294 FERRIES AN1> NAVIGABLE RIVERS. TART TV. 



hence the route to and from the Continent long continued 

 to be by Gravesend Ambassadors to the Kind's Court 

 usually taking boat there for London ; and probably a 

 more noble entrance into the great Capital of the king- 

 dom could not well have been selected. The comfort 

 of the long ferry for the commoner sorts of people could 

 not have been great, the passengers being required to 

 bring with them their respective trusses of straw to lie 

 on, whilst they were sometimes under the necessity of 

 landing in the mud a mile or two short of their destina- 

 tion when the tide was low, and either, wade their way 

 to shore ,or pay for being carried on the backs of the 

 mud-larks. The boatmen rendered themselves liable to 

 a penalty only if they landed the passengers more than 

 two miles short of their destination ! 



Fielding has left an account, in his ' Voyage to 

 Lisbon,' of the tediousness and discomfort of voyaging 

 about the middle of last century. His ship was fixed to 

 sail from opposite the Tower Wharf at a certain time, 

 and Fielding, ghastly and ill, was rowed off to it in a 

 wherry, running the gauntlope through rows of sailors 

 and watermen, who jeered and insulted him as he passed. 

 The ship, however, did not set out for several days, 

 and Fielding was compelled to spend the intervening 

 time in the confines of Wapping and Redriff. The 

 vessel at length sailed, and reaching Gravesend anchored 

 there until the evening of the following day. Xext day 

 they sailed for the Nore, and the day after that tlicv 

 anchored off Deal, and lay there for a week. It took 

 four days more to beat down Channel to Ryde, where 

 Fielding was landed in the mud fifteen days after his 

 embarcation at the Tower ; and a long, long time elapsed 

 before the termination of his voyage at Lisbon. 



When coaches began to run upon the improved road 

 between London and Dover, passing by Blackheath and 

 Dartford to Rochester and Canterbury, the principal parl 

 of the continental traffic was diverted from Gravesend, 

 though the comfort of the journey does not seem to ha\<- 



