,' a vessel built by Mr. William Denny, of Dumbarton, of about 90 tons burden, and 30-horse power. For two winters she plied with perfect regularity and success between these ports, and was afterwards transferred to the English Channel, to serve as

a packet-boat between Dover and Calais. Having a sort of half-way, an amalgamation, a compromise thus ventured into the open sea, Mr. Napier was not between town and country. Then, after passing the slow in extending his range. Soon after Messrs. Wood little obelisk erected to the memory of Henry Bell, he built for him the 'Talbot,' of 120 tons, with two of comes in sight of the rock of Dumbarton, (Cut, No. 1,) Mr. Napier's engines, each of 30-horse power. This where he is taken by a row-boat a little way up the vessel was in all respects the most perfect of her day, river Leven, if the steamer is bound to any place lower and was formed on a model which was long in being down the Clyde; but some of the steamers go up the surpassed. She was the first vessel that plied between Leven to Dumbarton town. Here steaming is at an Holyhead and Dublin. About the same time he esta- end for the present; but after an inland ride of four blished the line of steam-ship between the stations of or five miles, the tourist reaches the southern end of Liverpool, Greenock, and Glasgow." Loch Lomond, where another steamer receives him, and takes him to all the lions' on both shores of the lake. This kind of lake-touring has become highly relished in Scotland. Six or seven years ago a small steamer was established on Loch Katrine, near the Trosachs and many of the lochs, or rather inlets of the sea-such as Loch Goyl, Loch Fyne, Loch Long, Loch Gare, &c., westward of Glasgow, and near the mouth of the Clyde, are visited by pleasure tourists per steam-boat. Many of the Glasgow citizens have country residences at Helensburgh, Rothsay, and other pleasant spots on the islands and shores of the Firth of Clyde; and boat-loads of such travellers are conveyed down the river by steam every afternoon.

How vast has been the progress since then-scarcely thirty years ago! The Clyde, the Mersey, and the Thames, have worthily kept pace with each other. It is a fact always observable, that there are ship-building establishments and engineering works at or near the spots where steam navigation has made the most rapid strides; and it is not difficult to see that such are almost necessary concomitants. The engineering establishments of Glasgow, especially connected with steam-ships, are among the most interesting of its industrial features. Those of the Napiers, especially, are notable for the fine ships for which they have furnished engines. The British Queen,' the 'Britannia,' the Acadia,' the Caledonia,' the Columbia,' and others, whose names have become almost household words with those who read about TransAtlantic steaming-all had their engines from the celebrated Vulcan Foundry' at Glasgow. making of iron steam-boats, too, has been taken up with great energy; and the same firms now frequently make the boat or ship itself, and the engines which are to be put into it.

The

It would be no easy matter to name all the steam routes of which Glasgow is the starting-point. A writer in the Gazetteer of Scotland truly remarks, that "The steam-boat quay of Glasgow, especially during the summer months, presents one of the most animated scenes which it is possible to conceive. River-boats, of beautiful construction, leave the Broomielaw every hour from morning till night; and some of them possess such power of steam, that they career along the Clyde at the rate of from twelve to fourteen miles an hour. The larger boats, especially those plying between Liverpool and Glasgow, are in reality floating palaces, having cabins fitted up at vast expense, and with every regard to grace and architectural beauty."

The pleasure trips on the Clyde-one of the features introduced by steam-boats—are remarkable for their cheapness, and for the varied scenery to which they introduce the tourist. He sooner reaches fine scenery than the Thames tourist to Gravesend or Margate. Six o'clock in the morning is not an uncommon time for Glasgow tourists to start for a day down the Clyde and up to Loch Lomond. A fare of sixpence for a deck passenger (and who cares to be below deck in a fine river trip?) will take him down the Clyde. First he passes the busy and smoking engineering works. Next he arrives so far in the suburbs, that the villas of the citizens begin to peep out on either bank-forming

They who had nought of verdant freshness seen
But suburb orchards choked with coleworts green,
Now, seated at their ease, may glide along,
Loch Lomond's fair and fairy isles among;
Where bushy promontories fondly peep
At their own beauty in the nether deep,
O'er drooping birch and rowan red, that lave
Their fragrant branches in the glassy wave;
They who on higher objects scarce have counted
Than church-spire with its gilded vane surmounted,
May view within their near distinctive ken
The rocky summits of the lofty Ben;
Or see his purple shoulders darkly lower
Through the dim drapery of a summer shower.

JOANNA BAILLIE.

There are daily (and in some cases almost hourly) steam-boat conveyances to Greenock and Gourock, to Kirn and Dunoon, to Rothsay and Largs and Millport, to Ardrishaig, to Dumbarton, to Gareloch and Helensburgh and Roseneath and Tarbert. Communications somewhat less frequent are kept up with Brodick, Inverary, Oban, Portree, Islay, Port Ellen, &c. Others, again, northward to the rugged districts of Stornaway; southward to Liverpool; and across the Channel to Londonderry, Belfast, and Dublin. The Ayrshire Railway, too, has given rise, in conjunction with the Preston and Wyre Railway, to a new steamboat route between Ardrossan and Fleetwood, which is now much used by passengers from London to Glasgow, instead of the Liverpool route. The gigantic schemes of the Caledonian Railway Company, in and near Glasgow, might seem to threaten these steam-boat enterprises; were it not that experience has shown, both in the Thames and elsewhere, that horse-conveyances on land, and steam-conveyances on water, are actually increased, directly or indirectly, by the spread of railways. A steamer has no "maintenance of way" to pay for it carries its capital on its back, so to speak, and is able to pay its expenses at comparatively low charges,

If anything were wanting to show the activity of | fortieth part of the whole was set apart for the proScotland in availing herself of the steam-boat power, which Glasgow and the Clyde were the first to develope, it would be shown in the fact, recorded by Mr. Porter in his 'Progress of the Nation,' that, in 1844, Scotland owned more steamers than the whole of France, although containing only about one-fifteenth part as many inhabitants!

prietors of the passage; and the remainder was divided into shares, called deals, according to the number of persons entitled to a share of it. One full deal was allotted to every man of mature age who had laboured during that week as a boatman, whether he acted as master or mariner, or in a great boat, or in a yawl. Next the aged boatman, who had become unfit for labour, received half a deal, or half the sum allotted to an acting boatman. Boys employed in the boats

Let us next cross the island, and look at steam-boat operations at the ports of the east coast. On our way we meet with a canal-the Firth and Clyde canal-received shares proportioned to their age. A small sum which has itself exhibited the march of improvement in respect to boat-traction. Were it not that the extraordinary rise of railway-travelling has thrown canaltransit of all kinds into the shade, we should probably ere this have seen established some very interesting results in reference to the attainment of high speed in water-conveyance; but canal enterprise is much discouraged just now; and many of the best canals are either being bought up by railway companies, or converted into railways.

THE PORTS OF THE EAST COAST. If we look at the Firth of Forth-that river-mouth which separates Edinburgh from Fifeshire-we see that it presents a serious obstacle to the maintenance of coach communication between Edinburgh on the one hand, and Perth, Dundee, and Aberdeen on the other. Not till we arrive at Stirling do we find the Forth sufficiently narrow to be crossed by a bridge; and this circumstance may have led the Edinburgh and Leith people to steam-boat enterprises which they might not otherwise have thought of. At Grangemouth, where the Forth and Clyde canal communicates with it, the Firth is more than two miles wide at high water. At Queensferry, where it is crossed by ferry boats, it is much narrower; but at Burntisland, where a new ferry has been established from Granton Pier, the width is five or six miles.

The passage over the Forth at Queensferry, from being the shortest that can be made anywhere near Edinburgh, has for many centuries been regarded as one of importance. So early as the twelfth century the rights of this ferry were given to the monks of Dunfermline; and the possession of the right often gave rise to warm contests in after ages. The ferry is in the hands of trustees, who regulate fares, times, and other details. (Cut, No. 2.)

--

The boatmen of North Queensferry, on the Fifeshire side of the Forth, appear to have been a peculiar class of men. Mercer, in his History of Dunfermline,' while speaking of these boatmen in past times, says :"The inhabitants of North Queensferry consisted from time immemorial of operative boatmen, without any admixture of strangers. They held their feu under the Marquis of Tweeddale, as successor of the abbots of Dunfermline; and they have always held, from generation to generation, the ferry as a sort of property or inheritance. On the evening of every Saturday the earnings of the week were collected into a heap; one

was also set aside for a schoolmaster, and for the widows of decayed boatmen. Nobody became a boatman in this ferry unless by succession, and that right was always understood to be limited to the first generation. The children of those who had emigrated, or were born elsewhere, had no connexion with this ferry; but, on the other hand, if the son of a boatman found himself unfortunate in the world, he was always entitled to return, to enter into one of the boats, and to take a share of the provision which formed the estate of the community in which he was born. That community always consisted of nearly the same number of persons. About forty men acted in the boats, and received the full deal, as sailors of mature age. The whole community, including these and the old men and boys, and the women of every age, amounted to about two hundred individuals."

This ferry has not been an inactive witness of the giant strides of steam navigation. Although the Forth is here only two miles in width, there are abundant tales and narratives in Scotch books, illustrative of the delays often attending the passage. In rough weather the ferry has occasionally been impassable for days together; and even in days when the passage could be made, passengers have been beaten about in an open boat for four hours in the act of crossing. Another passage, lower down the Forth, from Leith to Pettycur, is a distance of about seven miles; and for this distance four or five hours were not considered an unreasonable time in past days. One tourist relates that, about forty years ago, he embarked in a small sailing-boat at Pettycur, to cross over to Leith; and that after being on board fourteen hours, he was landed at Fisherrow harbour at one in the morning, six miles from Leith, the boatmen not being enabled to approach Leith Harbour.

The first meeting of Jonathan Oldbuck and Lovel, in Sir Walter Scott's 'Antiquary,' takes place in the course of the short coach journey from Edinburgh to Queensferry, on the way to the ferry; but as the laughable incidents relate rather to the coach than to the ferry, we may pass it over. In an autobiography of Alexander Wilson, a sort of half-poet, half-pedlar, who lived in Scotland about fifty years ago, is the following notice of the ferry passage from Kinghorn to Leith across the Forth, just opposite the last-named town:-"In a large boat, the passenger pays sixpence ; in a pinnace, which is most convenient in a smooth sea, tenpence. The inhabitants are almost all boatmen,

and their whole commerce being with strangers, whom | Forth, there are now numerous steam-boats which trip perhaps they may never see again, makes them ava- up the river to Stirling and back at very low fares. ricious, and always on the catch. If a stranger come to town at night, intending to go over next morning, he is taken into a lodging. One boatman comes in, sits down, promises to call you in the morning, assists you to circulate the liquor, and, after a great deal of loquacity, departs. In a little while another enters, and informs you that the fellow who has just now left you goes not over at all; but that he goes, and that for a glass of gin he will awake you and take you along with him. Willing to be up in time, you generously treat him. According to promise, you are awakened in the morning, and assured that you have time enough to take breakfast; in the middle of which hoarse roarings alarm you that the boat is just going off. You start off, call for your bill-the landlord appears, charges you like a gentleman there is no time for scrupling-you are hurried away by the boatman on the one hand, and genteelly plundered by the landlord on the other, who pockets his money, and bids you haste lest you lose your passage. Perhaps, after all, when you get aboard, you are detained an hour or more by the sailors waiting for more passengers."

The next time the reader has to travel six or seven miles, let him picture to himself "a boatman coming in, sitting down, and promising to call you in the morning," and all the other features of Alexander Wilson's narration, and then thank his stars that we live in steaming days. Instead of the uncertain Queensferry boat passage, there are now snug steamers every half-hour, which perform the distance in about a quarter of an hour. Instead of the tedious passage from Pettycur, or from Kinghorn to Leith by boat, we have now rapid steamers from Burntisland to Granton, performing the distance in little more than half-an-hour. This Granton Pier, itself, is a mark and symbol of the age we live in. It belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch; while the opposite pier of Burntisland belongs to another wealthy Scotch proprietor, Sir John Gladstone. The two together have made a commercial speculation of the piers, the ferry, and the steamers, and seem likely to benefit themselves as well as the travelling public. At a meeting recently held of the Edinburgh and Northern Railway Company (to establish railway communication between Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee), it was announced, that the Company had agreed to purchase from the two proprietors just named, the Granton and Burntisland ferry, and the piers and other accessories belonging to it, for a sum very little short of one hundred thousand pounds. Here again is an instance in which railways, instead of ruining steamers, are friendly to them; for it is the object of the Company to establish the best possible steam-boat conveyance from pier to pier in connexion with railways at both ends, as the only means of competing successfully with the Scottish Central Railway, which will cross the Forth by a bridge at Stirling, without the necessity of any ferry at all. Besides the mere crossing of the

The steam conveyances, northward from the Forth to the Tay and the Dee, and southward to the Tweed, the Tyne, the Humber, and the Thames, have effected vast improvements, both in the pleasure of tourists, and in the commercial economy of time. Before the establishment of the Edinburgh and London steamers, the Leith smacks were often two, three, or as many as five weeks reaching London: so completely were they under the control of the rough winds of the German ocean. But now, a time varying from forty to fortyeight hours suffices to waft one of the fine steamers from station to station. Four or five years ago it was estimated, that as many as 25,000 persons voyaged annually between the two capitals in these steamers. Besides those running direct from the Forth to the Thames, there are others from Aberdeen to the Shetlands, to Inverness, to Edinburgh, to Hull, and to London; others from Edinburgh to Dundee and to Inverness; and indeed wherever there is a considerable town along or near the coast, there a steamer is pretty sure to be found at some day or other in the week. The Dundee folk have made a bold and happy movement towards opening the doors of the continent to tourists from Scotland. Two years ago (we do not know whether they were repeated in 1846) two holiday trips were got up by steam-boat proprietors. from Dundee to Hamburgh and back, with an interval of twelve days for visiting a large number of the towns of Germany. The other was rather more ambitious, being from Aberdeen to Norway, with stoppages at the Orkney and Shetland Isles, and a period of three weeks being allowed for the whole trip. Norway for pleasure! Our grandfathers would surely think us mad, if they could witness such doings!

One was

In wending our way southward, we find the eastern coast of England dotted with a considerable number of rivers and ports, all of which have come more or less under the control of the giant arm of steam. First we have the Tweed and Berwick; then the Tyne, with its busy towns of Newcastle and Shields; then the Wear and Sunderland; and further on the Tees and Stockton. Proceeding yet south we come to Whitby and Scarborough; and then to the wide estuary of the Humber, with Hull as its great port. From thence to the Thames, we have in succession Grimsby (about to become to Hull what Birkenhead will be to Liverpool-a neighbour not to be despised), Boston, Lynn, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Ipswich,' and Harwich. Nearly the whole of these towns have steam-boats in connexion with them. Berwick sends its steamers to London and to Edinburgh at stated periods, and so does Newcastle, as well as to Berwick, Whitby, Scarborough, and Hull. With regard to the Tyne, it exhibits some such a feature as the Clyde, though on a smaller scale. Newcastle is the Glasgow of the Tyne; and the inhabitants are not sorry to breathe a little pure air out by Tynemouth, or other places near the sea. Hence has arisen a trade for a large number of steam

boats, which are plying up and down the Tyne all day | fect safety. Very capacious docks have been conlong; and as many of them convey passengers eight or nine miles for threepence, it is pretty plain that they must carry large numbers to make it a "paying concern." Even five or six years ago there were considerably above a hundred small steamers working up and down the Tyne, either to convey passengers, or to tow vessels.