ARRIVAL AT LIVERPOOL. 49 



and steeples, and soon discerned forests of masts. On the 

 right, the bank continued rural and charming, with all the 

 fresh light verdure of spring. Below it we could distinctly 

 see, and quite amusing it was, many people, mostly women 

 and children, riding donkeys and driving pony-carriages on 

 the beach. It seemed strange that they did not stop to look 

 at us. There were bathing-wagons too, drawn by a horse 

 out into three or four feet water, and women floundering into 

 it out of them and getting back again very hastily, as if they 

 found it colder than they had expected. We approached in 

 complete structures of stone-work along the water s edge, in 

 which men and horses were clustering like bees. Soon we 

 passed them, and were looking up at the immense walls of 

 the docks, each with its city of shipping securely floating 

 fifteen or twenty feet higher than the water on which we 

 were, it being now low ebb. At five, in the rumble and roar 

 of the town, our anchor dropped. The ship could not haul 

 into the docks until midnight tide, and the steam-tug took us, 

 who wished it, to the shore, landing us across the Dublin 

 steamer at the Prince s Dock quay. 



5 



