The river
continues very wide--no river indeed, but an estuary--during almost the
whole distance to Runcorn; and nearly at the end of our voyage we
approached some abrupt and prominent hills, which, many a time, I have
seen on my passages to Rock Ferry, looking blue and dim, and serving for
prophets of the weather; for when they can be distinctly seen adown the
river, it is a token of coming rain. We met many vessels, and passed
many which were beating up against the wind, and which keeled over, so
that their decks must have dipped,--schooners and vessels that come from
the Bridgewater Canal. We shipped a sea ourselves, which gave the
fore-deck passengers a wetting.
Before reaching Runcorn, we stopped to land some passengers at another
little port, where there was a pier and a lighthouse, and a church within
a few yards of the river-side,--a good many of the river-craft, too, in
dock, forming quite a crowd of masts. About ten minutes' further
steaming brought us to Runcorn, where were two or three tall
manufacturing chimneys, with a pennant of black smoke from each; two
vessels of considerable size on the stocks; a church or two; and a
meagre, uninteresting, shabby, brick-built town, rising from the edge of
the river, with irregular streets,--not village-like, but paved, and
looking like a dwarfed, stunted city. I wandered through it till I came
to a tall, high-pedestalled windmill on the outer verge, the vans of
which were going briskly round.
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