I watch the traffic on the ferry. It could scarcely be called strenuous, nor even lively, for it consummates itself, at large and liberal intervals. So I find all the more pleasure in the scene when a man or a woman with a market-basket appears on the farther bank and demands to be carried across the river. For the poetic element in that fine call, “Ferry ahoy!” remains full of human captivation as in ancient days, even though the action fulfils itself, as here, in new and progressive forms. Double steps of wood for the coming and the departing traveller lead down the escarpment on both sides into the bed of the river and to the landing-places. And on both sides there is an electric button affixed to the rail. A man appears on the other bank, stands still and peers across the water. No longer, however, as in former times, does he hollow his hands into a trumpet and shout through them. He walks towards the push-button, stretches out his arms and performs a slight pressure with his thumb. There is a clear, thin tinkle in the house of the ferryman. This is the modern “Ferry ahoy!” and it is poetic even thus. There stands the prospective passenger and watches and waits. And almost at the very moment at which the bell tinkles, the ferryman comes out of his little house, just as though he had stood or sat behind the door, merely waiting for the signal. The ferryman, I repeat, comes out—and in his walk there is something which suggests that he has been set in motion directly by the pressure upon the push button—just as one may shoot at a door in a tiny hut among the targets in the shooting-galleries. If you chance to make a bull’s-eye, it flies open and a tiny figure comes out—say a milkmaid or a soldier.