Ferry

“ Then there lay stretched out before us, to the right, confused heaps of buildings, with here and there a spire or steeple, looking down upon the herd below; and here and there, again, a cloud of lazy smoke; and in the foreground a forest of ships’ masts, cheery with flapping sails and waving flags. Crossing from among them to the opposite shore, were steam ferry-boats laden with people, coaches, horses, waggons, baskets, boxes: crossed and recrossed by other ferry-boats: all travelling to and fro: and never idle. ”

“ CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY.
1.Flood-tide below me! I watch you, face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I
see you also face to face.
2.Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes!
how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that
cross, returning home, are more curious to me
than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years
hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations,
than you might suppose. ”

“ We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry ”

“ How swiftly the ferry-boat ploughs through the wave! How gleefully that little child claps its tiny hands, as the snowy foam parts on either side, then dashes away like a thing of life. Here are weary business men, going back to their quiet homes ”

“ Get up and look!" he called. "The Ferry! The Ferry!"
Then he bent his brawny back over the steering-oar, and the clumsy craft slowly turned toward the left-hand shore, where a long, low bank of green willows and cottonwoods gave welcome relief to the eyes. ”

“ By-and-by the steam ferry-boat arrives, bells ring, and the living stream pours and crushes down a covered path, which, stopping suddenly, leaves some thirty or forty paces of open platform, upon which the sun and rain beat uninterruptedly, inconveniencing children, delicate women, old age, invalids, and what not. ”

“ The ferry-boat wheezed and coughed and sidled across the river to a floating wharf, covered, as usual, with that portion of the population, white and black, which has no interest in the arrival of trains, or anything else, excepting meals at the time for them, but which manages to live somehow by looking at other people working. ”

“ At this school one can study to be a doctor, dentist, farmer, a lawyer, or an engineer. I like to cross the harbor on the ferry, to dodge in and out among the ships, see the gulls dart among the waves, smell the sharp tang of salty air, and to feel the rocking motion of the boat. ”

“ No young poet need wish for a finer subject to try his hand on than this beautiful half holy old legend of the Ferryman’s Daughter, who, day after day, winter and summer, was seen with her quaint old-fashioned Saxon boat, ready to row passengers from the Borough to the City, and back again to the landing-place, where the Ferry-house had stood centuries before a bridge united the two shores. ”

“ His goods were brought on a pack-horse, and his ferry was a row boat. To-day a thriving, beautiful city takes the place of the log cabin; children sport where once the treacherous Indian sought the life of the hardy frontiersman; the river is spanned by wonderful bridges; and a hundred railroad trains pass through its streets in the course of twenty-four hours. ”

“ Avoiding the public ferry where a continuous stream of passengers crossed the river on boats whose prows were shaped like the head of a horse or a lion or an elephant, they went to a small ferry, which was less frequented, and crossing over on a raft they reached the southern bank of the river. ”

“ In that sense 'a ferry is a continuation of the highway from one side of the water over which it passes to the other, and is for transportation of passengers or of travelers with their teams and vehicles and such other property as they may carry or have with them.' New York v. ”

“ The ferry makes itself felt long before one gets there. There is a sort of undertow in the city tides far up from the river-front. There is a greater tangle of travel as you approach the streets leading to the ferry. There is a perceptible assimilation of trade to the supposed demands of householders living out of town. ”

“ The large ferry steamers plying constantly between the city and the Regla shore, the fleet of little sailing boats, foreign yachts, and rowboats, glancing in the burning sunlight, create a scene of great maritime interest. ”

“ I have sometimes sat in this ferry-boat for a couple of hours together, pleased to remain still, and enjoy, without exertion, the cool air, the sparkling redundant waters, and green islands:—amused, meantime, by the variety and conversation of the passengers, English emigrants, and French Canadians; brisk Americans; dark, sad-looking Indians folded in their blankets; farmers, storekeepers, speculators in wheat; artisans; trim girls with black eyes and short petticoats, speaking a Norman patois, and bringing baskets of fruit to the Detroit market ”

“ Innumerable small rivers have to be crossed in ferry-boats, which help to break the monotony of the journey. Reading is next to impossible on Russian roads, and the art of sleeping—when there is nothing better to do—is a most valuable accomplishment to the traveller. We had attained considerable proficiency in this, and I have been ferried across a river amid the hubbub of taking out and putting in horses, and rolling the carriage into and out of the ferry-boat, without suffering any interruption of a profound slumber. ”

“ I have described to you the proceedings of celestials; but we mortals have a commonplace way of doing up these little matters, far more interesting to us to my fancy. A ferry crossed—a short trip in the cars, and we are landed in the centre of a charming neighboring city. A bright sky and balmy air give vivacity, and life, and joy to all. ”

“ Quite as likely, however, it is somebody who is too early,—because he really belongs to the next boat, and not to the one which is just leaving the dock as he tears into the ferry-house.
There is a good deal of condensed life and human nature to be found at a ferry by one who himself is in no hurry to cross. Take your stand just where you can see up the street and at the same time can command the whole interior. ”

“ Ferry is a term of the law, perfectly defined, and a grant of 'the ferry,' 'that ferry,' has the same effect as a grant of 'that land,' 'those lands,' by which nothing else can pass but those which are referred to in words of description, by metes, bounds or occupation. ”

“ The tourists are ferried over, as also are the donkeys on which the tourists ride. Now here arose a great financial question. The reis or master of the ferry-boat to which the clerical guide applied was a mighty man, some six feet high, graced with a turban, as Arabs are; erect in his bearing, with bold eye, and fine, free, supple limbs—a noble reis for that Nile ferry-boat. ”

“ This ferry boat connects with a steamer on the canal, which goes to the Helder, and also with various trekschuyts. We shall take a trekschuyt to go for a short distance?—as far as to the place where we shall get a carriage. ”

“ The passport returned and the flying bridge arrived, we led our horses on board, during which operation Fanny in gratitude pulled me off the plank into a foot and a half of water. The ferry-boat, unlike the last, was a barge, and had barriers; and during the crossing, which occupied three quarters of an hour, a stone-deaf man beat the flies off, and a blind one played the violin, and sang far from badly. They are friends, and find companionship convenient, each supplying to the other the sense wanting. ”

“ After riding some time, they came to a ferry,—a place for crossing the Androscoggin River; and papa drove through a pleasant field down to the bank of the river. Here they saw a man cutting grass, and asked him about the ferry-boat. ”

“ There is no reason why a ferry should not be kept here at a reasonable rate, for ferriage. On the high bluffs, on the south side of the river, is plenty of excellent pine, & cedar timber, as the gunwales of their boats show, for they said they got them there, & provisions for a few men, could be had at a reasonable rate, of the emigrant. ”

“ The ferry is terrific. I’m going to come ride ferries every day it’s windy. The boat doesn’t roll any, but we stand right up in front and the wind blows clouds of spray in our faces. You can pretend you’re on a full-rigged schooner running before a hurricane. ”

“ My first thought was that the ferry-boat was on the other side; then I perceived a small motor-propelled skiff moored beside the quay, and one of the two men in it asked me if we were looking for the ferry, and I said yes, and he said that that was it. [473]
So we clambered down into the boat and started off; and I scarcely think that that trip paid, for we were the only passengers, and the river is wide, and gasolene is expensive, and somebody had to pay the men their wages—and the fare is only a penny.
The part of the town which lies east of the river is industrial and unattractive. ”

“ Where such obstacles are common, a primitive sort of ferry-boat is made by covering a large circular bamboo basket with raw ox-hide. In one of these a dozen persons may embark, and be ferried across with safety by means of a rope stretched from bank to bank. ”

“ Crossing the river by ferry boat a long stretch of beach is reached, but the firm white sand will be found to have given place to loose gravelly shingle, along which no great speed can be made by the pedestrian, and yet, as he will learn from the ferryman, it will be needful to put his best foot forward. ”

“ After a journey of thirty miles our further course was stopped by a wide river, with low wooded hills and promontories, but there was no ferry-boat, so, putting up our horse in a settler's barn, we sat on the beach till a cranky, leaky boat, covered with fish-scales, was with some difficulty launched, and a man took us across the beautiful stream. ”

“ A chieftain to the Highlands bound,
Cries, “Boatman, do not tarry!
And I’ll give thee a silver pound,
To row us o’er the ferry.” ”

“ The ocean, traversed in these ships, is a smooth highway—nothing but a ferry—and a week spent upon it has become perhaps the most enjoyable and the most healthful of holiday excursions, provided the prudent excursionist has left behind positive instructions that wireless telegrams shall not follow. ”

“ If a ferry is erected on a river, so near another antient ferry as to draw away it’s custom, it is a nusance to the owner of the old one. For where there is a ferry by prescription, the owner is bound to keep it always in repair and readiness, for the ease of all the king’s subjects ”

“ About a couple of hundred yards wide, it was navigated by a ferry-boat of unknown antiquity pulled across the river by a cable wound round a drum. Every man, woman, and child, and every vehicle that crosses America by the Pike's Peak Highway, swells the funds of the man who owns that ferry-boat. ”

“ There is no sight more uninspiring than a ferry-boat crowded with human beings at a quarter of six o’clock in the evening, when the great homeward rush from the offices and commercial houses sets in. At that time, although there are some returning shoppers and women type-writers and clerks, the larger number of the passengers are men, sitting in slanting rows to catch the light on the evening paper, or wedged in an upright mass at the forward end of the boat. ”

“ But a ferry could never go to sea. She is built very broad, with very little of her under the water and a great deal above. Big ocean waves would tip her over.
Men have used ferries from the earliest times. Hundreds and even thousands of years ago people and animals were ferried across rivers on rafts. Even today there are raft-like ferries which men guide across our rivers by steel cables.
Train ferries take loaded freight cars across harbors where there are no railroad{80} bridges. In some harbors, the cars travel on flat-bottomed barges which tugboats shove along. ”

“ All that the ferryman knows of the true purposes of a river he gains from observation of others, who gaily pass him, pulling with the stream or against it, and singing, perhaps, as they row. Did a ferryman ever sing? ”

“ A large ferry, for the use of vehicles as well as passengers, from one bank to the other, enabled the little caravan to cross the stream with its full complement of men and cattle, but at the cost of a rather heavy toll. ”

“ To cross a river is in itself nothing; but to come, from somewhere unknown, to the bank of the river, cross it, and pass on to unknown bournes on the other side—that is an enterprise, and that is what every one but the ferryman is doing. I have written elsewhere—it is a recurring theme of sympathy—of the servants of the traveller who live by helping him on his eventful way but never participate in any wanderings—railway porters, for example—and the ferryman is perhaps chief, because so much of the very matter of romance—a running stream—comes into his daily routine. ”

“ And tho' the Ferry is over an Arm of the Sea, very broad, and sometimes very rough, those fair Ferriers manage themselves with that Dexterity, that the Passage is very little dangerous, and in calm Weather, very pleasant. In short, we made choice of those that best pleased us; who in a grateful Return, led us down to their Boat under a sort of Music, which they, walking along, made with their Oars, and which we all thought far from being disagreeable. Thus were we transported over to Port Passage ”