Chapter 33

THE SALT-DROGHERS, AND GERMAN EMIGRANT SHIPS

Surrounded by its broad belt of masonry, each Liverpool dock is a walled
town, full of life and commotion; or rather, it is a small archipelago,
an epitome of the world, where all the nations of Christendom, and even
those of Heathendom, are represented. For, in itself, each ship is an
island, a floating colony of the tribe to which it belongs.

Here are brought together the remotest limits of the earth; and in the
collective spars and timbers of these ships, all the forests of the
globe are represented, as in a grand parliament of masts. Canada and New
Zealand send their pines; America her live oak; India her teak; Norway
her spruce; and the Right Honorable Mahogany, member for Honduras and
Cam-peachy, is seen at his post by the wheel. Here, under the beneficent
sway of the Genius of Commerce, all climes and countries embrace; and
yard-arm touches yard-arm in brotherly love.

A Liverpool dock is a grand caravansary inn, and hotel, on the spacious
and liberal plan of the Astor House. Here ships are lodged at a moderate
charge, and payment is not demanded till the time of departure. Here
they are comfortably housed and provided for; sheltered from all
weathers and secured from all calamities. For I can hardly credit a
story I have heard, that sometimes, in heavy gales, ships lying in the
very middle of the docks have lost their top-gallant-masts. Whatever the
toils and hardships encountered on the voyage, whether they come from
Iceland or the coast of New Guinea, here their sufferings are ended, and
they take their ease in their watery inn.

I know not how many hours I spent in gazing at the shipping in Prince's
Dock, and speculating concerning their past voyages and future prospects
in life. Some had just arrived from the most distant ports, worn,
battered, and disabled; others were all a-taunt-o--spruce, gay, and
brilliant, in readiness for sea.

Every day the Highlander had some new neighbor. A black brig from
Glasgow, with its crew of sober Scotch caps, and its staid, thrifty-
looking skipper, would be replaced by a jovial French hermaphrodite,
its forecastle echoing with songs, and its quarter-deck elastic from
much dancing.

On the other side, perhaps, a magnificent New York Liner, huge as a
seventy-four, and suggesting the idea of a Mivart's or Delmonico's
afloat, would give way to a Sidney emigrant ship, receiving on board its
live freight of shepherds from the Grampians, ere long to be tending
their flocks on the hills and downs of New Holland.

I was particularly pleased and tickled, with a multitude of little
salt-droghers, rigged like sloops, and not much bigger than a pilot-
boat, but with broad bows painted black, and