nd
the prize wherry, which is rowed slowly about by a pair of sculls, is an
object of general interest.

Two o'clock strikes, and everybody looks anxiously in the direction of
the bridge through which the candidates for the prize will
come--half-past two, and the general attention which has been preserved
so long begins to flag, when suddenly a gun is heard, and a noise of
distant hurra'ing along each bank of the river--every head is bent
forward--the noise draws nearer and nearer--the boats which have been
waiting at the bridge start briskly up the river, and a well-manned
galley shoots through the arch, the sitters cheering on the boats behind
them, which are not yet visible.

'Here they are,' is the general cry--and through darts the first boat,
the men in her, stripped to the skin, and exerting every muscle to
preserve the advantage they have gained--four other boats follow close
astern; there are not two boats' length between them--the shouting is
tremendous, and the interest intense. 'Go on, Pink'--'Give it her,
Red'--'Sulliwin for ever'--'Bravo! George'--'Now, Tom,
now--now--now--why don't your partner stretch out?'--'Two pots to a pint
on Yellow,' &c., &c. Every little public-house fires its gun, and hoists
its flag; and the men who win the heat, come in, amidst a splashing and
shouting, and banging and confusion, which no one can imagine who has not
witnessed it, and of which any description would convey a very faint
idea.

One of the most amusing places we know is the steam-wharf of the London
Bridge, or St. Katharine's Dock Company, on a Saturday morning in summer,
when the Gravesend and Margate steamers are usually crowded to excess;
and as we have just taken a glance at the river above bridge, we hope our
readers will not object to accompany us on board a Gravesend packet.

Coaches are every moment setting down at the entrance to the wharf, and
the stare of bewildered astonishment with which the 'fares' resign
themselves and their luggage into the hands of the porters, who seize all
the packages at once as a matter of course, and run away with them,
heaven knows where, is laughable in the extreme. A Margate boat lies
alongside the wharf, the Gravesend boat (which starts first) lies
alongside that again; and as a temporary communication is formed between
the two, by means of a plank and hand-rail, the natural confusion of the
scene is by no means diminished.

'Gravesend?' inquires a stout father of