and not Paris, with the pretensions of its journalists and coteries." The Parsees, three native gentlemen of Bombay, who visited England a few years ago, thus express themselves on the same subject:-"When we came within about five miles of London, we were surprised at the amazing number of vessels, from the humble barge to the more beautiful ships and steamers of all descriptions. The colliers were most numerous, and vessels were anchored close to each other, and the river seemed to be almost covered with vessels; and the masts and yards gave it the appearance of a forest, at a distance. Indeed, there were to be found ships from all parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America; and a great number of steamers ply about in all directions, filled with passengers. None of our countrymen can form an idea of this noble river, and the shipping on it." eastern coast of the island; and step by step does it | ledge that London is the true metropolis of the world, become there wedded to the steam-boat,-each one being a helpmate to the other. We find this about to become the case at Aberdeen and at Dundee; we find it already the case on the Forth, on the Tyne, on the Wear, on the Tees, and on the Humber; it will, ere long, be the case at Berwick, at Goole, and at Grimsby. Farther south we come to Boston and Lynn, both of which will, in the course of a few months, be placed in railway communication with the heart of England and with the metropolis; and if the merchants of those ports have the usual sharpness which a sense of selfinterest gives, they will not be slow to make their steamers worthy of their railways. Coming yet farther south, we find at Yarmouth and Lowestoft indications of the same thing going on. The Norfolk Railway Company are driving their Yarmouth terminus farther and farther east, until it will at length most probably be as near the steam-boat pier as in many other cases. At Lowestoft the harbour is being brought into so efficient a state, and railway projects are opening such a commercial career with the interior, that Yarmouth is beginning to 'look sharp' after a rapidly rising neighbour. At Ipswich and at Harwich, again, the same commercial drama is being played: old habits and old modes of conducting business are suffering modification, and the steam-engine is boldly marching into both towns, both sea-ward and land-ward. Ipswich has now railway communication with the metropolis and with Bury St. Edmunds; and steamers go from thence to London. Harwich, however, will, by and by, probably surpass most of these East Anglian ports, as to steam transit; for it is so well situated, and is so directly in the route from London towards Holland and the Rhine, that when a railway is made from thence to Colchester (and it has been unlucky for Harwich that the contests of rival companies have so long delayed such a necessary work), we may expect to see an important rail-and-steamer traffic carried on there. THE THAMES. At length we come to the mighty Thames-that busy stream, where more ships are to be seen than in any other river in the world-where steaming spreads almost as fast as railways, and laughs at the attempts of railways to supersede it—where the very boatmen, despite of the steamers, contrive to pick up a living, though no one knows very clearly how. The shipping of the Thames is, perhaps, of all the great features, the one which most strikes foreign tourists in England. "What a throng of ships," says Von Raumur," and what restless activity! Paris, with its few scattered boats on the Seine, is nothing compared with this. .... From Woolwich to Greenwich activity continues to increase, till we approach the docks, and hasten through forests of ships. What I saw of the same kind at Havre, Bordeaux, and Marseilles, can be compared but to a single chamber cut out of these enormous palaces. Here we see and acknow This "noble river, and the shipping on it," demand a little of our attention, in respect to the object here immediately under view-the contrast between watertraffic of past times and of present times. Up the river, the contrast presents only simple phases. The jump was from the small row-boat to the small steamer; for as to a sail, except in some of the heavy barges, it is hardly to be seen or to be expected above bridge. The boats of one, or two, or three, or four pairs of oars; the boats used for ferrying at so much per head, and those used for small parties at a rowing-match; the light-looking semi-gondola boats, with awnings and gaily-painted fittings, which at one time so frequently bore holiday parties up to or in the neighbourhood of Richmond, are known to all who have been familiar with the Thames. And who, in the present day, does not know the up-river steamers which are so incessantly passing and repassing? The floral family of steamers,the Myrtle,' the 'Primrose,' the Violet,' the Daisy,' the Cowslip,' the Blue-Bell,' the Pink,' and other equally delicate names; the family of Citizens;' the luminous family of Twilight,' 'Daylight,' 'Starlight,' and Moonlight: the nuptial party, consisting of the Bride,' the Bachelor,' the Bridegroom,' the Bridemaid,' the Wedding Ring,' and the Matrimony'- everybody knows them. Once upon a time, and that time not very many years distant, the earliest of these steamers charged sixpence from London to Westminster; then a stride was made to reach Chelsea for the same money, and the Westminster fare was lowered to fourpence; then the whole distance became a fourpenny trip: this continued for a long time; but at length the 'wooden' boats beat the iron,' by reducing the Westminster fare to twopence: next this very fare was halved to the marvellously small sum of one penny: by degrees, the Chelsea boats all came down to a twopenny fare; and now, the insect family of 'Bee,' 'Ant,' and 'Cricket,' content themselves with one halfpenny, as the fare from the Adelphi to London Bridge! The Greenwich, and Woolwich, and Blackwall steamers show, in a striking degree, how steam transit Mr. Cruden, in his recent "History of Gravesend," has industriously collected a number of curious details respecting the river transit from Gravesend to London in past times; from which we gather some memorials of a state of things that seems almost antediluvian. In early days Gravesend derived importance from two ferries, or river passages the cross-ferry,' across to Tilbury; and the long ferry,' up to London. Charters relating to these ferries existed so far back as the time of the Normans. At one time we hear of complaints that the boatmen "did take from passengers unjust fares against their will:" the legal fare being twopence up to London; and, at another, the Gravesend boatmen complained that the London people tried to rob them of their vested rights in the 'long ferry.' The vessel in which the passage was made, was formerly called a barge. In a ballad, called London Lackpenny,' supposed to have been written about A.D. 1400, the balladist thus narrates his unsuccessful attempt to get aboard a Gravesend barge at Billingsgate, for want of that necessary commodity-money: "for the most part, masterless men, and men of all kinds of occupations and faculties, and many boys of small age and of little skill, and being persons out of the rule and obedience of any honest master or governor, and who for the most part of their time used dancing, carding, and other unlawful games." The boats, too, had degenerated, and had become "so shallow and tickle, that thereby great danger of drowning had ensued, and was likely to ensue, unless speedy remedy should be provided." The "speedy remedy" was sought by certain restrictions as to the persons who navigated the boats, as to the size and form of the boats, and as to fares. One From these regulations we find that, about three centuries ago, there were passenger barges, carrying about twenty-four persons at twopence a-head; and tilt-boats, carrying about twenty persons at fourpence per head. In 1573 Queen Elizabeth gave a charter of incorporation to Gravesend; and one of the first acts of the corporation was to regulate the Long Ferry. The barges and the tilt-boats had their regular "turns," or order of precedence in starting; the profits going to the owners, and the corporation receiving a fee. of the corporate regulations, made in 1595, sets forth that there were that there were "tilt-boats, lighthorsemen, and wherries, which, for their own private gain, take upon themselves to ply and carry passengers before the common barge be furnished and departed; by reason whereof many go in tilt-boats, lighthorsemen, and wherries, and leave the barge unfurnished." remedy this grievance, therefore, it was ordered that none of these interlopers should "ply or take into any their boats any passengers, until the Gravesend barge shall be first furnished with passengers, launched forth, and gone." Το In the early part of the next century the barges furiously battled against the tilt-boats; and there were continual disputes between the respective owners, and also between the corporation of Gravesend and that of | unaltered for more than half a century; and it seems London, on matters connected with the Long Ferry. The last Gravesend barge was built about 1640: the swifter and more commodious tilt-boats having by degrees frowned them out of favour, just as a swifter steamer will supersede a slower one at the present day. A voyage to Gravesend in 1736, in the then prevalent tilt-boat, an improvement on the barge of former times, will give an amusing contrast with the swift and comfortable steam trips of our day. John Sherwin, in a pamphlet called the Gotham Swan,' thus describes his journey:-"I set out from home at half-an-hour after four o'clock, in order for Maidstone Fair. I got to Billingsgate by seven, took water at eight for Gravesend, but fell short by a mile and a half: the watermen landed their passengers at three o'clock, except myself, wife, and son; for John Bull advised me to sit in the boat, because I was lame, for he would strive to run to town. We did so, and I and my son laid down on the straw, covering ourselves with the tilt, and I fell asleep. In half an hour after, he came and helped me out of the boat, over a lime-hoy, and had much ado to get me ashore; telling us, at the same time, he could not get to Gravesend till three hours after, the tide ran so strong against them." (Cut, No. 3.) ... There was a tour taken, about the same time, by Hogarth and a few choice friends, in which a river trip to Gravesend formed part of the proceedings. Mr. Forrest, one of the party, was made historian for the occasion. He says:-"Saturday, May 27th, 1732, we set out with the morning, and took our departure from the Bedford Arms Tavern, Covent Garden, to the tune of Why should we quarrel for riches?' The first land we made was Billingsgate, where we dropped anchor at the Dark House. Here we continued till the clock struck one, then set sail in a Gravesend boat we had hired for ourselves. Straw was our bed, and a tilt our covering. The wind blew hard at S. E. by E. We had much rain and no sleep, for about three hours. We soon arrived at Gravesend, and found some difficulty in getting ashore, occasioned by an unlucky boy's having placed his boat between us and the landing-place, and refusing us passage over his vessel; but as virtue surmounts all obstacles, we happily accomplished this adventure, and arrived at Mr. Bramble's at six. There we washed our faces and hands, and had our wigs powdered; then drank coffee, eat toast and butter, paid our reckoning, and set out at eight." The pleasure-seekers then went on to Rochester and Chatham, and, a day or two afterwards, returned to Gravesend; and then-" At eight we arose, breakfasted, and walked about the town. At ten went into a boat we had hired, with a truss of clean straw, a bottle of good wine, pipes, tobacco, and a match. We came merrily up the river, and, quitting our boat at Billingsgate, got into a wherry that carried us through bridge, and landed at Somerset Water-gate." About 1737 the tilts (awnings over an undecked vessel) were abandoned, and larger sailing-boats with a deck introduced. These decked boats remained almost probable that they were as comfortable, all things considered, as river sailing-boats were likely to have been. From time to time new boats were started, independent of the regular Gravesend ferry sailing-boats, and offering certain supposed advantages over them. For instance, one Mr. Dominy, in 1789, announced a new enterprise, in the following terms:-" Mr. John Dominy, of Gravesend, begs leave to acquaint such ladies and gentlemen as would wish to take an excursion by water to and from London to Gravesend, that he has built a new and commodious yacht, called the Princess Royal, fitted up in an elegant manner, for the reception of genteel and creditable people only, which will sail to-morrow morning, at six o'clock, and continue sailing during the season, at 1s. each passenger. It is Mr. Dominy's fixed resolution to carry no hop-pickers, or people going a harvesting, on any account whatever." Mr. Dominy evidently had a soul above the vulgar, although his charge was "only a shilling a head." In 1816 the first steam-boat on the Gravesend station made its appearance-the 'Margery,' (Cut, No. 4,) of seventy tons burden, and fourteen horse-power; and it ran down to Gravesend one day, and back the next. A second steamer was established in the same year; it was the Thames,' and was planned so as to go and return in the same day; the advertisement offered sundry alluring inducements to river tourists, such as the following:-"Ladies accompanied by gentlemen, in large parties of pleasure, passage free, Sundays only excepted. Refreshments provided, tea, bottled porter, &c. Passengers bringing refreshments will be assisted with boiling water, and milk provided, in readiness on board." There is so much of a holiday-making tone about this advertisement, that we may fairly look upon the year 1816 as that in which the rage for Gravesend trips commenced, however humble it may have been at the outset. At the time when the steamers started, there were twenty-six sailing passage-boats between London and Gravesend, varying from twenty-two to forty-five tons burden. They gradually declined after the introduction of the steamers. Year after year some among the number fell off. The steam-boats boasted of carrying 27,000 passengers in 1821, and nearly three times that number in 1825. The increase in the trade induced the Corporation of Gravesend to improve their Town-quay and Landingplace; and the building of the 'Town Pier' at Gravesend, and steam-boat piers at London-bridge, notably increased the facilities for the traffic. The year 1834 witnessed the demise of the sailing-packets: they were killed by steam. The astounding spread of steam transit to Gravesend since that year is known to all. In 1833 the number of persons conveyed had risen to 290,000 in the year. After that came, in succession, the formation of the Terrace Pier; the establishment of the 'Star' Company, in opposition to the Diamond,' or Old Company; the building of the pier at Rosherville; the rebuilding of the Terrace with the movements of former times. Nothing can be better than Fielding's 'Voyage to Lisbon,' to show how a voyager fared in getting from London to Falmouth a century ago. Pier, and the sale of it to the Corporation; the changes | ports along the southern coast, and how far it contrasts effected by the opening of the Blackwall Railway; and the more recent effect of the opening of the Rochester Railway. By the year 1840 the steamboat passengers had reached a million annually; and in 1844 a million and a half were conveyed in four months! The great novelist, worn out, having tried in vain various remedies for a malady under which he suffered, It is the steam-engine which has wrought the changes was advised to take a voyage to Lisbon; and he seobservable at Gravesend; and the same may be said at cured a berth on board a ship bound for that port. other parts of the river. Sixty thousand passengers The ship was to sail "punctually" from the Tower on have been known to go to Greenwich by steam-boat a certain day, and on that day (June 26, 1754,) Fielding in one day, in Easter or Whitsun week! The Irish Rail- went to the Tower Wharf, and was thence lifted into a way Commissioners, while collecting details respecting wherry, which conveyed him off to the ship. The bruthe amount of short holiday traffic a few years back, tality of the boatmen and sailors of those times is most make the following statement:-"We learn that each strikingly shown in what passed while poor Fielding of the two Greenwich Steam-packet companies carried, was being carried into the wherry, rowed to the ship, last year, about 400,000 passengers; that the Woolwich and lifted up in a sort of arm-chair: he was very ill, Old Company, calling at Greenwich, carried more than and his countenance exceedingly ghastly. He says, 100,000 Greenwich passengers, besides 192,000 to "In this condition, I ran the gauntlope (so, I think, Woolwich; and the New Woolwich Company carried | I may justly call it) through rows of sailors and waternearly 100,000 passengers between Woolwich, Black- men, few of whom failed of paying their compliments wall, and London-bridge. To these are to be added the to me by all manner of insults and jests on my misery." many thousands who pass these places to Gravesend, Fielding soon found that the ship would not sail that Margate, Ramsgate, Southend, Dover, Herne Bay, &c.; day; so he had to provide himself a dinner, of which he and, above all, the multitudes, greatly exceeding one tells us the quality was very low, and the cost very high. million, who during the last year passed by the railway The next day the captain appeared, and told him the to Greenwich.” ship could not start till two days afterwards, without stating the "why or the wherefore." Here then he was obliged to stop, "in the confines of Wapping and Redriffe, tasting a delicious mixture of the air of both these sweet places, and enjoying the concord of sweet sounds of seamen, watermen, fish-women, oysterwomen, and all the vociferous inhabitants of both shores." Fielding was afraid that he might want medical assistance on board; and the captain comforted him with assurances, that "he had a pretty young fellow on board, who acted as his surgeon, as I found he likewise did as steward, cook, butler, and sailor." Those who are familiar with the traffic of the Thames for the last ten or fifteen years, will have no difficulty in calling to mind the wonderful progress which steam has made in opening new means of intercourse with places which were before in want of such facilities, The Woolwich steamers not only accommodate that town, but embark and land passengers at about a dozen other piers between that point and Westminsterbridge. The Gravesend steamers not only take down their cargoes of living beings to that place, but they stop at Erith, and Greenhithe, and Grays: thus establishing new centres of pleasure traffic. Again, going beyond Gravesend, we find that an immense amount of steam-boat traffic has been actually created by the opening of the Gravesend and Rochester Railway; for the two modes of conveyance, acting in conjunction, suffice to carry a passenger from London to the Medway for twelve or fifteenpence. Proceeding yet farther towards the mouth of the great river, we find the saine process of steam advancement going on. At Sheerness, at Southend, at Herne Bay, and at Margate, regular daily trips are now made, instead of the uncertain and lingering passages of the hoys of former days. The old Margate hoy, which was in use for many years after Margate had become a fashionable watering-place, was a small sloop, which carried her group of passengers to their destination in about a couple of days, sometimes in a long summer's day a longer day than was occupied by the fall of Vulcan from Olympus to Lemnos. THE SOUTHERN PORTS. At length on June 30th, four days after the appointed time, the ship sailed down the river, and anchored opposite Gravesend till the evening of the next day. On July 1st they sailed to the Nore; and on the next day they had to anchor in the Downs, near Deal.; On the 4th the ship weighed anchor; but after buffetting against the wind for four hours, the captain had to give it up, and re-anchor very near his old spot. When the wind-bound passengers wanted anything from the shore, they found that the Deal people did not forget to charge for it. not forget to charge for it. Here they remained till the 8th, on which day they actually and positively sailed. During the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th, they were sailing from Deal to the Isle of Wight, making such way as the winds and tides would let them; and on the afternoon of the 11th they anchored opposite Ryde. Here, then, was Fielding deposited at the Isle of Wight, fifteen days after he had embarked at the Tower-a pretty taste of voyaging in those times ! The great painter of manners a century ago next gives an amusing description of the muddy reception Let us see what is doing by steam to and from the which Ryde gave him, for want of a landing-pier; and |