296 FEH1IIKS AXD XA VKJAP.LK IMYKIiS. 



us to go ashore in the boat." Smollett went on deck, 

 when the master pointed out through the spray raised 

 by the scud of the sea where the harbour's mouth lay. 

 The passengers were so impatient to get on shore, that 

 after paying the captain and "gratifying the crew" 

 (which was no easy matter in those days), they com- 

 mitted themselves to the ship's boat to be rowed on 

 shore. They had scarcely, however, got half way to 

 land, before they perceived a boat coming off to meet 

 them, which the captain pronounced to be the French 

 boat, and that it would be necessary to shift from the 

 one small boat to the other in the open sea, " it beiii ( u - a 

 privilege of the boatmen of Boulogne to carry all pas- 

 sengers ashore." Smollett then proceeds, " This was 

 no time nor place to remonstrate. The French boat 

 came alongside, half filled with water, and we were 

 handed from the one to the other. We were then obliged 

 to lie upon our oars till the captain's boat went on board, 

 and returned from the ship with a packet of letters : we 

 were then rowed a long league in a rough sea, against 

 wind and tide, before we reached the harbour, where we 

 landed, benumbed with cold, and the women excessively 

 sick. From our landing-place we were obliged to walk 

 very near a mile to the inn where we purposed to lodge, 

 attended by six or seven men and women, bare-legged, 

 carrying our baggage. This boat cost me a guinea, 

 besides paying exorbitantly the people who carried our 

 things; so that the inhabitants of Dover and Boulogne 

 seem to be of the same kidney, and indeed they under- 

 stand one another perfectly well." l The passage of the 

 ferry between England and France continued much 

 the same until a comparatively recent period ; Fowell 

 Buxton relating that as late as the year 1817 the packet 

 in which he sailed from Dover to Boulogne drifted about 

 in the Channel for two days and two nights, and only 

 reached the port of Calais when every morsel of food on 



1 Smollett's * Travels through France and Italy.' Letter I., June 23rd, 1763. 



