CHAP. V. FKIMMKS A\l> \AY!<;.\W,!: IMVKRS. _"..: 



boar<l lia<l been consumed. Sk-am has entirely altered 

 this state of tilings, as every traveller knows; and the 

 samr passa^v is now easily and regularly made four times 

 a day, both ways, in about two hours. 



The passage of ferries in the northern parts of England 

 was equally tedious, uncomfortable, and often dangerous. 

 In 'A Tour through England in 1765,' it is stated that 

 at Liverpool passengers were carried to and from the 

 ferry-boats which plied three times a day to the opposite 

 shore, " on the backs of men, who waid knee-deep in the 

 mud to take them out of the boats." Between Hull and 

 Barton a packet plied once a day across the Humber, the 

 travellers wading to the boats through a long reach of 

 mud ; but whether the voyage would occupy two hours 

 or a day, no one could predict when embarking. If the 

 weather looked threatening, the travellers would take 

 up their abode at the miserable inn on the Barton side 

 until the wind abated. Now the voyage is regularly and 

 frequently performed every day, to and from New Hol- 

 la nd, in less than half an hour. The ferry of the Fritli 

 of Forth was also a formidable affair, and a voyage to 

 Fife was often full of peril. The passage to Kinghorn 

 or Burntisland was made in an open boat or a pinnace, 

 and the boatmen usually waited, it might be for hours, 

 until sufficient passengers had assembled to go across. 

 The difficulty of passing the Forth ferries was expe- 

 rienced by Mr. Eennie as late as 1808, when returning 

 across the Frith from Pettycur, where he had been 

 examining the harbour with a view to its improvement 

 for the packet-boats which plied between there and 

 Leith. "The wind blew fresh," he says, "from about 

 three points westward of south, and after beating about 

 in the Frith for nearly three hours, we were obliged to 

 return to Pettycur ; and, to save time, I went round by 

 Queen's Ferry," a place nine miles to the westward, from 

 whence it was three miles across the Forth, and then 

 other nine miles to Edinburgh ; the distance directly 



