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Before steam navigation was introduced, packet ships sailed between Leith and London carrying both passengers and goods. But as the time taken on the journey depended on winds and waves, these vessels supplied a somewhat uncertain and even risky mode of transit. Thus in November, 1743, an Edinburgh newspaper announced that the Edinburgh and Glasgow packet from London, ‘after having great stress of weather for twenty days, has lately arrived safe at Holy Island and is soon expected in Leith harbour.’

STEAMBOATS TO LONDON

The first steamboats that plied between Leith and London were much smaller in size and more primitive in their appointments than their successors of to-day. Mineral oil had not come into use, and animal and vegetable oils were dear. Hence the saloons and cabins were lighted with candles, and, as wicks that require no snuffing were not then in vogue, it may be imagined that the illumination could not be brilliant, and that candle grease was apt to descend in frequent drops upon whatever happened to lie below. The Rev. Dr. Lindsay Alexander used to tell that when he once accompanied a brother clergyman in the steamboat to London, they were unable to obtain berths in any of the state-rooms, and had to content themselves each with a sofa in the saloon. In the middle of the night he was awakened by a groaning which seemed to come from the sofa of his elderly friend. Starting up, he enquired if the doctor was in pain. The answer came in a shaky voice: ‘I’m afraid—I’ve had—a stroke—of paralysis.’ In an instant the younger man was out of bed, calling for a light, as the candles had all burnt themselves into their sockets. When the light came, the reverend gentleman was seen to have been lying immediately below the drip of a guttering candle, and the drops of tallow, falling on his cheek, had congealed there into a cake that had gradually spread up to his eye. As he could not move the muscles of his face, the poor man’s imagination had transferred the powerlessness to the rest of his side. With the help of the steward, however, the hardened grease was scraped off, and the doctor, recovering the use of his facial muscles, was able once more to drop off to sleep.