Memorials of the lineage, early life, education and development of the genius of James Watt

222 MEMORIALS OF
and had no dread of falling overboard, were allowed to sit upon the
raised deck, placing their feet for security upon the before-mentioned
plank. The boats generally started from Greenock with a flowing
tide if possible. If the wind happened to be favourable, a passage of
four or five hours to Glasgow, was considered a very great achieve-
ment. If, however, wind and tide were adverse, which was frequently
enough the case, no little labour was required, with sails and oars, to
make any advance whatever ; and both passengers and crew, in such
untoward circumstances, were often right glad, on getting as far up
as Dunglass, to rest there for five or six hours till the next tide should
favour their further progress, — exchanging, meanwhile, their irksome
confinement for a ramble in the neighbouring woods, which in those
days were extensive, and, in their season, afforded excellent nutting.
Such, no farther back than even our younger days, were the accom-
modations and conveniences of the famous Fly-Boats, on that splendid
river whose surface is now skimmed by the hundred arrow-like and
flitting forms of our modern steamboat, vying, in point of luxury,
elegance, and comfort, with the arrangements of our costliest drawing-
rooms, and rivalled only in swiftness by the more favoured speed of
our railway trains.
Despicable as those antiquated remains of travelling unquestionably
were, the Fly-boats — so named from their superior swiftness — were
considered a great improvement upon the small " packet-boats" that
had been previously in use. One of their first projectors and owners
was one Andrew Rennie, " officially" the town-drummer of Greenock,
but a man of a busy and speculative mind, and possessed, withal, of
considerable tact and ingenuity. Dissatisfied with the actual attain-
ments, and conceiving that it was practicable, in some degree, to
improve upon both the construction and management of the boats,
Rennie proposed to his partners to have one built on a different model,
and to be propelled by wheels. The idea was scouted at as altogether