Doubt filled their faces. High above them towered the straight wall of the ship with a narrow ladder reaching down to them. At the huge coal derricks whole cars of coal were being lifted up as if they were no more than scuttles in the hands of a strong man and their contents sent thundering into the gaping hatches; black dust clouded the air, settling in a thousand minute particles on fabric and flesh; black-faced men shouted and worked at the loading machine; the crash of shunting cars came interminably from the yards; and upon it all the sun beat fiercely, and the air that entered our nostrils seemed thick—thick with the dust and grime and heat of it all. A black-faced, sweating man, who was the mate, leaned over the steel side high above us and motioned us aft, and the seven guests hurried through the thickness of the air, the ladies shuddering and cringing as the cars of coal thundered high over their heads, until they came to the big after port with a plank laid to the dock. Up this they filed, their faces betraying more doubt, more uneasiness, more discomfort as hot blasts of furnace air surged against them; then up a narrow iron stair, through a door—and out there before them lay the ship, her thirty hatches yawning like caverns, and everywhere coal—and coal dust. The ladies gasped and drew their dresses tightly about them as they were guided along the narrow promenade between the edge of the ship and the open hatches, and at last they were halted before one of those doors labelled “Owners.”
Then the change! It came so suddenly that it fairly took the breath away from those who had never been on a freighter before. The guests filed through that narrow door into a great room, which a second glance showed them to be a parlour. Their feet sank in the noiseless depths of rich velvet carpet; into their heated faces came the refreshing breaths of electric fans; great upholstered chairs opened to them welcomingly; the lustre of mahogany met their eyes, and magazines and books and papers were ready for them in profusion. To us there now came the thunder of the coal as if from afar; here was restfulness and quiet—through the windows we could see the dust and smoke and heat hovering about the ship like a pall.
This was the general parlour into which we had been ushered; and now I hung close behind the ship’s guests, watching and enjoying the amazement that continued to grow in them. From each side of the parlour there led a narrow hall and on each side of each hall there was a large room—the guest-chambers—and at the end of each hall there was a bathroom; and in the bedrooms, with their brass beds, their rich tapestries and curtains, our feet still sank in velvet carpet, our eyes rested upon richly cushioned chairs—everywhere there was the luxury and wealth of appointment that a millionaire had planned for the favoured few whom he called his guests.
From the Deck of the Ship the Tug Looks Like an Ant Dragging at a Huge Prey.
Now I retired from the guest-chambers to my own private room. I am going a good deal into detail in this description of the guests’ quarters of a great freighter like the Berwind, for I remember once being told by a shipbuilder of the Clyde that he “could hardly believe that such a thing existed,” and I know there are millions of others who have the same doubts. The forward superstructure of a Great Lakes freighter might be compared to a two-story house, with the pilot-house still on top of that; and from the luxurious quarters of the “first story,” which in the Berwind are on a level with the deck of the vessel, a velvet-carpeted stair led to the “observation room”—a great, richly furnished room with many windows in it, from which one may look out upon the sea in all directions except behind. And from this room one door led into the Captain’s quarters, and another into the private suite of rooms which I was fortunate enough to occupy on this trip. The finest hotel in the land could not have afforded finer conveniences than this black and red ship, smothered in the loading of ten thousand tons of coal. In the cool seclusion of its passenger quarters a unique water-works system gave hot and cold water to every room; an electric light plant aft gave constant light, and power for the fans. Nothing was wanting, even to a library and music, to make of the interior of this forward part of the ship a palace fit for the travel of a king. Within a few minutes we had all plunged into baths; hardly were we out and dressed when the steward came with glasses of iced lemonade; and even as the black clouds of grime and dirt still continued to settle over the ship we gathered in the great observation room, a happy party of us now, and the music of mandolin and phonograph softened the sounds of labour that rumbled to us from outside.
Then, suddenly, there fell a quiet. The ship was loaded. Loud voices rose in rapid command, the donkey-engines rumbled and jerked as their cables dragged the steel hatch-covers into place, and the freighter’s whistle echoed in long, sonorous blasts in its call for a tug. And then, from half a mile away, came the shrieking reply of one of those little black giants, and up out of the early sunset gloom of evening it raced in the maelstrom of its own furious speed, and placed itself ahead of us, for all the world like a tiny ant tugging away at a prey a hundred times its size. Lights sprung up in a thousand places along shore, and soon, far away, appeared the blazing eye of the harbour light, and beyond that stretched the vast opaqueness of the “thousand-mile highway” that led to Duluth and the realms of the iron barons of the North. Once clear, and with the sea before us, the tug dropped away, a shudder passed through the great ship as her engines began to work, our whistle gave vent to two or three joyous, triumphant cheers, and our journey had begun.
Observation Room on the “Wm. G. Mather.”
Which gives an idea of the luxuriousness of the guests’ quarters on a Great Lakes freighter.