CHAPTER III
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL
I
The English Channel
The real troubles of the tourist began with the crossing of the English Channel.[1] Even now, in luxurious steamers that make the run in less than an hour, the experience is for many no unmixed delight. But a century and a half ago, when the vessels were small, dirty, and ill-appointed, the passage was a torment, and, if strong head-winds blew, impossible. Some travelers went all the way by water from London to the Continent. "Upon Change every day is to be met with the master of a French trader; whose price to Calais, Dunkirk, or Boulogne is only a guinea each passenger: the passage is commonly made in sixteen or twenty hours: this scheme is much more commendable than going to Dover; where, should you chance to be wind-bound, it will cost you at least half a guinea a day."[2]
Several routes were open to the traveler from England to the Continent. He might go from Harwich to the Briel in Holland by packet boat,[3] from Yarmouth to Cuxhaven, from London to Hamburg, from Brighton to Dieppe, from Dover to Calais or Boulogne, and so on. By landing at Boulogne one saved some miles of travel by coach on the way to Paris. A sailing vessel left London every week for Amsterdam, from which place there was also a return service.[4]
But the ordinary route to the Continent by way of Dover and Calais was the shortest and most popular. Yet, if we may trust the genial Smollett, the trip by coach to Dover was not entirely agreeable, though possibly not much worse than the trip to other seaports. "I need not tell you this
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