No
doubt has carried as many daily for many months. And she can tow a
twenty-five ton water barge--which is also part of that man's business.
It was a boisterous day, half a gale of wind against the flood tide. Two
fellows managed her. A youngster of seventeen was cox (and a first-rate
cox he was too); a fellow in a torn blue jersey, not much older, of the
usual riverside type, looked after the engine. I spent an hour and a
half in her, running up and down and across that reach. She handled
perfectly. With eight or twelve oars out she could not have done
anything like as well. These two youngsters at my request kept her
stationary for ten minutes, with a touch of engine and helm now and then,
within three feet of a big, ugly mooring buoy over which the water broke
and the spray flew in sheets, and which would have holed her if she had
bumped against it. But she kept her position, it seemed to me, to an
inch, without apparently any trouble to these boys. You could not have
done it with oars. And her engine did not take up the space of three
men, even on the assumption that you would pack people as tight as
sardines in a box.
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