make a straight artificial outlet--the Victoria Channel--by means of
which vessels drawing twenty-three feet of water might reach the port
of Belfast. Before then, the course of the Lagan was tortuous and
difficult of navigation; but by the straight cut, which was completed
in 1846, and afterwards extended further seawards, ships of large
burden were enabled to reach the quays, which extend for about a mile
below Queen's Bridge, on both sides of the river.

It was a saying of honest William Dargan, that "when a thing is put
anyway right at all, it takes a vast deal of mismanagement to make it
go wrong." He had another curious saying about "the calf eating the
cow's belly," which, he said, was not right, "at all, at all." Belfast
illustrated his proverbial remarks. That the cutting of the Victoria
Channel was doing the "right thing" for Belfast, was clear, from the
constantly increasing traffic of the port. In course of time, several
extensive docks and tidal basins were added; while provision was made,
in laying out the reclaimed land at the entrance of the estuary, for
their future extension and enlargement. The town of Belfast was by
these means gradually placed in immediate connection by sea with the
principal western ports of England and Scotland,--steamships of large
burden now leaving it daily for Liverpool, Glasgow, Fleetwood, Barrow,
and Ardrossan. The ships entering the port of Belfast in 1883 were
7508, of 1,526,535 tonnage; they had been more than doubled in fifteen
years. The town has risen from nothing, to exhibit a Customs revenue,
in 1883, of 608,781L., infinitely greater than that of Leith, the port
of Edinburgh, or of Hull, the chief port of Yorkshire. The population
has also largely increased. When I visited Belfast in 1840, the town
contained 75,000 inhabitants. They are now over 225,006, or more than
trebled,--Belfast being the tenth town, in point of population, in the
United Kingdom.

The spirit and enterprise of the people are illustrated by the variety
of their occupations. They do not confine themselves to one branch of
business; but their energies overflow into nearly every department of
industry. Their linen manufacture is of world-wide fame; but much less
known are their more recent enterprises. The production of aerated
waters, for instance, is something extraordinary. In 1882 the
manufacturers shipped off 53,163 packages, and 24,263 cwts. of aerated
waters to England, Scotl