River steamer

“ That would be an unnecessary waste of time, and would not pay, so that at all hours of the day and night steamers patrol the river, collecting from the row boats that do the drifting the fish they have netted. When a steamer gets a load she comes and ties up at the wharf and there unloads her fish. ”

“ Now a wharf is neared where, it so happens, there are no passengers awaiting the steamer, and none to get off. A man puts off in a small boat and makes fast to our boat, well out in the river, transfers some crates of tomatoes—the vessel still in motion and pushes back to the shore.
Nearing a spot where meadow and rolling upland mark a particularly rich agricultural district, a great flat barge or hay-boat is almost ahead, and the steamer slows up to give the boat an opportunity for coming alongside. ”

“ When the rivers are full we can see the shallow draught steamers collecting wool and other products; but the 35 want of water is not the only drawback. The rivers wind greatly in their courses over the level plain, so much so that at one place it is said that the steamer takes a whole day to pass a particular house, owing to the river bending right back upon itself. The river banks are marked by lines of gum trees, by which the eye can trace them for many miles across the level. ”

“ The little steamer, very clean and comfortable, affords you an excellent breakfast, and some amusement in the odd way in which she is managed. Most of the river steamers here have their propelling wheel at the stern; they have very powerful engines, which drive them ahead with surprising speed. I have gone sixteen miles an hour in one, with the current; and when they make a landing the pilot usually runs the boat's head slantingly against the shore, and passengers and freight are taken in or landed over the bow. ”

“ We need not linger on this theme, as our mission is to view the wild grandeur of this river, towards which the steamer steadily bears us. In front rises a bluff—a bold projecting rock, which seems to arrest the further progress of the river, as, in days long past, it doubtless did, but now, after a long struggle, it has had to succumb and allow the water to make its way over its hard breast, wearing it down, until now the river course is deep enough to float half a dozen of the largest ships in the world. ”

“ There can be little doubt that it is susceptible of navigation above and below by the largest class of river steamers, and that the rapids themselves may in the higher stages of water be ascended by the American high-pressure steamers which navigate our Western rivers, drawing, as they do in low stages of the Ohio and Missouri, but sixteen to eighteen inches. ”

“ And before there's any chance for a revise I've marched by Piddie with my tongue out and am pikin' towards the North River with a pier pass in one pocket and expense money in another, specially commissioned to meet the very steamer that's bringin' in Miss Vee and her Count. All of which shows how curious things will coincide if you use your bean a little to help 'em along.
Well, you know how it is waitin' in a push of people for a steamer. Everybody's excited and anxious and keyed up, ready to jump at every whistle, and stretchin' their necks for a peek down the river. ”

“ Now the strip of water widens and very slowly we move from the quay, being dragged ignominiously backward [Pg 24] across the great basin in which we lie by a diminutive steamer called a tug. We are not out in the river yet and our own engines have not begun to work. You can understand that it would be very difficult to load a ship if she stood always in the river, where there are rising and falling tides, so, to make this easier, great docks have been built along the river, and in them the flow of the tides is regulated, so that the water remains always at pretty much the same level. ”

“ The lake and river steamboats are not always safe to be in, and some of the pilotage and [Pg 125] engineering is reckless in the extreme. The captains are too often given to drink overmuch, and when an intoxicated man is at the wheel in a river full of the natural dangers of bars and snags, and those incident on a tremendous current, the situation often becomes exciting. I was once on the Fraser River in a steamer whose boiler was certified to bear 80 lb. ”

“ The steamer will tow us safely out of the bay, and on the next tide I shall run my schooner into Vega River, where no vessel that draws more than nine feet of water can follow us. We shall be all right as soon as we get to sea. ”

“ Long flats or scows, deeply laden with this necessary article, proceeding from the shore meet the steamer in the middle of the river, and by means of chains or ropes are immediately lashed to her sides—usually two of them—one on each side. The men on board the flats, aided perhaps by the crew of the steamer, immediately fall to work with their shovels and throw the coal on board when it is wanted. ”

“ Our steamer pulls up against a flat that lies against the [Pg 278] sandy shore, exposed, at this time of year, by the lowness of the river. There are no wharfs as I had expected, only two or three floating sheds, and two or three steamers like our own. The sandy shore slopes up some thirty feet to the bundar, and over that we see palms and trees.
Up and along the sandy shore we drove in a gharry, a man on either side to prevent it upsetting in the ruts, and if it had not been for the honour of the thing I would as soon have walked! ”

“ Mary’s river, and is perhaps the only waterway along which bear and moose peer from their covert at great steamers going by. No other stream carries so great a tonnage through so wild a country. Iron comes down, and coal goes up, and there are points where a lump of either can be tossed ashore as the great steam barge slips past.
From Mackinac they took a smaller steamer to Sault Sainte Marie, and then retraced their course till they reached a small pier known as Upper Encampment. Here they expected to see Horatio, but saw instead their old Scotch friend, George Gillies, keeper of the lights. ”

“ And do you know what was making the steamer move? What was pulling her out into the river? It was a little tug boat and the tug boat had hold of one end of a big rope and the other end of the rope was tied fast to the steamer. And the little tug boat was puffing and chucking and working away as hard as he could and calling out:
[Listen] [PDF]
And do you know why the tug boat and the steamer were talking like this? It is because they were afraid they might bump into some other ship in the fog for they can’t see in the fog. You know how white and thick the fog can be. ”

“ The river steamers do not run up to piers or wharves, but at such ports as we have named they run alongside the dismantled and anchored bulks of former ocean-going vessels which lie offshore and are connected to the land by a sort of bridges. ”

“ The Liberal, a trim little steamer of a hundred and fifty tons, with a speed of ten miles an hour, is one of the best of these river boats; it is of modern construction, is lighted by electricity and is provided with excellent accommodations for a limited number of passengers. ”

“ White-painted river steamers that seem all the more flimsy and riverish if they happen to churn out past the dark, compactly built ocean liners, who come so deliberately and arrogantly up past the Statue of Liberty, to dock after4 the long, hard job of crossing, the home-comers on the decks already waving handkerchiefs. ”

“ A loaded canoe takes eighty days to ascend these eight hundred miles. A steamer will do it in twelve, giving ample time to take in wood, to land and receive cargo at the various villages on the river, and to lay by at night. When the river becomes better known she can run for a large part of the night, and thus shorten her time
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nearly one-half. ”

“ There comes a shrieking and groaning and bellowing of steam-whistles from the monster city nine miles away. Soon we weigh anchor and move up toward it. Tugs dart fiercely about, or laboriously puff with heavily{299}laden vessels in tow. Stately ocean steamers surge past, outward bound. We become a mere fragment of the mass of floating life. We near the foot of Canal street. There is a great deal of shouting and bawling and counter-shouting and counter-bawling, with expectant faces on the wharf, and recognitions from shore to steamer and from steamer to shore. ”

“ I do not mean to say that at the end of a week a young fellow could take charge of a fifteen-thousand-ton steamer, driving twenty knots an hour through the brine, racing from land to land, fair weather and foul, clear sky or cloudy, steering by degrees on the compass card and making landfalls with most amazing precision. ”

“ She seems to belong to the sea, with her tall tapering masts, her cloud of moving canvas, and her buoyant motion over the rolling waves. Her movements are all comprehensible, and above-board she is invariably clean, and her crew are connected in one's mind with nautical stories which charmed one in the long-past days of youth. A steamer is very much the reverse. ”

“ The tide was out and the littered fore-shore was lined with fishing-boats drawn up in picturesque confusion, and in the shallow water out among the rocks bare-legged native women were collecting shell fish and seaweed into great baskets fastened to their backs, while naked children splashed about them or stood with their knuckles to their teeth to watch the thrashing paddle wheels of the little steamer as she churned slowly away from the quay. ”

“ As the steamer passed by, churning the muddy water into big waves, the tug put on all steam, the hawser straightened out as tense as iron, the big ship gave a lazy lurch as a wave struck her, and to the unspeakable delight of all hands they found themselves once more afloat and in deep water. ”

“ You can form no idea of one's sensations as the steamer pushes her way through an ice jam. For miles around, as far as the eye can reach, the sea is covered with huge, glistening blocks. Sometimes the deep-blue water shows between, and sometimes they are so tightly massed together that they look like a hummocky white field. How any one can get a steamer along through it is a never-ending source of amazement, and my admiration for the captain is unstinted. ”

“ The thundering seas slowly rise with their white crests glowing in the ebon darkness as the brave old tramp steamer, like a frightened thing, stays her way a moment, and shivers as seas strike the weather bow. Then again she pitches onward, as wonderful little men, with bony, haggard faces with weary eyes in them, stare into the furnace fires of the steamer’s bowels, and shovel and stoke to sustain an honest existence, and drink tank water. ”

“ IT is impossible for the most careless spectator to look at a steam-vessel making her way along a lake, a boy’s boat skimming across a pond, or even a duck paddling on a stream, without noticing that the moving body is accompanied in all cases by a trail of waves or ripples, which diverge from it and extend behind. In the case of a steamer there is an additional irregular wave-motion of the water caused by the paddle-wheels or screw, which churn it up, and leave a line of rough water in the steamer’s wake. ”

“ While we gaze, there is seen against the horizon the black smoke of a steamer. On she comes over the bar, breathing asthmatically and beating the waters with her great wheels in a steady rhythm, until at last the boom of her gun gives notice to the custom-house officials of her arrival, and all the town hastens to the wharf to learn of her cargo and her passengers, and to question what sort of a voyage she has had. ”

“ When we gazed down into the clear waters from the deck of our comparatively small steamer, we could see fish in plenty, for the brilliant sun seemed to light up the sea beneath the vessel’s keel, while as the screw churned up the water and the steamer rushed on, the scaly occupants of the deep flashed away to right and left, darting out of sight like so many shafts of silver through the sunny depths. ”

“ In the mean time, the boat left the landing, and began to glide along rapidly on her way over the surface of the water.
The shores of the lake are very fertile and populous, and at every eight or ten miles, especially on the northern shore, you come to a large town. The steamboats stop at these towns to take and leave passengers. They do not, in such cases, usually land at a pier, but the passengers come and go in large boats, and meet the steamer at a little way from the shore. ”

“ We pass through a fishing-village, out to the end of a long pier, and walk on board the long, light, low-pressure steamer, built strong enough for this sheltered sea navigation, and fleet and powerful enough to run off eighteen or twenty miles an hour without perceptible exertion. ”

“ A steamer whose screw or paddles are revolving and driving the hull through the water will not, amidst the heaviest sea, give you the same sensation you get from a vessel tumbling about on a strong, fine-weather swell, not a breath of air to steady her or give her way. The steamer in a measure escapes the worst of the seas by sliding out of them; her bows are lifting clear of the washing coil whilst her lee sponsons are buried, and she half jumps the intervening hollow as her paddles{114} thrust her from the summit of the surge. ”

“ The wind and the storm have mighty power over them. But the well-directed steamer rides proudly over their agitated surface with all her precious cargo of life, and holds steadily on her way to the destined port in despite of wind and waves. ”

“ I say rather stately, for the high and graceful hull of the steamer comes to a lame and impotent conclusion in its squat chimney, like a large-faced man with a mayhemed nose, and in its toy masts and rigging, like a stout woman with curl-papers or a thin wisp of ringlet. ”