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The Tyne was at last reached, and Peter's wonder was excited by the large city he saw stretching up the hill, and the numerous other towns and villages which lined the banks of that important river, but still more by the numberless vessels taking in their cargoes of coal, shot down into their holds from the cliffs above them.
The following instance of sagacity deserves to be recorded. "During the great flood of the 4th of September, 1829, when the river Tyne was at it height, a number of people were assembled on its margin. A swan appeared with a black spot upon its plumage, which on its nearer approach proved to be a live rat.
"And you shall find them, my pearl of the Tyne Zookers, lass, I never envy these young fellows their rides and scampers, unless when you come across me. But I must not keep you just now, I suppose? I am quite satisfied with Mr. Francis Osbaldistone's explanation here has been some mistake, which can be cleared at greater leisure."
Still journeying northward, we cross the hills between the Wear and the Tyne, and come to the New Castle which gives its name to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the great coal shipping port. This is a strange-looking town, with red-tiled roofs, narrow, dingy, crooked streets, and myriads of chimneys belching forth smoke from the many iron-works.
He was sitting one August afternoon by the fountain in the Forum of Corstopitum, engaged upon improving a system of fire signals for use on the great wall, which Hadrian was building from the Tyne estuary to the Solway Firth.
This enormous sum was accordingly actually disbursed by the Exchequer in two payments, and the obnoxious impost on the Tyne coal-trade was abolished some thirty years afterwards by which time the Treasury had been repaid much more than it had advanced, a circumstance inducing a belief that his Grace sold his inheritance much too cheaply.
"Then up spoke your mother's brother, and a winsome young man he was as ye would have found between Tweed and Tyne; and 'Jonathan, says he to me, 'when ye gang to drive hame the herd, I shall go wi' thee, for the sake of a bout with the bold, bragging Cunningham, of Simprin for I will lay thee my sword 'gainst a tailor's bodkin, it is him ye mean.
The Cowt was pursued until, in crossing a burn, he stumbled and lost his helmet, and ere he recovered, his enemies were upon him, and they held him under water until he was drowned. Not far from the mouth of the Bell Burn, which here runs into the Tyne, a circle of stones outside an ancient burial ground is known as the Cowt's Grave.
When Stephenson first met Brunel in Newcastle, he good-naturedly shook him by the collar, and asked “What business he had north of the Tyne?” George gave him to understand that they were to have a fair stand-up fight for the ground, and, shaking hands before the battle like Englishmen, they parted in good humour.
Though sister ships and modeled on similar lines, the Mauretania and Lusitania differ somewhat in construction. Of the two the Mauretania is the more typical ship as well as the more popular. This modern triumph of the naval architect and marine engineer was built by the firm of Swan, Hunter & Co. at Wellsend on the Tyne in 1907. The following are her dimensions: Length over all 790 feet.
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