of approach to the most important seaport of either continent. The Northwest Light-ship is the first point marking the nearer approach; then the great Bell Buoy on the bar clangs its warning as it rocks and rolls; then Formby and Crosby Light-ships are passed; at the right the Rock-Light at New Brighton, nearly opposite the city, closes the list; and the passenger is within view of the forest of masts and the wonderful long line of docks, showing on the left and revealing the great port and city of Liverpool.

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It may be proper to say, here, and plying to other places as well as this proach to the port should never be lost, there is daylight in which to catch it. it, in the anxiety to look after baggage, change clothing, etc., but this should never be done. Baggage should have been looked after, if at hand, before; that in the hold can be looked after as it comes up, when the ship is at anchor; and there is no occasion whatever of coming out in "full fig” in the way of costume, until reaching the hotel and washing off the grime of the voyage.

Once more travellers who desire both to learn and enjoy, should never permit themselves to lose the first approach to any new coast or any great port, even if a little broken rest and discomfort should be found necessary to secure it. In no other way can the general situation and bearings be so well attained, and to miss the opportunity once may be to miss it finally.

UP THE BRITISH CHANNEL TO SOUTHAMPTON OR LONDON.

The Irish coast is not made at all on the voyage to London or Southampton. The first point sighted, if no error occurs in calculation, will be found the Scilly Rocks-small islands, with the light on St. Agnes, the largest of them, a little south of the Land's End (Cornwall) the extreme southwestern point of England—at all times a dangerous point, and painfully famous in history as the spot where the whole fleet of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, the English admiral, was ground to pieces and all hands perished, in the terrible gale of November 26, 1703, said to be the heaviest ever known in England, destroying the Eddystone Lighthouse, burying the Bishop of Bath and Wells under the ruins of his palace, wrecking and drowning eight thousand sailors, blowing down seventeen thousand trees in Kent alone, and eliciting a description from Defoe, the author of "Robinson Crusoe."

The next point, some three hours later, is the appearance at the left of the high bluff and light of the Lizard Head (commonly spoken of as the "Lizard") the first glimpse of the main land of Great Britain. In some two or two-and-a-half hours after, if the weather be particularly fine, a distant glimpse may be caught, far away to the left, of either the tower or light of Eddystone Lighthouse, perhaps the most noted erection of its class in the world-standing on a single rock, miles from the shore, dashed against by the sea in every storm, two or three times carried away and rebuilt, and one of the best existing proofs

of man's power and determination in fighting wind and wave. The next light and land mark are those of the Start Point, reached within the next one-anda-half hours; and the next and far more important, is the Bill of Portiand, (so named from its resemblance to the bill of a bird) about forty miles beyond, and stretching out from below Dorchester and Weymouth.

From this point, if on the way to Southampton, land is scarcely lost again, as very soon comes St. Albans Head, at the other or eastern extremity of Weymouth Bay,-of which, and most of the other points made on the way up-Channel, it is almost needless to say, to those at all acquainted with geography, that the prevailing character of the coast is bold, rough and rocky, with chalk (giving name to the "white cliffs of Albion") commencing to show freely and never losing that appearance until the mouth of the Thames is really entered. Not long after leaving St. Albans Head, the appropriatelynamed Needles and their light are made on the west point or head of the turtle-shaped Isle of Wight, forming the south lip of the sound between Wight and the main, called the Solent. Up the Solent, then, with the beautiful wooded and villa-studded island on the right and the main land on the left, and sheering sharp to the left or north-and-by-west when off Cowes and its roads, (the right flipper of the turtle) catching a distant glimpse of Portsmouth, Gosport and the great naval station of Spithead, at the rightnot much of additional interest remains, except the first shore-views of fertile Old England, until the

twenty or thirty miles of Southampton-water are measured, and all the aspects before noted in the approach to Liverpool are more or less duplicated in nearing Southampton, a great seaport in and of itself, and still greater as supplying a cross-country and railway port to London.

If the destination is London instead of Southampton, all the points before named are made, up to Portland Bill and possibly St. Albans Head, after which the next, instead of the Needles, on the west, is St. Catherine's, on the extreme south point of the Isle of Wight (the left flipper of the turtle as Cowes was the right).

There is a long stretch of Channel running between St. Catherine's and the next point made on the London route-Beachy Head, twenty or thirty miles beyond Brighton, and famous for the allusions to its height made by the British sailors in the old nautical romances, who had a habit of speaking of anything extra large as "looming like Beachy Head in a fog." The chalk cliffs have now assumed such height and prominence that the whole coast, whenever seen, seems to be entirely white and perpendicular, though there is really an increase in their height until past Dover. The next prominent point after Beachy Head, is Dungeness; and very soon after passing this head, first Folkestone and then Dover may be seen at a distance, while to the right the French coast breaks into view, lower than the English though something like it in boldness and chalky character.

The South Foreland is made and passed at near Dover, aud the Channel then becomes the Downs

those waters commemorated in the old song of "Black-Eyed Susan:"

"All in the Downs the fleet was moored,

Their streamers waving in the wind," &c.

After Dover, Deal, Ramsgate (celebrated as the greatest of all summer-bathing-places of the middle classes); then the North Foreland and those Goodwin Sands on which so many ships have been wrecked and so much of life and property lost in the terrible quick sands. Rounding the North Foreland, comes Margate, the rival of Ramsgate in summerbathing and boarding; and at this point the Channel, or Downs, becomes the Nore, actually the broad mouth of the Thames, though many miles are yet to be traversed before the Thames proper is entered and the ascent commenced at Sheerness, by the great Chatham Dockyards, Gravesend, Deptford, Woolwich, &c.,-points which may properly be said to belong to London proper and its environs, and consequently out of the province of this paper.

Nearly all the steamers bound from America for Glasgow, direct, now-a-days, take the course known as the "North About"-pass around the north of Ireland instead of making it at the south end and passing up through the Irish Channel. Their port of call, in Ireland, is Moville, the port of Londonderry, in the entreme north; and the points made and the courses pursued are briefly as follows, before and after touching at Moville: