Seawall

“ The harbor is a picture at high tide or low, with the boats anchored in the roadstead or moored to the wharves; or the [Pg 12] sun slanting across the sandflats where a dory is stranded by the tide, and its master, dark-ringletted, slouch-hatted, a red kerchief knotted at his throat, a red flower in his shirt, strides shorewards with his catch dripping in its creel. The fish-wharves make a painter’s fingers itch to be at work, and many are those who respond to the impulse. ”

“ It owns a little harbour, with quays and an inn or two, and shipping that, daring greatly, has to be warped in between the narrow timbered pier-heads, where a furious sea is for ever banging in from the unsheltered bay; and away at one side it is shut in from the outside coast by some saucy-looking cliffs of golden yellow sandstone, whose odd effect is due to their being the remaining part of a symmetrically rounded down. ”

“ Then every few miles, turns in the road would bring us in view of little seaports beneath, with their half-circle harbors, light-houses, and white walls standing, out conspicuously on the deep blue of the sea, while the feluccas and great lateen sails, gliding into their ports, reminded one strikingly of panoramic views and paintings, or of those brilliant blue and white pictures of Mediterranean seaports which we sometimes see suspended in merchants' counting-rooms in America. ”

“ The sea-breeze, with which the shore had been refreshed for twenty minutes, had not as yet found its way into the recesses of the inner harbour, which, take it all in all, is one of the snuggest and most beautiful coves in the world. And such is the commodious nature of this admirable port, that even the Illustrious, though a large 74-gun ship, rode at anchor in perfect security, within a very few yards of the beach, which at that spot is quite steep to, and is wooded down to, the very edge of the water. ”

“ He was, as will be gathered from the extracts, at an early period fully alive to the value of spending basins for tranquillising a harbour, and of the proper disposition of the covering piers, in reference to the line of exposure, so as to avoid throwing sea into the131 harbour’s mouth, or causing it to heap up on coming in contact with the piers; while, as regards rivers, he was no less alive to the value of backwater in keeping open estuaries, and to the necessity of removing all obstructions to the free flow of the tide in river-navigation. ”

“ A strait, leagues in width, separates them from the mainland. Far too wide to be crossed by the strongest swimmer amongst them—too wide for them to be descried from the opposite side, even through a telescope! And the inland is a mere strip of sea-washed rock, running parallel to the coast, cliff-bound, table-topped, sterile, treeless—and, to all appearance, waterless!
As this last thought comes uppermost—along with the recollection that their boat is gone—what was at first only a flurry of excited apprehension, becomes a fixed fear. ”

“ An erection of wood or stone raised on the shore of a road or harbour for the convenience of loading or discharging vessels by cranes or other means. A wharf is of course built stronger or slighter in proportion to the effort of the tide or sea which it is intended to resist, and the size of vessels using it.—Wharf, in hydrography, is a scar, a rocky or gravelly concretion, or frequently a sand-bank, as Mad Wharf in Lancashire, where the tides throw up dangerous ripples and overfalls. ”

“ Even the little launches from which the port authorities board you as you lie in the harbour are not quite like the launches seen elsewhere, and though the great stone pier, to which at last you are warped in, might of itself fit the picture of a British seaport, the women and children waiting on the pier, trotting along beside the ship as she moves slowly to her berth, waving and smiling up at friends on deck, are costumed in inevitable suggestion of great brilliant flower-gardens agitated by the wind. ”

“ From the west end of it the road winds up below the Casino and past the Angleterre, and along by the top of the rocks overlooking the harbour, and through a tunnel under one of the hills to what was intended to be a breakwater, but is now a sort of pier, at which no vessels ever lie, becoming, therefore, only a place people stroll to in moderately calm weather, to watch the waves dashing upon and over the rocks in wild beauty. ”

“ This spacious, convenient, and secure harbour, second to none on the face of the globe, is one of the indications that Providence formed this group of Islands for the abode of an enlightened and maritime people. From a spacious and deep bay, in which the whole navy of Britain might moor in safety, a cove jets into the land on the left; and on one side of the cove there is an opening through the land like a dock-gate, with perpendicular sides of solid rock, against which a ship of the line might lie with safety, as against a pier. ”

“ The coasting traffic inclines to the north; the deep-water ships steer east with a southern inclination, on through the Downs, to the most remote ends of the world. In the widening of the shores sinking low in the gray, smoky distances the greatness of the sea receives the mercantile fleet of good ships that London sends out upon the turn of every tide. ”

“ Picturesque sights abound on the river, and the quays. Fishing smacks taking their brown nets on board from carts ranged alongside; boats of every form and size hauled up on the beach; vessels building; and vessels in dry docks, undergoing repairs; a regular covey of smacks, in tow of a powerful steam tug, and hundreds of similar sights of deep interest to a man bitten with the joint love of the water and the picturesque. ”

“ The sea is dark and seething, and the fishing-boats, with their masts creaking and groaning, hasten up and down the waves to the gates of the harbour. The water in the very harbour is moved to and fro in violent convulsions; monster clouds, fringed with lightish gray, are driven landwards day and night; are confounded in the gloomy tints of the ocean, which groans and raves, and engulphs its victims, until its strength is exhausted. ”

“ Here is the principal harbour in the island—a very commodious and safe one—formed by a deep indentation in the land, like a gulf, and sheltered by a long spit or bank of sand, called the Palisades, on which the surf beats vehemently, while within the water is like a mill-pond. ”

“ So completely landlocked is the harbour, and so smooth are its waters in all weathers, that from anywhere in the inner bay—except for the tropical vegetation which clothes the mountain sides—it might pass for a Swiss lake. The high walls of the ancient crater cut off the rays of the morning and evening sun, and the velvety green of the wonderful tropic tapestry which covers them, reflecting scarcely any light and heat, makes the harbour several degrees cooler than any other Pacific island of similar latitude, either north or south of the equator. ”

“ As those ships, when laid up, are each covered over with a large wooden roof, to protect them from the effects of the weather, they appear, when seen from Portsdown Hill, which commands an excellent view of the harbour, not so much like floating castles as like immense floating barns—ample garners, which would contain more corn than the swords and cutlasses of their former gallant crews, beat into reaping-hooks, will ever cut down! ”

“ Out in the sea, lonely and by itself, appears a pier, scarcely emergent from the waves, which once supported an arch parallel to the one now standing and also one at right angles to the shore. The one now standing makes the fourth. But the ever-working sea carves and carries away arch and shore alike. At some points a careful and even admiring observer sees little change for years, but the remorseless tooth gnaws on unceasingly. ”

“ A pier and harbour have been erected, beautiful in design and substantial in execution, affording abundant accommodation and shelter for the large steam-vessels and other craft frequenting this part of the coast, and to which the depth of water affords for the most part, an easy entrance or exit, at all states of the tide. ”

“ The harbour was divided into two almost equal parts by a great embankment, known as the Heptastadium, which joined the city to the island. This was cut at either end by a passage or waterway leading from one harbour to the other, but these two passages were bridged over, and thus a clear causeway was formed, seven stadia, or 1400 yards, in length. ”

“ It was a lovely morning, not a cloud in the sky; the harbour was as smooth as a mirror, and bright with the rays of a sun which had reached that height at which—in tropical climates—it gilds and gladdens the scene without scorching the spectator; the quay was lined with ships loading and unloading; small boats were flying about in every direction; all around was gay and fresh, but the filthy steamer was still beneath me. ”

“ As you sail along the straight coast line, there seems no break or indentation, when suddenly, as if by magic, the rocky shore opens for about twenty yards, at a spot marked by several caves in the face of the cliff, and lets you see into a circular harbor of very small dimensions, with an amphitheatre of rich and well-built houses rising up all round the bay. ”

“ The building of these massive sea-walls is a work of great labour and expense, for what seems to be an impregnable embankment, perhaps 30 feet high and 90 feet broad, solid and strong enough to resist the most violent breakers, will be undermined and fall to pieces in a few hours, if not made in the proper way. A digue, no matter how thick, which rests on the sand alone will not last. ”

“ We have a pier—a queer old wooden pier, fortunately without the slightest pretensions to architecture, and very picturesque in consequence. Boats are hauled up upon it, ropes are coiled all over it; lobster-pots, nets, masts, oars, spars, sails, ballast, and rickety capstans, make a perfect labyrinth of it. For ever hovering about this pier, with their hands in their pockets, or leaning over the rough bulwark it opposes to the sea, gazing through telescopes which they carry about in the same profound receptacles, are the Boatmen of our watering-place. ”

“ Every inequality of the shore, whether promontory or bay, plant or pebble, stake or bridge pier, is the starting-point for centripetal lines which go on in graceful undulations to lose themselves in the stream, or, meeting with others, to form quadrilles of rhombs, often with the most charming effect. ”

“ The outermost of three small islands, interconnected by short bridges, at the extremity of this shore, places one in singularly intimate relation with this portentous flurry. To say that hereabouts the water leaps and plunges and rears and dives, that its uproar makes even one's own ideas about it inaudible, and its current sweeps those ideas to perdition, is to give a very pale account of the universal agitation.
The great spectacle may be called complete only when you have gone down the river some four miles, on the American side, to the so-called rapids of the Whirlpool. ”

“ The road, haven, or bay surrounds the city on every side to the distance of a cross-bow shot, in all of which space, ships may anchor in six or seven fathoms on a mud bottom. All around this bay there is a great shoal; so that the deep water is from the edge of the city all round to the distance of a bow-shot, and all beyond is full of shoals. ”

“ Here human industry has transformed a naturally beautiful and commodious situation into a mighty hive of affairs, where its long, straight streets only end at the water’s edge, and the basins and docks are simply great rectangular gulfs, seemingly endless in their immensity. Great towering chimney-stacks of brick punctuate the landscape here and there, and the masts of vessels and the funnels of steamships carry still further the idea of energetic restlessness. ”

“ An excellent roadstead was thus formed by nature, which art early improved into a small but commodious harbour, a line of wall being carried out from the coast northwards to the most easterly of the islets, and the only unprotected side of the harbour being thus securely closed. ”

“ Look!" she said, drawing me to the broad window whence we could get a glimpse of the westward town and the harbour out beyond the walls. "Look! see yonder long row of boats with brown sails hanging loose reefed from every yard ranged all along the quay. Even from here you can make out the thin stream of porter slaves passing to and fro between them and the granaries like ants on a sunny path. ”

“ The magic wand is a steam-paddy, working day and night leveling off the sand-hills and shoveling them into the bay. The wharves are converted into streets and many good ships, whose crews having deserted for the mines, being pulled up and used as storage ships, are caught by the rising tide of sand and converted into foundations for buildings. ”

“ Its magnificent harbour, or rather series of harbours, so beautiful to the eye of the painter, so perfect to that of a sailor,—so easy of access and egress, and so perfectly capable of containing and protecting, by the erection of judiciously placed fortifications, any number of shipping, are advantages that more than compensate the natural defects of a barrenness of soil, and proportional deficiency of luxuriance in the vegetation of its immediate vicinity ”

“ The harbour, once at the eastern, is now at the western extremity,—its three considerable basins being fit for mail steamers and ordinary trading vessels. 2. The admiralty pier is a massive structure of solid concrete and masonry extending about one-third of a mile into the sea, affording lee and landing accommodation for vessels of almost any burthen, made for ultimate connection by break-water with a horn east of the castle, so inclosing the bay as a vast harbour. ”