Wharf

“ I fear the word wharf may suggest the dirty prosaic wharves of England, an idea which you must banish at once; for business in its dingy aspect is not obtrusive, and the harbour-wall is but a stone coping for soft green turf, where girls with light rods sit fishing, and market-boats land their cargo of gay fruit and fish, while the motley throng pass and repass—Tahitians, French sailors and soldiers, Chinamen, black-robed French priests, and all the nondescript nationalities from the ships. ”

“ Then he was dimly conscious of the doors at the wharf-end being swung open, of hurrying figures with lanterns, of the lightening greyness of the world beyond the wide maw of the door, of the call of voices through the cavernous gloom of the wharf-shed itself. ”

“ You go to the wharf—a peculiar odor of coal, manure, dampness, and of beef strikes you; thousands of objects of all sorts—wood, meat, gabions, flour, iron, and so forth—lie in heaps about the wharf; soldiers of various regiments, with knapsacks and muskets, without knapsacks and without muskets, throng thither, smoke, quarrel, drag weights aboard the steamer which lies smoking beside the quay; unattached two-oared boats, filled with all sorts of people,—soldiers, sailors, merchants, women,—land at and leave the wharf. ”

“ The wharf is gained: here lie the boats side by side, one going north, the other south: they are surrounded by a crowd,—friends making hasty adieus; porters, of all shades of colour, hurrying to and fro, aiding, scrambling, and squabbling, with the important air and ceaseless loquacity everywhere characteristic of the African race. ”

“ Here a tributary stream rushes from a waterfall, and bursts through a woody glen to mingle its waters with the Wharf: there the Wharf itself is nearly lost in a deep cleft in the rock, and next becomes a horned flood enclosing a woody island-sometimes it reposes for a moment, and then resumes its native character, lively, irregular, and impetuous. ”

“ During the winter the old wharf, which shakes as though it had the palsy whenever a dog trots over it, has men and boys throwing out lines with a simple hook, and others with elaborate reels and silver hooks, amusing themselves; while the old Spaniards bask in the sunshine, on the sea-wall, resting from their night of toil in fishing on the rolling waves, as a means of support, like the apostles of old. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hill and valley, tree and fence, woodshed and well-sweep, barn and pigsty, fishing-smacks frozen tip at the wharf, ribbed monsters of dismantled hulks scattered along the river-side,—all lie transfigured in the white glory and sunshine. The eye, wherever it turns, aches with the cold brilliance, unrelieved save where. ”

“ The steamer whistles at the wharf as if to bring us back from dream and mold and death, and we hasten away, walking needlessly fast, looking back furtively to see if grim spectral shapes are following after. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And the gaze of the sitters would pass beyond the men fishing, as it would pass beyond the nest of piles at the corner of the wharf, as being a thing familiar and of no moment, and it would linger on the surface of the harbor, where many small boats and a few larger ones swung at their moorings, and where the breeze ruffled the water and little waves danced in the sun; and it would soon pass to the opposite shore of the harbor, where many windmills turned above little square, weather-beaten roofs, pumping up water for the making of salt. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All the piers and wharves are called "docks" by the people. Those which are semi-public and are rented to miscellaneous excursion and river steamers are crowded nightly.
The wharf to which our couple strolled was a mere flooring above the water, edged with a stout string-piece, which formed a bench for the mothers. They were there in groups, some seated on the string-piece with babes in arms or with perambulators before them, and others, facing these, standing and joining in the gossip, and swaying to and fro to soothe their little ones. ”

“ One step farther, and there is no possible foothold but a deck, which tilts and totters beneath our feet. A wharf, therefore, is properly neutral ground for all. It is a silent hospitality, understood by all nations. It is in some sort a thing of universal ownership. Having once built it, you must grant its use to everyone; it is no trespass to land upon any man's wharf. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You know what a plague it is to have to stand in the quagmire yonder. See, I am bedaubed to the knees, and you are all in the same plight.
"Now I propose that we build a wharf. You see these stones? The workmen mean to use them for building a house here. My plan is to take these same stones, carry them to the edge of the water, and build a wharf with them. What say you, lads? Shall we build the 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 ”

“ We stood in the dark on the wet deck, watching the yellow lights and shadowy buildings of the shore we were rapidly nearing, till we felt the expected shock, and jumped upon the wharf amid the warm welcomes of many friends, who, in their own joy at alighting on their native shore, did not forget to make it at once a home to us strangers. ”

“ From where he huddled, under cover of the friendly darkness, he could make out the shore, scarcely a hundred yards beyond, and the dim outlines of a broken wharf whose piles extended for some distance in the star-reflecting waters. The man with the lantern had vanished. ”

“ Now the boat comes up to Mr. ——'s wharf; and he is there to meet and welcome us.
One essential to every country-house on the St. John's is this accessory of a wharf and boathouse. The river is, for a greater or less distance from the shore, too shallow to admit the approach of steamboats; and wharves of fifty or a hundred feet in length are needed to enable passengers to land.
The bottom of the river is of hard, sparkling white sand, into which spiles are easily driven; 230 and the building and keeping-up of such a wharf is a trifling trouble and expense in a land where lumber is so plentiful. ”

“ At these times the wharf is always densely crowded, and it has always seemed strange to me that this every-day occurrence attracts a crowd without fail, although directly the boats are off, every man runs back to the city as if he had forgotten something. ”

“ Parallel to the middle part of the wharf, upon the walls, is a platform, seventy yards in length, called the Ladies' Line, from its being much frequented in the summer evenings, as on the inside it is shaded with a row of lofty trees, and without affords a fine prospect of the shipping and of the boats passing and repassing on the river. ”

“ The wharves were as usual lined with waving yelling crowds, and a great exchange of Vive l'Angleterre from them, and Vive la France from us went on, and a lusty roar of the Marseillaise from us. During the morning the horses and pontoons and waggons were disembarked, and the R.E. and Field Ambulances went off to enormous sheds on the wharf. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I drove on slowly. The point for which I was making was only some three hundred yards further along, but I had noted that the constable had walked off in the opposite direction. Therefore, arriving at my destination—a vacant wharf open to the road—I pulled up and listened.
Only the wash of the tide upon the piles of the wharf was audible, for the night was now far advanced. ”

“ In nothing that we have said do we mean to be understood as affirming that a city can, by ordinance or otherwise, charge or collect wharfage for merely entering its port, or stopping therein, or for the use of that which is not a wharf, but merely the natural and unimproved shore of a navigable river. ”

“ It is not now easy to tell where the wharf was. But some of the large craft seem wedged among trees along the bluff. By daylight we shall get some out. And I have sent to the governor for all the boats he can muster for us. ”

“ The old wharf or landing is about three quarters of a mile northeast of the present bustling port, and only a solitary dwelling, the traces of the eauseway, and the apparition, at low water, of some of the logs of the ancient wharf, constitute the remains of the Revolution there, exeept slight indications of the works thrown up by the Americans in the rear. ”

“ The woman sometimes took me with her to his office at the wharf where she usually got meat. Afterwards she sent me alone to the wharf and bring the meat. What a long journey it would take for a small boy to cross a dozen of blocks — alone! However, what a splendid tramp it was! How much I loved to go to the bay! The sea was a wonder to me — nay, a wonder of wonders, since even a boat was a marvel. What a variety of life along the wharves! Such a life with such a variety awakened in me a vague feeling of mystery — sadness (?) — loneliness (?) ”