Wapping Old Stairs are still discernible from the river, but are grievously difficult of identification, for, as at most other places along these shores, great warehouses have taken the place of most of the quaint-timbered old houses of former days. Yet at Wapping something of the old appearance of things is visible still. Leaning forward on to the shore, supported on mossy piles, green as the herbage of spring or brown as the weeds of the sea, are groups of strange old houses, with bay-windows, and overleaning balconies, and wooden walls, “clouted over” with planks until they look like a suit of mended clothes. The seafaring man’s love of vivid colour is everywhere visible. The half-ruinous, time-worn buildings are painted after the manner of a Dutch barge—green contending with red, and raw yellow striving to hold its own against the imperial blue. In some of those curious accidental lights which are so frequent on the Thames, the low bank of Wapping assumes a peculiar glory of its own, heightened by the brown sails of barges sweeping past, and as full of colour as any picture which even Turner ventured to paint.
But from Wapping we must return once more to Rotherhithe, and to the Surrey Docks. They are ensconced in a graceful bend of the river, ere it curves back again round the far-projecting Isle of Dogs. There are, it is said, no older public docks in Great Britain, the Act by which the docks on the Surrey side were created bearing the date of 1696. Even before that period, indeed, there had been docks in the same situation “of considerable importance and benefit to the shipping.” But docks which seemed large and important in the time of Queen Anne would be ridiculously small and inefficient with our present trade. The Howland Dock occupied ten acres when it was made; the Surrey Commercial Docks cover 330 acres now. They derive an historic and romantic interest from the fact that here the prize ships were brought to be delivered of their cargoes, when the jolly Jack Tar got his share of the prize-money, and, leave being granted, incontinently went off to squander it among his friends. There is a story of one such British sailor who entered the Bank of England with a warrant for twenty pounds, and exclaimed to the amused and amazed clerk:—“That will bother you, I reckon, mate; but never mind, if you haven’t got the whole of the money in hand I’ll take half of it now, and call for the rest another time, when it suits you.”
ENTRANCE TO THE EAST INDIA DOCKS.
From the lower portion of the Pool the river assumes wayward and eccentric habits, broadening and curving, and looking at every turn, when the tide is in, like a long chain of lakes. There is abundance of motion, and the freest wash of water, for the wind has large surfaces on which to play; and, also, the Thames is perpetually churned into long sweeping billows by the wheels of steamers passing to and fro. Henceforward every moderately straight portion of the river assumes the name of Reach, the meaning of which is obvious enough. There is first Limehouse Reach, then Greenwich Reach, and Blackwall Reach, and Bugsby Reach, and Woolwich Reach, and so onward to the magnificent reach at Gravesend. It is a devious course that is pursued by the vessels making their way down the Thames, but one which is full of perpetually varying interest, of ever-changing effects, of keen delight and breezy sensation to him who has the faculty of observing other things besides the muddiness of the Thames water.
Writing of this part of the river, Defoe describes grim sights in his “Journal of the Plague.” He says of some of those who were terrified for their lives, that “they had recourse to ships for their retreat.... Where they did so, they had certainly the safest retreat of any people whatsoever; but the distress was such that people ran on board without bread to eat, and some into ships that had no men on board to remove them farther off, or to take the boat and go down the river to buy provisions where it might be safely done; and these often suffered and were infected as much on board as on shore. As the richer sort got into ships, so the lower rank got into hoys, smacks, lighters, and fishing-boats; and many, especially watermen, lay in their boats; but those made sad work of it, especially the latter, for, going about for provision, and perhaps to get their subsistence, the infection got in among them and made fearful havock. Many of the watermen died alone in their wherries, as they rid at their roads, and were not found till they were in no condition for anybody to touch, or come near them.” A grim picture of a weird imagination! Is it possible to form a conception of anything more awful than these boats, floating up and down with the tide, unnoticed, masterless, unowned, with their dreadful burden of bodies dead of the Plague?
The Isle of Dogs is only an island because it is cut across by the entrances to the East and West India Docks. It is a vast space of dock property, hidden behind devious streets and towering wharves. Originally it was “the Isle of Ducks,” the ducks to which allusion was made having a vast swamp to wade and flounder in, and a solitude peculiarly their own. Considerably less than a century, however, has sufficed to change the whole aspect of the place. Where the ducks disported themselves are now situated the East and West India and the Millwall Docks. Originally an attempt was made to construct a shorter course for vessels passing up and down the Thames. A new passage was made straight through the peninsula, where the West India Dock is now situated, but this, like the Thames Tunnel, proved to be a sad failure, vessels maintaining their course round “the unlucky Isle of Dogges,” just as they did in Pepys’ time. Round the long curve, engineering and ship-building yards have arisen, with houses of workmen attached thereto. The isle is populous, and dismal; and he would be a shrewd observer who should guess that it had not been built on till shortly after the century began.
One of the illustrations accompanying this narrative (page 313) represents a bend of the river at Millwall. It conveys, with much completeness, an idea of the character of the banks. Near by, a little further up the river, is the entrance to Millwall Docks. The name arises from the fact that, in former days, the only buildings on the Isle of Dogs were windmills. One of them was left till quite recent years, a quaint Dutch-looking structure, built very solid, to resist the high winds that blew unimpeded over the dismal peninsula, which even the ducks had abandoned.