Note Back to Main Text — Chapter VI
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The next day, the weather having become settled and fair, it was arranged that Margaret and her party should be conveyed from Porchester to Southampton along the shore in barges. The water of this passage is smooth, being sheltered every where by the land. The barges first moved down Portsmouth harbor, then out into what is called the Solent Sea, which is a narrow, sheltered, and beautiful sheet of water, lying between the Isle of Wight and the main land, and thence, entering Southampton Water, they passed up, a distance of eight or ten miles, to the town.[4]