CHAPTER II.

_Towards the Pacific--Liverpool to Quebec._


Leaving Liverpool at noon of the 2nd September, 1886, warping out of
the dock into the river--a long process--we arrived, in the fine screw
steamer "Sardinian," of the Allan line, off Moville, at five on the
following morning; and we got out of the inlet at five in the
afternoon, after receiving mails and passengers. It may be asked, why a
delay of twelve hours at Moville? The answer is--the Bar at Liverpool.
The genius and pre-vision of the dock and harbour people at Liverpool
keep the entrance to that port in a disgraceful condition, year after
year--year after year. And the trade of Lancashire, Yorkshire,
Cheshire, and Derbyshire, is compelled to depend upon a sand-bar, over
which, at low tide, there is eight feet of water only. Such a big ship
as "The Sardinian" can cross the bar in two short periods, or twice in
the twenty-four hours, over a range, probably, of three or four hours.
On my return home I wrote the following letter about this bar to "The
Times":--


"THE BAR AT LIVERPOOL.

"SIR,--You inserted some time ago in 'The Times' a letter from
Professor Ramsay detailing the troubles arising to travellers from the
other side of the Atlantic, owing to shallow water outside the entrance
to Liverpool, and you enforced the necessity of some improvement, in a
very able article. Professor Ramsay was at that time returning from the
meeting of the British Association, held in the Dominion of Canada.