EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL
stretching himself, and taking a little refreshment in the inns. The fare is about three farthings a mile. …
"The boat is drawn by a horse, and contains about twenty or five and twenty passengers. It is very clean, with a deck over it which covers them from rain, etc., so that they are as much at ease as in their own houses. They talk, read, sew, knit, as each likes best; and do not know they are going by water, except they look out, and see they are moving, the motion is so insensible. … The boat has windows on the sides to let in the air; from which also the passengers may see the country as they travel. The boat goes off every hour of the day, on the ringing of a little bell;[1] so that one knows to a minute when he is to set out, and to a few minutes, when he shall arrive at his journey's end. Strangers are equally surprised and charmed with this way of travelling, as it is indeed far the most commodious, best regulated, and cheapest in Europe."[2]
To a modern reader the speed does not seem excessive,[3] but the boats compared favorably even in speed with the ordinary wheeled conveyances in many parts of Europe. In other particulars the comfort of the boats was incomparably greater than that of the post-wagon or the coach. Travelers grow enthusiastic over the delights of water travel in Holland and Flanders and declare that "the convenience and pleasure of it can hardly be conceived from description."[4] Misson, about a century earlier, had remarked on these boats: "You are seated as quietly in them as if you were at home, and sheltered both from rain and wind: so that you may go from one country to another, almost without perceiving that you are out of the house."[5]
One treck-scoot in particular, plying daily between Ghent and Bruges through a canal thirty miles long, was called "the most remarkable boat of the kind in all Europe; for it is a perfect tavern divided into several appartments, with a very good ordinary at dinner of six or seven dishes, and all sorts of wines at moderate prices. In winter they have fires in their chimneys, and the motion of the vessel
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- ↑ The same is noted in Bromley's Several Years' Travels, (1702), p. 280.
- ↑ A Description of Holland, pp. 349–50, note.
- ↑ In Misson's time the journey by canal from Brussels to Antwerp required seven hours; from Bruges to Ostend, three hours. See New Voyage to Italy, ii2, 531, 550.
- ↑ Smith, Tour on the Continent, i, 6.
- ↑ Smith, Tour on the Continent, i, 6.
