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It was early on a fine summer's day, near the end of the eighteenth century, when a young man of genteel appearance, journeying towards the north-east of Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those public carriages which travel between Edinburgh and the Queensferry, at which place there is a passage-boat for crossing the Firth of Forth.
So prodigiously good was the eating and drinking on board these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that there are legends extant of an English traveller, who, coming to Belgium for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so delighted with the fare there that he went backwards and forwards from Ghent to Bruges perpetually until the railroads were invented, when he drowned himself on the last trip of the passage-boat.
Of two lines to Philadelphia I selected the longest, wishing to see the harbor, down which a steamer takes passengers as far as Amboy; but the Powers of the Air were unpropitious again: it never ceased blowing, from the moment we went on board a very unpleasant substitute for the regular passage-boat, till we landed on the railway pier. My first experience of American travel was not attractive.
On the second day we reached a marshy and fenny country, which, owing to immense quantities of rain which had lately fallen, was completely submerged. At a large town we got on board a kind of passage-boat, crowded with people; it had neither sails nor oars, and those were not the days of steam-vessels; it was a treck-schuyt, and was drawn by horses.
It was early on a fine summer's day, near the end of the eighteenth century, when a young man, of genteel appearance, journeying towards the north-east of Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those public carriages which travel between Edinburgh and the Queensferry, at which place, as the name implies, and as is well known to all my northern readers, there is a passage-boat for crossing the Firth of Forth.
For a short time, a passage-boat, rowed by a steam-engine, was established between Borden-town and Philadelphia, but it was soon laid aside. The best and most powerful steam-engine which has been employed for this purpose excepting, perhaps, one constructed by Dr. Kinsey, with the performance of which I am not sufficiently acquainted belonged to a gentleman of New York.
Two hours were spent in getting the whole of them over; an hour more was employed in transporting the baggage; and it was near sunset before the canoe returned, when Demba Sego and myself embarked in this dangerous passage-boat, which the least motion was like to overset.
I crossed over the bridge of boats, and made a most minute inspection of this very romantic castle, which gave me great pleasure indeed. In a few days I availed myself of a passage-boat which was going to Mayence, and was quite enraptured with the view on all sides.
In the bay, and at the mouth of the river, the fish are taken in nets, suspended by the four corners from hoops attached to a crane, by which they are lowered into the water. The fishing-boats are little better than rafts, and are called saraboas. The usual passage-boat is termed banca, and is made of a single trunk. These are very much used by the inhabitants.
In the bay, and at the mouth of the river, the fish are taken in nets, suspended by the four corners from hoops attached to a crane, by which they are lowered into the water. The fishing-boats are little better than rafts, and are called sarabaos. The usual passage-boat is termed banca, and is made of a single trunk. These are very much used by the inhabitants.
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