tage, where the customs officers perform their brief
formalities and quickly let the visitor go ashore over the fine floating
bridge into the city.

At Liverpool most American travellers begin their view of England. It is
the great city of ships and sailors and all that appertains to the sea,
and its 550,000 population are mainly employed in mercantile life and
the myriad trades that serve the ship or deal in its cargo, for fifteen
thousand to twenty thousand of the largest vessels of modern commerce
will enter the Liverpool docks in a year, and its merchants own
7,000,000 tonnage. Fronting these docks on the Liverpool side of the
Mersey is the great sea-wall, over five miles long, behind which are
enclosed 400 acres of water-surface in the various docks, that are
bordered by sixteen miles' length of quays. On the Birkenhead side of
the river there are ten miles of quays in the docks that extend for over
two miles along the bank. These docks, which are made necessary to
accommodate the enormous commerce, have cost over $50,000,000, and are
the crowning glory of Liverpool. They are filled with the ships of all
nations, and huge storehouses line the quays, containing products from
all parts of the globe, yet chiefly the grain and cotton, provisions,
tobacco, and lumber of America. Railways run along the inner border of
the docks on a street between them and the town, and along their tracks
horses draw the freight-cars, while double-decked passenger-cars also
run upon them with broad wheels fitting the rails, yet capable of being
run off whenever the driver wishes to get ahead of the slowly-moving
freight-cars. Ordinary wagons move upon Strand street alongside, with
horses of the largest size drawing them, the huge growth of the
Liverpool horses being commensurate with the immense trucks and vans to
which these magnificent animals are harnessed.

Liverpool is of great antiquity, but in the time of William the
Conqueror was only a fishing-village. Liverpool Castle, long since
demolished, was a fortress eight hundred years ago, and afterward the
rival families of Molineux and Stanley contended for the mastery of the
place. It was a town of slow growth, however, and did not attain full
civic dignity till the time of Charles I. It was within two hundred
years that it became a seaport of any note. The first dock was opened in
1699, and strangely enough it was the African slave-trade that gave the
Liverpool merchants their orig