We are not going to make the tour of the whole port, which at our necessarily moderate rate of speed—though the Hygeia can do her twelve knots an hour and race any craft on the river—would be something like a day’s voyage; for the area over which the Port Sanitary Committee has control is a wide one, embracing the whole river from Teddington Lock to Gravesend, and from below Gravesend to Trinity High Water. We are to run through the region known as the Pool, which, commencing below London Bridge, ends somewhere about the West India Docks. It is now half-past ten o’clock, and the river is all astir with its own picturesque and varied life. The rising breeze has scattered the mist, and fretted the surface of the water, which dances around us in a thousand crested wavelets. The sun has struggled through a mass of slate-coloured clouds, and plays over the wonderful towers and steeples of the City churches, and lights up the gray old wharfs along the river, and pierces the deep holds of vessels discharging their cargoes.
In making his ordinary round, the inspector works steadily up or down the river, going from vessel to vessel, until all have been examined. But as I am anxious not only to see the routine of inspection, but to get some notion besides of the variety of the craft lying in the Pool, the medical officer kindly proposes to make a selection of typical vessels. Steering out of the course of a fine Thames barge, just bearing down on us with all sail set, and fit as she moves to be transferred to the vivid canvas of Miss Clara Montalba, we stop alongside a Dutch eel-boat. The inspector has already intimated that the work of inspection here will be little more than a form. He never has any trouble with the Dutch eel-boats, for the crew appear to spend the major part of their existence in scrubbing, scouring, and polishing their neat little craft. The skipper salutes us in very passable English, and invites us aboard. We go from stem to stern, above and below; and I confess my inability to discover a single speck of dirt. These are trim and sturdy little boats, strongly and even handsomely built, and able to stand a good deal of weather. With a fair wind they make the passage in one or two days, but are sometimes delayed a fortnight or three weeks between Holland and the Thames. We steer next for one of the General Steam Navigation Company’s continental steamships, with the blue boats hanging in the davits. Here the inspector discovers a small sanitary defect in the neighbourhood of the forecastle, and a promise is given that it shall be remedied without delay. I am much struck by the genial and kindly style of the inspector. He has the suaviter in modo in perfection. It is never ‘Do this’ or ‘Look to that,’ but, ‘If I were you now, I think I’d,’ &c.; which goes far to account for the evident good feeling with which he is everywhere received. He can afford, however, to go about his business in a courteous spirit, for he rests upon the strong arm of the law. We board next a Thames sailing-barge. These vessels carry a miscellaneous cargo of grain, bricks, manure, cement, &c., from below London Bridge up the Medway. They are for the most part handsome and well-kept ships. There is no prettier sight on the river than a fleet of Thames barges sailing into port on a sunny summer’s day, laden high with hay or straw. The inspector puts the usual questions; ‘How many have you aboard? How’s the health of the crew?’ and so on; and then we take a look round. Both the medical officer and the inspector have a keen eye to the water-casks, and to the cabin where the crew have their bunks or hammocks. The mate has the pick of the berths; the men come next; and the ‘boy’ takes his chance in a hole, where, if he be pretty well fagged out by the time he turns in, he may not impossibly manage to get his forty winks. In the matter of crew, by the way, these Thames barges are generally short-handed, and a bad time they have of it in dirty weather, when all hands are needed for the sails, and the helm and everything else has to be abandoned. It is small wonder that so many of them are lost.
Our next visit is to one of the splendid Dundee passenger boats. No chance of fault-finding here, where everything is spick-and-span throughout. These are very fast boats, and their fittings are fine enough for a yacht. The chairs in the saloon are velvet, the fireplace a picture in itself, and the pantry glistens with silver-plate. As we go down below, the captain suggests refreshments; but the medical officer, fully alive to the force of example, makes a modest reply to the effect that the day is not yet far spent. We board then a Guernsey sailing-boat, discharging a cargo of granite. The mate is nursing a wounded hand, crushed the day before in attending to a crank; and the medical officer tenders a bit of professional advice, for which he receives no fee. The crew’s quarters in the forecastle have a decidedly close smell, and the inspector thinks that a little lime-washing would not be amiss. We go on to visit a ‘monkey’-barge, the craft which sails the unromantic waters of the canal. Cleanliness abounds here—the master, in fact, is polishing his candlestick when we arrive; but he receives a reprimand from the inspector for not having his papers on board. In this way the work of inspection is performed. It is lightly and easily done, to such perfection has the system been brought; and thanks to the extreme care with which it has been carried out for years past, and to the readiness with which masters and owners have complied with the instructions of the medical officer, it is now often in nine cases out of ten almost entirely formal. To see the really big vessels, we must go farther down the river; but we have learned something in the Pool as to the manner in which the sanitary work is conducted amongst the craft of every description.
We are now at the Shadwell entrance to the London Docks. Limehouse is on one side of us, and Rotherhithe on the other. It is a charming bit of the river, for those with an eye for quaint water-side scenery, as one of Mr Whistler’s early canvases abundantly testifies. The gray steeple of Limehouse church is to the left; nearer to hand, the red house of the harbour-master stands out brightly; ancient weather-smitten wharfs are on either side; queer old tenements with projecting stories, and coloured white, brown, and black, elbow one another almost into the water; and behind us rise the countless masts and delicate rigging of the vessels lying in the dock. The sun has gained full power now, and burnishes the restless surface of the river as I take leave of my courteous friends.
VERMUDYN’S FATE.
A TALE OF HALLOWEEN.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I.
A little knot of miners were gathered round the fire in Pat Murphy’s drinking-saloon, situated in that delightful locality known to diggers as Rattlesnake Gulch. They were listening eagerly to the details of a story related by Gentleman Jack, a member of their fraternity who had recently visited San Francisco. He had gone there with the twofold object of having what was facetiously termed a ‘fling,’ just to relieve the monotony of existence, and also with the intention of exchanging the gold he had accumulated during the past six months for notes and coin. He had likewise in some mysterious way contrived to get rid of the burden of his wealth, and now returned almost penniless to the bosom of his friends; but this fact in nowise diminished the cheerfulness with which the wanderer greeted his mates, or disturbed the equanimity with which he recounted his adventures since their last meeting. He had just ended his narration with the account of a curious discovery of which he had heard the details that morning on his way back to the Gulch.
‘A mighty queer story, anyhow,’ observed Pat, alias ‘Flash’ Murphy, as he emptied his glass.
‘Mighty queer!’ repeated the chorus, following suit.