to leave the country in which I was born
and in which I hope to die, I glided for days
and nights upon the silent byways of our
inland canals; giving myself up without
reserve to the unrestrained companionship of
bargemen; accommodating my vast bulk to
the confined space afforded by the crowded
cabin of a Grand Junction Canal Company's
fly-boat.

Having obtained the very readily accorded
consent, advice, and assistance of the chairman
of that company, with the active and
valuable co-operation of its obliging manager;
one excessively wet evening in the month of
August of the present year, I placed myself
in a cab by the side of a friend and a large
meat pie, who were to attend me on the
journey, and drove direct to the company's
offices in the City Road. There was a pleasing
novelty in the earliest commencement of
the voyage. Ordinary tourists start from
wharves near the Custom House, or Saint
Katherine's Docks; old fashioned inn yards,
or White Horse Cellars; large and noisy
railway stations; and some from their own
stables, with a dog-cart and a fast-trotting
mare. I was an extraordinary tourist, and
my point of starting was a Basin. The cab-
man who was hired for the occasion seemed
to be greatly astonished at the direction of
his drive. He knew I meant travelling by
the portmanteau, the hamper, and the carpet-
bag; and many as were the travellers whom
he had driven in his time to meet conveyances,
he had never been ordered before to a
barge-wharf by the side of a basin, since
he first had the pleasure of wearing a badge.

Goods, bales, boxes, casks, and cases were
the uniform rule at the company's station,
and passengers a startling, and once in half-
a-century exception. As we entered the large
gas-lighted, roof-covered yard, amongst a
group of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, and
Lancashire bargemen, dressed in their short
fustian trousers, heavy boots, red plush jackets,
waistcoats with pearl buttons and fustian
sleeves, and gay silk handkerchiefs slung
loosely round their necks, we were looked
upon as unwarrantable intruders, until
received and conducted to our bounding bark
by the attentive manager. We threaded
our way between waggons, horses, cranes,
bales, and men, until we stood before the
black pool of water that ran up from the
basin under the company's buildings. Here
upon its inky bosom was the long thin form
of the fly-boat Stourport, commanded by
Captain Randle, in which it had been
arranged we should make our journey on the
canals as far as Birmingham, or even beyond
that town if we felt so disposed. The captain
and his crew, consisting of two men and a
youth, were prepared for our arrival, and
we found a good allowance of straw in the
hold, and a very light cargo of goods on
board—thanks to the vigilant care of the
manager. It was past midnight when we
took our places in the straw—my travelling
friend, whom I shall call Cuddy, myself, the
slender luggage, and the great meat pie—
and were poled out of the company's wharf
into the broad basin by two of Captain Randle's
boatmen, while the captain steered and
the third member of the crew went overland
with the horse to meet the Stourport on the
towing path of the Regent's Canal, at the
further side of the Islington Tunnel.

It will, perhaps, be proper at this point to
describe our craft, not that she appeared
anything but a shapeless mass by the slender
light of a cloudy night (the rain had ceased),
but our position and prospects will be
rendered clearer by anticipating the knowledge
that we gained in the morning.

The Stourport may be taken as a fair
specimen of the fly-boats which are now
employed in the carrying trade upon the canals
that intersect England in every direction,
joining each other, and covering a length of
nearly two thousand five hundred miles.
For the conveyance of heavy goods that do
not require a rapid transit, these boats still
maintain, and are always likely to maintain
their position, unaffected by railway
competition; and it has been demonstrated that
with the application of equal forces, canal
carriage will move at the rate of two and a
half miles an hour—(the average speed of
the fly-boats)—a weight nearly four times as
great as railway carriage, and more than
three times as great as turnpike-road
carriage. These fly-boats belong to various
individuals, firms, and companies scattered
throughout the country; the largest owners
being my worthy hosts, the Grand Junction
Canal Company, who, in addition to being
extensive canal proprietors, are also active
carriers.

The length of the Stourport from stem to
stern is about ten yards; its breadth eight
feet; and its depth nearly five feet. At
intervals, along the centre of the hold, are
upright poles and wedges, rising to a height of
full five feet above the side edge of the boat;
being a little higher in the middle than near
the stem and stern. Along the tops of these
poles are laid several planks which join each
other, forming a slightly bent bow over the
whole length of the hold. This framework
is covered with a thick black tarpaulin
passed over the horizontal planks, fastened
tightly near the edges of the boat, and kept
down by ropes, running across, at intervals,
like hoops, from one end to the other. An
open space is left, near the centre of the
hold, through which the boatmen descend
and ascend when any goods require landing.
Here it was, under cover of this gipsy-like
tent, that our ample bed of straw was spread.

At the extreme head of the boat, beyond
this timber and tarpaulin structure, is
a heart-shaped platform, large enough to
stand upon; and, like the boat generally,