“To-day, about noon, we enjoyed a sight equally novel and entertaining, a pretty large vessel without a mast ascending the Rhine, and proceeding with astonishing rapidity, arrive before this city. All the vessels stationed on the Rhine in this neighbourhood were in a moment covered with spectators, to see the arrival of this vessel, which is a steamboat coming from London, and bound for Frankfort. Everybody was eager to view the progress, the motion, the organisation of this masterpiece of art. The vessel left Rotterdam on the 6th inst. The passengers affirm that it can go 25 leagues in a day.” The DUMBARTON CASTLE (Captain Thomson) was advertised to take passengers for a trip from Glasgow round Ailsa Craig on the 7th August, 1816. She was the first British steamboat (the THAMES excepted) to take passengers on a deep sea trip, and she was also the first steamer to sail round the North of Scotland, which she did in 1819, in consequence of being sold for employment between Leith and Grangemouth. The first serious accident to a Clyde steamboat of which there is any record, occurred in the early part of the year 1816. The new steam-packet ROTHESAY CASTLE, while entering the harbour of Tarbert on her return voyage from Inverary, struck on a reef of sunken rocks. All her passengers were rescued by fishing boats, which also landed the luggage. One of the fishing boats was also despatched to request the Master of the ARGYLE (which was to leave Inverary four hours later than the ROTHESAY CASTLE) to call at Tarbert. This was accordingly done and the shipwrecked passengers were taken on to Rothesay and Greenock the same evening. The steamer was subsequently got off the rocks and taken to Port Glasgow for repairs. It may interest citizens of Glasgow and dwellers on the coast to compare, by means of the following table, the steamship Passenger Fares of 1818 with those of the present day.