Kitabı oku: «Rollo in London», sayfa 8

THE WRECK.

When driven thus upon a shore, the ship usually strikes at such a distance from it as to make it impossible for the passengers to reach the land. Nor can they long continue to live on board the ship; for, as she strikes the sand or rocks upon the bottom, the waves, which continue to roll in in tremendous surges from the offing, knock her over upon her side, break in upon her decks, and drench her completely in every part, above and below. Those of the passengers who attempt to remain below, or who from any cause cannot get up the stairways, are speedily drowned; while those who reach the deck are almost all soon washed off into the sea. Some lash themselves to the bulwarks or to the masts, and some climb into the rigging to get out of the way of the seas, if, indeed, any of the rigging remains standing; and then, at length, when the sea subsides a little, people put off in surf boats from the shore, to rescue them. In this way, usually, a considerable number are saved.

These and other dreadful dangers attend the companies of emigrants in their attempts to cross the wide and stormy Atlantic. Still the prospect for themselves and their children of living in peace and plenty in the new world prompts them to come every year in immense numbers. About eight hundred such shiploads as that which Rollo and Mr. George saw in the London Docks arrive in New York alone every year. This makes, on an average, about fifteen ships to arrive there every week. It is only a very small proportion indeed of the number that sail that are wrecked on the passage.

But to return to Mr. George and Rollo.

After remaining on board the emigrant ship until their curiosity was satisfied, our travellers went down the plank again to the quay, and continued their walk. The next thing that attracted Rollo's attention was a great crane, which stood on the quay, near a ship, a short distance before them.

"Ah!" said Rollo; "here is a great crane. Let us go and see what they are hoisting."

So Rollo hastened forward, Mr. George following him, until they came to the crane. Four workmen were employed at it, in turning the wheels by means of two great iron cranks. They were hoisting a very heavy block of white marble out of the vessel.

While Mr. George and Rollo were looking at the crane, a bell began to ring in a little steeple near by; and all the men in every part of the quay and in all the sheds and warehouses immediately stopped working, put on their jackets, and began walking away in throngs towards the gates.

"Ah!" said Mr. George, in a tone of disappointment, "we have got here at twelve o'clock. That was just what I wished to avoid."

"Yes," said Rollo; "they are all going home to dinner."

Rollo, however, soon found that all the men were not going home to dinner, for great numbers of them began to make preparations for dining in the yard. They began to establish themselves in little groups, three or four together, in nooks and corners, under the sheds, wherever they could find the most convenient arrangement of boxes and bales to serve for chairs and tables. When established in these places, they proceeded to open the stores which they had provided for their dinners, the said stores being contained in sundry baskets, pails, and cans, which had been concealed all the morning in various hiding-places among the piles of merchandise, and were now brought forth to furnish the owners with their midday meal.

One of these parties, Rollo found, had a very convenient way of getting ale to drink with their dinner. There was a row of barrels lying on the quay near where they had established themselves to dine; and two of the party went to one of these barrels, and, starting out the bung, they helped themselves to as much ale as they required. They got the ale out of the barrel by means of a long and narrow glass, with a string around the neck of it, and a very thick and heavy bottom. This glass they let down through the bunghole into the barrel, and then drew up the ale with it as you would draw up water with a bucket from a well.

Rollo amused himself as he walked along observing these various dinner parties, wondering, too, all the time, at the throngs of men that were pouring along through all the spaces and passage ways that led towards the gate.⁷

"I did not know that there were so many men at work here," said he.

"Yes," said Mr. George. "When business is brisk, there are about three thousand at work here."

"How did you know?" asked Rollo.

"I read it in the guide book," said Mr. George.

Here Mr. George took his guide book out of his pocket, and began to read from it, as he walked along, the following description:—

"'As you enter the dock, the sight of the forest of masts in the distance, and the tall chimneys vomiting clouds of black smoke, and the many-colored flags flying in the air, has a most peculiar effect; while the sheds, with the monster wheels arching through the roofs, look like the paddle boxes of huge steamers.'"

"Yes," said Rollo; "that is exactly the way it looks."

"'Along the quay,'" continued Mr. George, still reading, "'you see, now men with their faces blue with indigo; and now gaugers, with their long, brass-tipped rules dripping with spirit from the cask they have been probing; then will come a group of flaxen-haired sailors, chattering German; and next a black sailor, with a cotton handkerchief twisted turban-like around his head; presently a blue-smocked butcher, with fresh meat and a bunch of cabbages in a tray on his shoulder; and shortly afterwards a mate, with green paroquets in a wooden cage. Here you will see, sitting on a bench, a sorrowful-looking woman, with new, bright cooking tins at her feet, telling you she is an emigrant preparing for her voyage. As you pass along the quay the air is pungent with tobacco, or it overpowers you with the fumes of rum; then you are nearly sickened with the smell arising from heaps of hides and huge bins of horns; and shortly afterwards the atmosphere is fragrant with coffee and spice. Nearly every where you meet stacks of cork, or yellow bins of sulphur, or lead-colored copper ore.'"

"It is an excellent description," said Rollo, when Mr. George paused.

Mr. George resumed his reading as follows:—

"'As you enter this warehouse the flooring is sticky, as if it had been newly tarred, with the sugar that has leaked through the casks– '"

"We won't go there," said Rollo, interrupting.

"'And as you descend into these dark vaults,'" continued Mr. George, "'you see long lines of lights hanging from the black arches, and lamps flitting about midway.'"

"I should like to go there," said Rollo.

"'Here you sniff the fumes of the wine,'" continued Mr. George, "'and there the peculiar fungous smell of dry rot. Then the jumble of sounds, as you pass along the dock, blends in any thing but sweet concord. The sailors are singing boisterous Ethiopian songs from the Yankee ship just entering; the cooper is hammering at the casks on the quay; the chains of the cranes, loosed of their weight, rattle as they fly up again; the ropes splash in the water; some captain shouts his orders through his hands; a goat bleats from some ship in the basin; and empty casks roll along the stones with a hollow, drum-like sound. Here the heavy-laden ships are down far below the quay, and you descend to them by ladders; whilst in another basin they are high up out of the water, so that their green copper sheathing is almost level with the eye of the passenger; while above his head a long line of bow-sprits stretch far over the quay, and from them hang spars and planks as a gangway to each ship. This immense establishment is worked by from one to three thousand hands, according as the business is either brisk or slack.'"

Here Mr. George shut the book and put it in his pocket.

"It is a very excellent account of it altogether," said Rollo.

"I think so too," said Mr. George.

As our travellers walked slowly along after this, their attention was continually attracted to one object of interest after another, each of which, after leading to a brief conversation between them, gave way to the next. The talk was accordingly somewhat on this wise:—

"O uncle George!" said Rollo; "look at that monstrous pile of buck horns!"

"Yes," said Mr. George; "it is a monstrous pile indeed. They must be for knife handles."

"What a quantity of them!" said Rollo. "I should think that there would be knife handles enough in the pile for all creation. Where can they get so many horns?"

"I am sure I don't know," said Mr. George.

So they walked on.

Presently they came to an immense heap of bags of coffee. They knew that the bags contained coffee by the kernels that were spread about them all over the ground. Then they passed by long rows of barrels, which seemed to be filled with sugar. Mr. George walked by the side of the barrels, but Rollo jumped up and ran along on the top of them. Then came casks of tobacco, and next bars of iron and steel, and then some monstrous square logs of mahogany.

Mr. George and Rollo walked on in this manner for a quarter of a mile, and at length they came to one of the drawbridges. This drawbridge led over a passage way which formed a communication from one basin of the dock to another. It was a very long and slender bridge of iron, made to turn on a pivot at one end. There was some machinery connected with it to work it.

"I wish they would come and turn this drawbridge away," said Rollo. "I want to see how it works."

"Perhaps they will after dinner," said Mr. George.

"Let us sit down, then, here somewhere," said Rollo, "and wait."

So Mr. George and Rollo, after crossing the drawbridge, sat down upon some of the fixtures connected with the machinery of the bridge.

From the place where they sat they had a good view of the whole interior of the dock. They could see the shipping, the warehouses, the forests of masts, the piles of merchandise, and the innumerable flags and signals which were flying at the mast heads of the vessels.

"It is a wonderful place," said Rollo; "but I don't understand how they do the business here. Whom do all these goods belong to? and how do they sell them? We have not seen any body here that looks as if he was buying any thing."

"No," said Mr. George. "The merchants don't come here to buy the goods. They buy them by samples in the city. I will explain to you how they manage the business. The merchants who own ships send them to various parts of the world to buy what grows in the different countries and bring it here. We will take a particular case. Suppose it is coffee, for instance. The merchant never sees the coffee himself, perhaps. The captain or the supercargo reports to him how much there is, and he orders it to be stored in the warehouses here. Then he puts it into the hands of an agent to sell. His agent is called a broker. There are inspectors in the docks, whose business it is to examine the coffee and send specimens of it to the broker's office in the city. It is the same with all the other shiploads that come in. They are examined by inspectors, specimens are taken out and sent to the city, and the goods themselves are stored in the warehouses.

"Now, we will suppose a person wishes to buy some of these goods to make up a cargo. Perhaps it is a man who is going to send a ship to Africa after elephants' tusks, and he wants a great variety of goods to send there to pay the natives for them. He wants them in large quantities, too, enough to make a cargo. So he makes out a list of the articles that he wishes to send, and marks the quantities of each that he will require, and gives the list to the agent. This agent is a man who is well acquainted with the docks and the brokers, and knows where they keep the specimens. He buys the articles and sends them all on board the ship that is going to Africa, which is perhaps all this time lying close at hand in the docks, ready to receive them. As fast as the goods are delivered on board the African ship, the captain of it gives the agent a receipt for them, and the latter, when he has got all the receipts, sends them to the merchant; and so the merchant knows that the goods are all on board, without ever having seen any of them."

"And then he pays the agent, I suppose, for his trouble," said Rollo.

"Of course," said Mr. George; "but this is better than for him to attempt to do the business himself; for the agent is so familiar with the docks, and with every thing pertaining to them, that he can do it a great deal better than the merchant could, in half the time."

"Yes," said Rollo, "I should think he could."

"Then it makes the business very easy and pleasant for the merchant, I suppose," said Mr. George. "All that he requires is a small office and a few clerks. He sits down at his desk and considers where he will send his ship, when he has one ready for sea, and what cargo he will send in her; and then there is nothing for him to do about it but to make out an inventory of the articles and send it to the agent at the docks, and the business is all done very regularly for him.

"Only," continued Mr. George, "it is very necessary that he should know how to plan his voyages so as to make them come out well, with a good profit at the end, otherwise he will soon go to ruin."

Mr. George and Rollo sat near the drawbridge talking in this manner for about half an hour. Then the men began to return from their dinner; and very soon afterwards the quays, and slips, and warehouses were all alive again with business and bustle. They then rose and began rambling about here and there, to watch the various operations that were going on. They saw during this ramble a great many curious and wonderful things, too numerous to be specified here. They remained in the docks for more than two hours, and then went home by one of the little steamers on the river.

Chapter XVI.
The Tower and the Tunnel

The famous Tunnel under the Thames, and the still more famous Tower of London, are very near together, and strangers usually visit both on one and the same excursion.

The Tower, as has already been explained, was originally a sort of fortress, or castle, built on the bank of the river, below the city, to defend it from any enemy that might attempt to come up to it by ships from the sea. The space enclosed by the walls was very large; and as in modern times many new buildings and ranges of buildings have been erected within, with streets and courts between them, the place has now the appearance of being a little town enclosed by walls, and surrounded by a ditch with bridges, and standing in the midst of a large town.

Rollo and Mr. George passed over the ditch that surrounded the Tower by means of a drawbridge. Before they entered the gateway, however, they were conducted to a small building which stood near it, where they obtained a ticket to view the Tower, and where, also, they were required to leave their umbrella. This room was a sort of refreshment room; and as they were told that they must wait here a few minutes till a party was formed, they occupied the time by taking a luncheon. Their luncheon consisted of a ham and veal pie, and a good drink for each of ginger beer.

At length, several other people having come in, a portly-looking man, dressed in a very gay uniform, and wearing on his head a black velvet hat adorned with a sort of wreath made of blue and white ribbons, took them in charge to lead them about the Tower.

This man belonged to a body that is called the Yeomen of the Guard. The dress which he wore was their uniform. He wore various badges and decorations besides his uniform. One of them was a medal that was given to him in honor of his having been a soldier at the battle of Waterloo.

Under the charge of this guide, the party, which consisted now of eight or ten persons, began to make the tour. They passed through various little courts and streets, which were sometimes bordered by ranges of buildings, and sometimes by castellated walls, with sentinels on duty, marching slowly back and forth along the parapet.

At length their gay-looking guide led the party through a door which opened into a very long and narrow hall, on one side of which there was arranged a row of effigies of horses, splendidly caparisoned, and mounted with the figures of the kings of England upon them in polished armor of steel. The gay trappings of the horses, and the glittering splendor of the breast-plates, and greaves, and helmets, and swords of the men, gave to the whole spectacle a very splendid effect. The guide walked along slowly in front of this row of effigies, informing the party as he went along of the names of the various monarchs who were represented, and describing the kind of armor which they severally wore.

The armor, of course, varied very much in its character and fashion, according to the age in which the monarch who wore it lived; and it was very interesting, in walking down the hall, to see how military fashions had changed from century to century, as shown by the successive changes in the accoutrements which were observed in passing along the line of kings.

There were many suits of armor that were quite small, having been made for the English princes when they were boys. Rollo amused himself by imagining how he should look in one of these suits of armor, and he wished very much that he could have an opportunity of trying them on. In one place there was a battery of nine beautiful little cannons made of brass, each about two feet long, and just about large enough in caliber for a boy to fire. These cannons, which were all beautifully ornamented with bas reliefs on the outside, and were mounted on splendid little carriages, were presented to Charles II. when he was a boy; and I suppose that he and his playmates often fired them. There were a great many other strange and curious implements of war that have now gone wholly out of fashion. There were all kinds of matchlocks, and guns, and pistols, of the most uncouth and curious shapes; and shot of every kind—chain shot, and grape shot, and saw shot; and there were bows and arrows, and swords and halberds, and spears and cutlasses, and every other kind of weapon. These arms were arranged on the walls in magnificent great stars, or were stacked up in various ornamental forms about pillars or under arches; and they were so numerous that Rollo could not stop to look at half of them.

After this the yeoman of the guard led his party to a great many other curious places. He showed them the room where the crowns and sceptres of the English kings and queens, and all the great diamonds and jewels of state, were kept. These treasures were placed on a stand in an immense iron cage, so that people assembled in the room around the cage could look in and see the things, but they could not reach them to touch them.

They were also taken to see various prison rooms and dungeons where state prisoners were kept; and also blocks and axes, the implements by which several great prisoners celebrated in history had been beheaded. They saw in particular the block and the axe which were used at the execution of Anne Boleyn and of Lady Jane Grey; and all the party looked very earnestly at the marks which the edge of the axe had made in the wood when the blows were given.

The party walked about in the various buildings, and courts, and streets of the Tower for nearly two hours; and then, bidding the yeoman good by, they all went away.

"Now," said Rollo, as soon as they had got out of the gate, "which is the way to the Tunnel?"

The Tunnel is a subterranean passage under the Thames, made at a place where it was impossible to have a bridge, on account of the shipping. They expected, when they made the Tunnel, that it would be used a great deal by persons wishing to cross the river. But it is found, on trial, that almost every body who wishes to go across the river at that place prefers to go in a boat rather than go down into the Tunnel. The reason is, that the Tunnel is so far below the bed of the river that you have to go down a long series of flights of stairs before you get to the entrance to it; and then, after going across, you have to come up just as many stairs before you get into the street again. This is found to be so troublesome and fatiguing that almost every one who has occasion to go across the river prefers to cross it by a ferry boat on the surface of the water; and scarcely any one goes into the Tunnel except those who wish to visit it out of curiosity.

The stairs that lead down to the passage under the river wind around the sides of an immense well, or shaft, made at the entrance of it. When Mr. George and Rollo reached the bottom of these stairs they heard loud sounds of music, and saw a brilliant light at the entrance to the Tunnel. On going in, they saw that the Tunnel itself was double, as it consisted of two vaulted passage ways, with a row of piers and arches between them. One of these passage ways was closed up; the other was open, and was lighted brilliantly with gas all the way through. But what most attracted Rollo's attention was, that the spaces between the piers all along the Tunnel were occupied with little shops, each one having a man, a woman, or a child to attend it. As Mr. George and Rollo walked along, those people all asked them to stop and buy something at their shops. There were pictures of all kinds, and little boxes, and views of the Tunnel, with magnifying glasses to make them look real, and needle cases, and work boxes, and knickknacks of all kinds for people to buy and carry home as souvenirs, or to show to their friends and say that they bought them in the Tunnel.

SHOPPING IN THE TUNNEL.

Besides these things that were for sale, there were various objects of interest and curiosity, such as electric machines where people might take shocks, and scales where they might be weighed, and refreshment rooms that were formed in the passage way that was not used for travel; and in one place there was a little ball room arranged there, where a party might, if they chose, stop and have a dance.

Rollo and Mr. George walked through the Tunnel, and then came back again. As they came back, Rollo stopped at one of the shops and bought a pretty little round box, which he said would do for a wafer box, and would also serve as a souvenir of his visit to the place.

Mr. George and Rollo concluded, after ascending again to the light of day, that they would go home by water; so they went out to the end of a long floating pier, which was built, as it happened, exactly opposite the entrance to the Tunnel. They sat down on a bench by a little toll house there, to wait for a steamer going up the river.

"It must have been just about under here," said Rollo, "that I bought my little wafer box in the Tunnel."

"Yes," said Mr. George; "just about."

In a few minutes a steamer came along and took them in. She immediately set off again; and, after passing under all the London bridges and stopping on the way at various landings, she set them down at Hungerford stairs, and they went to their lodgings.

Mr. George and Rollo had various other adventures in London which there is not space to describe in this volume. Rollo did not, however, have time to visit all the places that he wished to see; for, before he had executed half the plans which he and his uncle George had projected, he received a sudden summons to set out, with his father, and mother, and Jennie, for Edinburgh.