II.
If in crossing the Atlantic for the first time you choose Glasgow for your port of disembarkation, the sail up the Firth of the Clyde and the river is likely to be full of agreeable and memorable surprises. The beauties of that route are not advertised, and one hears so little of them in advance that they gain impressiveness from the absence of expectation. The Firth itself is like a great Fjord, a land-locked bay hollowed between hills and crags, among which vapory clouds are always shifting, and its deep salt waters are ploughed by fleets of vessels of every class, and especially by yachts, sea-going steamers, and the most rakish-looking excursion boats in the world; it is not unlike the Hudson above Peekskill, though much wider; the rounded hills have the same soft and civilized outlines, and the same appearance of reclamation for man’s use and delectation; modern villas crown their heights and watering-places cluster at their feet.
Just below Greenock the passage narrows, and above that we enter the river, which, though not beautiful, is more of a surprise than even the Firth. It meanders through fields, and from the towering deck upon which we stand we look down upon ploughmen at work, cattle grazing, and snug farm-houses. So narrow is the stream, and so low are the banks, that the big steamer seems curiously out of place. How, one asks, has Glasgow ever prospered with so small a river as its only outlet to the sea? We have thought of the Clyde as a wide and capacious stream like the Mersey opposite Birkenhead, or the Hudson opposite New York; but, instead, it is scarcely as wide as the East River at Brooklyn, and there are reaches where two large vessels have no room to spare in passing each other.
Such as it is, all sorts of dredging operations are necessary to keep it open, and it has been said to be as much an artificial channel as the Suez Canal.
The first steamboat to navigate it was the Comet, in 1812, and though she drew but four feet of water she could leave Glasgow only on the flood tide. Even then she sometimes ran aground, and her passengers had to wade or swim ashore, or wait twelve hours for the next tide. Its depth is ample now, however, and it is the breadth that astonishes us: it seems as though a venturesome jumper might easily spring from the deck to either bank. The farms are alternated by shipyards in which the hulls of ships in various stages of construction loom up, with ant-like specks of humanity swarming upon them. Some of them are nearly twice as long as the river is wide, and it puzzles the stranger to say how they can be launched, until someone, wiser than he is, tells him that they slide into the stream obliquely and thus overcome the difficulty. Nearly all the steamers that have earned fame in the Atlantic trade have been built and engined at one or the other of these ship-yards, from the first Cunarder to the City of Paris; the Cunard, Inman, Guion, and North German Lloyd lines have come to this little river for their ships. And as we approach Glasgow, burrowing into the dark that envelops the town, it becomes narrower still, and within the limits of the port is nothing more than a long canal with ships huddled together along the banks.
The Clyde is, in fact, like one of those heroic personages who triumph over natural disadvantages which to the common mind are insuperable, and its inferiority in depth and breadth has been counterbalanced by excellences in other directions. In the first place Glasgow is the natural outlet of a great mineral field, so that after iron and steel became the principal materials of the ship-builder, he could find them on the banks of the little river unburdened by the increased price asked for them when it has been necessary to carry them long distances. In the second place the Clyde was the scene of the earliest attempts at steam navigation in Great Britain, by Miller, Symington, and Bell, and descending from them the genius of ship-building has become hereditary with the inhabitants of the town. “Practice makes perfect,” and the ship-builders of Glasgow have more practice than any people of their craft in the kingdom. In 1886 forty-five vessels were built at London, measuring 3,696 tons; sixteen vessels at Liverpool, measuring 18,268 tons, and on the Tyne, fifty vessels, measuring 49,641 tons. On the Clyde, during the same period, one hundred and fifty-one vessels were built, measuring 135,659 tons—nearly double the work done by all the other ship-yards combined. Thus, when after various conclaves and the discussion of ways and means, the directors decide to put a new vessel on their line, the order is pretty sure to go to Glasgow.