The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-15 00:00:00

TH.E TIDE HARBOUR.

(From Patchwork, by Captain Basil Hall, IteN.)
I hardly know two things more different in appear.
ance than what is called a tide harbour when the sea is
in, and the same harbour when the sea is out. At
high-water we behold a beautiful basin, brimful, and
bearing on its surface numberless vessels, all of whose
masts, ropes, and sails, loosed to dry, are reflected in
the mirror upon which they rest so gracefully, that we
know not which to admire most—the bold originals, in
all their pomp and bustle, or their inverted and soft-
ened representations beneath. The little boats which
pass up and down, or flit across the harbour, and the
ships arriving or departing, some dropping their anchor
with a thundering plash into the stream, and others la-
boriously heaving up that ponderous mass of iron to their
bows, give an endless variety to this busy scene. The
cheerful voice of the seamen, singing as they work,
mingling with the anxious word of command spoken by
the cautious pilots, form a fitting music for the scene.
Even the brawling of the noisy boatmen has its cha-
racteristic and stirring interest as they cross and re-
cross the port with hawsers, which they tic and untie,
or pass along from post to post, with an address
that astonishes the ignorant and delights the profes-
sional eye, netting the whole space over with cords, with
the industry of spiders, as if their mischievous purpose
were to catch and retain the ships, not to expedite their
departure, or aid their entrance into the port. The
adjacent wharfs and piers, at that busiest, bscause the
most available, season of the tide, called emphatically
the " top of high-water," are generally crowded with
spectators, composed either of persons eagerly watching
the arrival of long-looked-for friends, or bidding an adieu
to those who arc departing ; or, finally, of that large
majority of idlers, who, having no precise business any-
where, are attracted, unconsciously, by the inherent
beauty and interest of this ever-varying scene, and who,
without having either taste or knowledge enough to
analyse their feelings, are yet moved by what is so essen-
tially picturesque, that the dullest senses are made to
feel its charm. Nor is this a scene which palls on the
observation, for it is scarcely possible that we shall dis-
cover it to be alike on any two days of the year. On
one day there may be either a faint breeze or a dead
calm. The vessels, in that case, drop out gently to sea
with the first turn of the ebb, while others enter the
harbour with the last drain of flood : each being aided
by a little tiny boat, connected with its parent bark by
a cord, alternately dipping in the water and jerked out of
it, as the seamen, with a loud huzza, strain their backs to
the oar. Or it may happen, that an entering or de-
parting ship is drawn along by a rope, or warp as it is
called, kept as tight as a rod of iron by fifty or a hun-
dred hands, lining the long projecting pier, at the end
of which stands the lighthouse—that lighthouse of
which, in the bright blaze of sunshine, it has been sati-
rically remarked, we take no more note than of a friend
whose assistance we require no longer, though it pro-
bably crosses the recollection of some of the more re-
flecting of the spectators, that the time has been when,
in a dark and stormy night, a single glimpse of this now
neglected beacon was held worth a ship-load of silver !
On such a fine day as I am supposing, dozens, or even
hundreds, of ships and vessels or various sizes and des-
criptions, from all the mercantile nations of the earth,
are seen jostling one another, dropping out, or dropping
in, towing, warping, sailing, steaming, on their diffe-
rent courses, " a mighty maze but not without a
plan." Even to inexperienced observation this appa-
rent mass of confusion is very pleasing ; though to
such it must see sa as inexplicable and beyond control as
that of the planetary movements or the vagaries of tile
moon, which all admire, though few understand. When,
however, there happens to be a brisk wind blowing, the
scene is totally different. The elements now meet in op-
position, for the wind, instead of slumbering as before,
and letting the silent tide have its own placid way,
is roused up, and having set itself against the current,
sorely puzzles, but rarely baffles entirely, the skill of
the seaman. Then it is, that the talents and local
knowledge of the pilots, and the hardy intrepidity of the
captains come into play ; and men who, in the calm of
the day before, we should not have discovered to be
much above their fellows in courage or capacity, now
claim their due superiority. At such moments the
commander is cheerfully and even eagerly obeyed
by those very men who, in the pride of ignorance and
the presumption of security, were far less docile in the
calm. If we watch a ship coming in we shell see the
anchor all ready to let go—the cables ranged along
the deck—the leadsman in the chains taking cast after
cast as briskly as he can, and singing out the sound-
ings to the anxious pilot, as the harbour's mouth is
neared. On entering it the tacks become shorter, and
are made with more smartness. The helm is put down
quickly, the head. sheets let fly in a moment, and about she
comes. The yards spin round, ropes crack, and sails shake,
as if the whole machinery of seamanship was going to
pieces. As she heels to the gale, under the unrestrained
leverage of the masts, the old ships creak from stem
to stern, by the friction of the timbers and beams
against one another, and to shore-going senses it would
seem that the danger was great. But if we now take
notice of the weatherwise glance of the pilot's eye, or
mark the tranquil deportment of the captain by his
side, or observe the cheery laugh of the dripping crew,
as the waves curl or break over them, we shall under-
stand, although we cannot tell how, that in the midst
of what seems tumult, and hazard, and difficulty, all
is order and safety. Thus at moments when in our
ignorance we fancy the vessel is to be driven against
the reeks, or absorbed by the seas, as she gradually
forces her way in or out of the harbour, we discover
that the people most concerned know that all danger
is past, and arc chatting, at their ease, about indif-
ferent matters ! Instead of a whole squadron of great
ships, and a mosquito fleet of small craft, coming and
going, when the weather was fine and the sea
smooth, we now detect only one or two of the
sturdiest class venturing to face the gale, and urged
by competition or the love of gain in some of its mul-
tifarious shapes, determined, at all risks, to commence
their voyage. Or we spy in the distance, returning to
its native port, a white sail, well bleached by the al-
tercate sun and rain of many a tropical day. 'FO the
accustomed eye it is nothing but a pleasing spot of
light, relieving the black angry sky behind ; but to the
anxious ken of the merchant, whose soul is afloat, it
tells another story. He sees in his richly-freighted
argosie in the offing the cent. per cent. of well-directed
enterprise, and as his darling ship enters the port,
cheered on her way by the j )yous shouts of a thousand
welcomes, the grateful owner blesses his lucky stars,
and as he returns the hardy captain's salute, he ap-
plauds his own discrimination in having selected so
fitting a commander to conduct his distant adventure.
The weather-beaten ship herself, dashing past like a
meteor, enters the harbour before the wind, and is soon
tightly lashed in security, after all her perils, by the
side of her master's warehouse. Careless observers
may contrast, to her disparagement, her battered ap-
pearance, her dirty, grass-grown sides, spliced ropes,
and threadbare and many patched sails, worn thin and
white by long use, with the smartly-painted hulls, the
stiff and gummy canvas, the well-tarred shrouds and
unstretched cordage of the departing ships. But all
these, though scarcely noticed by the uninitiated,
being characteristic marks of protracted hard work,
are respected by all those to whom the scenes with
which they are associated are familiar, and bring back
a thousand hardships, as well as joys, to a sailor's mind
In like manner, the well-tanned countenance of the ex-
perienced commander, and the iron grasp of the rope
' worn Het, are right welcome to the grateful " owner,'-
who receives his officer not as a servant but as a friend,'
when he leaps to the shore, and reports that ha has
made a successful voyage. The anxieties of both par-
ties—the hazards of the voyage, the doubts, the delays,
the difficulties, so painful at the moment, are so no
longer, but, on the contrary, furnish topics for the most
delightful converse and mutual congratulation. Such
are one or two of the thousand scenes which a tide-
harbour, such as Leith or Dieppe, presents at high
water ; but when the tide has ebbed out, a very diffe-
rent set of objects strike the eye. Almost all the pic-
turesque beauty of the spot is gone. The beautiful

ovcrfl:wing basin is now a huge and almost empty
trough, for the only water which can be discovered is
a slender dirty stream, struggling through a meadow
of mud. The shipping, instead of riding triumphantly,
like " things of life," on the bosom of the sea, and
casting their reflected images deep into the tide,
are now flung about at random ; and, instead of point-
ing their tall masts to the sky, like so many Gothic
spires, are inclined over at every angle to the horizon.
Same are fairly laid prostrate on their beam-ends ; others
thrown out of the perpendicular, like the trees of an
American forest after a hurricane ; all of them seem-
ing more or less deranged from the naturally erect posi-
tion, and sticking, as if ashamed of themselves, in a bed of
silt ; there, all sailorless and disconsolate, the poor ships
lie, as if they were nothing but wrecks, rotting and
useless, in the dirty, sledgy, impassable slime. The
pretty' little boats, which an hour or two before
skimmed merrily from side to side of the harbour, are
now half-buried in the mud, with their noses down,their
sterns up, their oars tumbled about, the rudders unship-
ped. The only visible things at this dead season
are a few wretched, amphibious-looking personages,
" mud-larks," as they are emphatically called—booted
to the thigh, struggling like flies through a glue-pot,
knee-deep in the silt, in the dirty hope of picking up
birts of cordage, or other scraps of stores dropped from
the ships. All is now silence, both on ship-board and
on the shore, for as most of the vessels cannot be
reached, the wearied seamen profit by the occasion and
go to rest, while the process of loading and unloading
is intermitted. At such/ times, too, the usual group
of idle spectators, even if there were anything to look
at, would be deterred from approaching the spot by the
offensive vapours, which the heat of the sun sends up
from the horrid accumulation of dirt in the waterless
harbour.

POST-OFFICE MONEY ORDERS.-.—it is not
generally knovrn that the Pest-office will pay money or-
ders through a banker. We hear that the increase of
money orders since the reduction of the fees in November
last, in London, is about threefold,