"'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."