Long Wharf

“ Iron in bars landing from a vessel, and the weigher's scales standing conveniently. To stand on the elevated deck or rail of a ship, and look up the wharf, you see the whole space of it thronged with trucks and carts, removing the cargoes of vessels, or taking commodities to and from stores. Long Wharf is devoted to ponderous, evil-smelling, inelegant necessaries of life—such as salt, salt-fish, oil, iron, molasses, etc.
Near the head of Long Wharf there is an old sloop, which has been converted into a store for the sale of wooden ware, made at Hingham. ”

“ I did not omit a ramble among the wharves, but saw little that would interest the reader. When you are there, the proper thing to do is to take a boat and cross the bay to Clark's Island and Duxbury. We sailed over the submerged piles at the end of Long Wharf; for the pier, once the pride of Plymouth, was fast going to wreck. The tops of the piles, covered with sea-weed kept in motion by the waves, bore an unpleasant resemblance to drowned human heads bobbing up and down. ”

“ Even better known than Captain Brooks is the keeper of Lime Rock light in Newport harbor. Should you chance to be in Newport on some pleasant summer afternoon, walk out on the long wharf that runs from the mainland into the west side of the harbor, and [Pg 218] when you have reached its end, wave your handkerchief toward the lighthouse opposite. Soon a woman will appear in the door of the tall gray tower, and running down to the boat moored to the stone wall, step into it, take the oars, and with graceful yet powerful strokes, pull rapidly toward the wharf. ”

“ Next (?) came the fort on George's Island. These are bungling contrivances: not our fortes, but our foibles. Wolfe sailed by the strongest fort in North America in the dark, and took it.
I admired the skill with which the vessel was at last brought to her place in the dock, near the end of Long Wharf. It was candle-light, and my eyes could not distinguish the wharves jutting out toward us, but it appeared like an even line of shore densely crowded with shipping. You could not have guessed within a quarter of a mile of Long Wharf. ”

“ A little later a slight noise overhead caused me to strain my eyes upwards, and I perceived gradually to emerge out of the night a long chain, rattling weakly as it dropped, and carrying a massive burden. It fell into the hold of the barge, whence I heard noises of the man at work. The bold ruffians were pillaging the wharf under the very noses of the river-police. I now had time to devote some thoughts to myself. The barge lay close to the wharf, and it was probable that I might drop into the water without attracting notice ”

“ At the end of the wharf is a long English steamboat unloading railroad iron, which will return to the Clyde full of Nova Scotia coal. We sit down on the dock, where the fresh sea-breeze comes up the harbor, watch the lazily swinging crane on the vessel, and meditate upon the greatness of England and the peacefulness of the drowsy after noon. One's feeling of rest is never complete—unless he can see somebody else at work,—but the labor must be without haste, as it is in the Provinces. ”

“ In the very midst of wharf traffic was a small and flashing garden gay with cannas and dahlias, a garden kept with care and tenderness. It had an air of having strayed in by mistake; one expected to see the wife of one of the old whalers' weeding it.
I suppose it has been the dream of everyone who cares for things of the sea to take a long voyage on a sailing-vessel. Most of us on the New England coast have had our minds stored when we were young with tales of such voyages. ”

“ This gave me a good opportunity of comparing the San Francisco of 1852 with that of 1853. As before stated, there had been but one wharf in front of the city in 1852—Long Wharf. In 1853 the town had grown out into the bay beyond what was the end of this wharf when I first saw it. Streets and houses had been built out on piles where the year before the largest vessels visiting the port lay at anchor or tied to the wharf. There was no filling under the streets or houses. San Francisco presented the same general appearance as the year before; ”

“ The long wharf at Point à Pic is a bustling centre when steamboats are coming in or going out. Rows of carriages are backed in compact lines as far as the eye can see. It is almost equally lively at night, and presents a gay sight with its strings of electric light and clusters of summer people congregating on the wharf to meet the coming and speed departing friends. Everyone comes to see the boats arrive and depart. Furniture, cots, etc., are being unloaded rapidly, and there, as a box is passed ashore the strong electric light shows it is addressed to—Cabot ”

“ And, looking down at the bay and following the direction of the stubby pointing finger, Ellery saw a little schooner, with her sails lowered, lying, slightly on her side, in a shallow pool near a long ridge of piled stones—the breakwater. A small wharf made out from the shore and black figures moved briskly upon it. Carts were alongside the schooner and there more dots were busy.
“Eben's pennant's flyin',” said Captain Zeb. “He always sets colors when the packet's in. Keeps packet tavern, Eben does. That's it, that old-fashioned, gambrel-roofed house on the rise by the wharf. ”

“ On deck the crew was at work about the long boat, and over the port rail, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, I could see our house, with a light burning in the window, flickering through the waving branches of the elms that half hid it. Nearer lay our wharf, a black, silent shadow. My father watched without a word. The anchor chain growled out a sharp complaint, and the anchor splashed into the tide.
"Mr. Aiken," said my father, "give orders to get under way in half an hour. When we land, the men will wait at the wharf, and be ready to enter the house when you call them. ”

“ And the wharf is slowly falling down, for it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown up with weeds and grass.
Once, in the long ago, the brig Industry had sailed away from the wharf and out into the great ocean on a voyage to India. And she had been gone from the wide river three or four days, and she was well out into the ocean and no land was in sight, but only water and once in a while another ship. ”

“ Wharves were constructed, at favourable points, inside the prong, and occasionally a sloop was seen at them loading its truck, or discharging its ashes or street manure, the latter being a very common return cargo for a Long Island coaster. At one wharf, however, now lay a vessel of a different mould, and one which, though of no great size, was manifastly intended to go outside. ”

“ Allan was likewise Inspector of Flour, Pot and Pearl Ash; and Inspector of Shop, Still and Tavern Duties. In an early, limited condition of society, a man of more than the ordinary aptitude for affairs is required to act in many capacities.
The Merchants' Wharf was the earliest landing-place for the larger craft of the lake. At a later period other wharves or long wooden jetties, extending out into deep water, one of them named the Farmers' Wharf, were built westward. In the shoal water between the several wharves, for a long period, there was annually a dense crop of rushes or flags. ”

“ What if Dudley meant to give them both the slip, and to go off to the wharf by himself, after all?
Carrie's eyes met his; perhaps she guessed what was passing in his mind.
"Oh, yes, he is sure to be longer than that," said she at once; and, putting her cape down again, she took the chair Max had placed for her, while he sat in the opposite one.
"It's beautiful to be warm!" cried she, softly, as she held out her hands to the blaze which Max had made.
Then there was a long pause. Max had so much to say to her that he didn't know where to begin. ”

“ Up he jumps, one leap, swings his long legs over the rail, and there he is on board. They pass up his swell dunnage, and he puts his hand in his trousers pocket and throws all his small change on the wharf for them chaps to pick up. They were still promenading that wharf on all fours when we cast off. ”

“ As they come down upon the wharf, they separate into messes or gangs of ten, twenty, or thirty each, and, being recognized through some (to us) incomprehensible free-masonry system of signs by the agents of the "Six Companies" as they come, are assigned places on the long, broad-shedded wharf which has been cleared especially for their accommodation and the convenience of the customs officers. Each man carries on his shoulders, or in his hands, his entire earthly possessions, and few are overloaded. There are no merchants or business men among them, all being of the coolie or laboring class. ”

“ In the still dawn the arms of the harbour were like gold bars encircling a sapphire, and in the distance we could see the little towns along the sea-board shining rosily from their misty hills. Sometimes the bay was sown with boats, like azure embroidery with butterflies, and sometimes below the windows the cargo of a felucca with gold and bronze sails was being unloaded on the wharf. The sailors were clad in white and blue, or stripped to the waist, with scarlet sashes girding up their short white drawers. How Brangwyn could have caught that vivid colour against the pearly dawn! ”

“ I did not like the thought of groping in that water, waist deep (it might be) in the mudbanks, with no certainty of finding firm ground. The pictures of the mud flats at low tide, as I remembered them, rose in my fancy, and made me shudder. I dismissed the thought, and looked up at the wharf again. By this time the chain had descended two or three times, and each time the man in the barge had relieved it of its load; and now it swung idly, waiting to be hauled up by those above, not more than an arm's length from the edge of the cuddy-hole. ”

“ Down the slope we went; along towards the harbour, through a score of deserted lanes where nothing was to be heard but the roar of rain and the lapping of men and beasts, drinking in the shadows as though they never would stop, and so we came at last unmolested to the wharf. There I hid royal Seth between two piles of merchandise, and went to look for a boat suitable to our needs. ”

“ A short distance to the north of the wharf there is a fine stretch of clean sand, backed by rocks and turf. There are generally low piles of newly-sawn lumber, stacked up near the wharf end of this beach, where children may have jolly times playing ‘hide-and-seek,’ or climbing and building houses on the shore from drift-wood, ‘ends’ and cuttings. A walk of but half a mile leads to the attractive little stream that here falls into the St. Lawrence, and meets real waves as it plunges into its seaward goal. ”

“ A light flashed for a moment between the cracks of the door upon the lowest storey of the wharf. It vanished the next instant, but it set me wondering. I crawled stealthily from the cabin and looked about me. In the body of the barge was a man's figure, which I set down as my jailer, but of the others there was no sign. Were they in the wharf? And if so, what was afoot? Even as the question was framed in my mind it was answered. There could be no doubt upon what these furtive night-hawks were bent: it could be nothing but robbery. ”

“ But the illusion of the seasons is just as coquettish; and when next summer comes to us, with its blossoms and its joys, it will dawn as softly out of the darkness and as softly give place to winter once more.
OLDPORT WHARVES.
Everyone who comes to a wharf feels an impulse to follow it down, and look from the end. There is a fascination about it. It is the point of contact between land and sea. A bridge evades the water, and unites land with land, as if there were no obstacle. But a wharf seeks the water, and grasps it with a solid hand. It is the sign of a lasting friendship ”

“ It is a black, jagged wall, often four, and even five hundred feet in height, with a five-mile front, and the deep sea close in to the rock, without a beach, and almost without a foothold. This stupendous, natural wharf stretches back into the south-west toward the mainland, widening very little for twenty miles or more, dividing the large expanse of White Bay on the west from the larger expanse of Notre Dame Bay on the east and south, the fine Ægean, before mentioned, with its multitudinous islands, of which we get not the least notion from any of our popular maps. ”

“ And the water of the Thames, as Max plunged his hand into it, struggling to raise the body of his friend, was ice-cold to the touch.
Carrie had seized her oar again, and was bringing the boat's head rapidly round, right under the stern of a barge which was moored close to Plumtree Wharf.
"Hold him; don't let him go!" cried she imperiously. "But don't try to drag him into the boat until I get her alongside. You can't do it without help. And if you could you'd pull the boat over." ”

“ Laura Knight of England is so honored. At the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, in 1922, she gave to American art lovers pictured children on the river wharf, the wharf that might border any city where the heat of Summer drives from stuffy housings to the feel of limpid cool water on the supple bodies. A small boat is made fast to the wharf, and from the gunwale small humans can trail legs, arms, chips, and boats on the lapping wavelets. From sun and stone their dog absorbs the heat into his slim outstretched body, where he seems to guard their finny "catch" that lies wilted in the sun. ”

“ The barge was silent, but I could make out a black figure working, and the chain was slowly descending again. My gaze went out across the river, and I thought for a moment that I saw something darker than the darkness fall into the grave shadows under the wharves. But I could not be certain, and in any case if it were a boat from the river police it mattered nothing to me. I was in transit, and I had no doubt that I should soon be out at some back door, and safe in the maze of streets in that dismal and disreputable region of the Surrey side. ”