travel, we determined to make the voyage. The Witham flows through
Lincoln, crossing the main street under an arched bridge of Gothic
construction, a little below the Saracen's Head. It has more the
appearance of a canal than of a river, in its passage through the
town,--being bordered with hewn stone mason-work on each side, and
provided with one or two locks. The steamer proved to be small, dirty, and
altogether inconvenient. The early morning had been bright; but the sky
now lowered upon us with a sulky English temper, and we had not long put
off before we felt an ugly wind from the German Ocean blowing right in our
teeth. There were a number of passengers on board, country-people, such as
travel by third-class on the railway; for, I suppose, nobody but ourselves
ever dreamt of voyaging, by the steamer for the sake of what he might
happen upon in the way of river-scenery.

We bothered a good while about getting through a preliminary lock; nor,
when fairly under way, did we ever accomplish, I think, six miles an hour.
Constant delays were caused, moreover, by stopping to take up passengers
and freight,--not at regular landing-places, but anywhere along the green
banks. The scenery was identical with that of the railway, because the
latter runs along by the river-side through the whole distance, or nowhere
departs from it except to make a short cut across some sinuosity; so that
our only advantage lay in the drawling, snail-like slothfulness of our
progress, which allowed us time enough and to spare for the objects along
the shore. Unfortunately, there was nothing, or next to nothing, to be
seen,--the country being one unvaried level over the whole thirty miles of
our voyage,--not a hill in sight, either near or far, except that solitary
one on the summit of which we had left Lincoln Cathedral. And the
Cathedral was our landmark for four hours or more, and at last rather
faded out than was hidden by any intervening object.

It would have been a pleasantly lazy day enough, if the rough and bitter
wind had not blown directly in our faces, and chilled us through, in spite
of the sunshine that soon succeeded a sprinkle or two of rain. These
English east-winds, which prevail from February till June, are greater
nuisances than the east-wind of our own Atlantic coast, although they do
not bring mist and storm, as with us, but some of the sunniest weather
that England sees. Under their influence, the sky smiles and is villanou