Page:The grand tour in the eighteenth century by Mead, William Edward.djvu/62

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL

 

pelled to take their turn at the oar. On arriving at Oberwinter, says he, "We solaced ourselves, after our tedious labour of rowing, as merrily as we could."^[1] This excellent form of exercise gradually ceased to be compulsory. For ascending the river horses were employed, as indeed they had been in Coryate's day. Cogan gives a view of Bonn with a vessel of two or three hundred tons drawn by three horses in single file going up the Rhine.^[2] For larger craft, when heavily loaded, the number of horses was increased to ten or even twenty.' In shallow places such vessels had to use lighters. Says Cogan,^[3] "When the water is low and the wind is against them, they are some months in making their passage."

With such cargo-boats the ordinary tourist^[4] had little to do, for he could find ample accommodation in vessels designed expressly for passenger traffic. "These are of various sizes, according to the number of passengers to be accommodated. Those most commonly in use have an oblong cabin built in the centre, that will contain tenor twelve persons very commodiously; between this and the helm are benches with a canvas stretched upon hoops by way of canopy, which forms a second compartment for a lower class of passengers. The boatman is attended with one or two servants. The passage is just as you make your agreement. … We hired our boat for thirteen shillings English, giving the man, however, permission to take in two or three other passengers that wished to go with him."^[5]

The swift current of the Rhine so aided the descent that the charge for going from Mainz to Cologne was much less than for going from Cologne to Mainz. Multitudes of craft simply floated downstream, aided a little, perhaps, by a sail and kept by the rudder or an occasional dip of the great sweeps from striking the shore or some other obstruction.

Transport on the Danube or the Elbe was much the same as on the Rhine, except that not infrequently the accommodations were more primitive. One traveler who went down

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1. Crudities, ii, 307.
2. Cogan, The Rhine, i, 11.
3. Ibid., i, 308.
4. "In the great boats, which are drawn by horses, the common rate (from Cologne to Mainz) is a crown a-piece, a little over or under; and if the passengers please, they may land at any town by the way, to dine or sup." Misson, New Voyage to Italy, i², 495
5. Cogan, The Rhine, ii, 275.