The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1895-03-17

Pilots ridge, 40 miles away, and out in
the, Bay OF Bengal. where the steamers
first pick up the pilots from the brig.
A Hugh pilot does not bring papers
aboard or scramble up rope ladders. He
arrives in his best clothes with native
servant or assistant TO wait on him. and
he behaves as a man should who can
earn $4,000 year after twenty years. APP
premiership. He has beautiful rooms In
the port Office at Calcutta, and generally
keeps himself to the society of his own
profession, for though the telegraph re-
ports the more important soundings OF
the river daily there is much to be
learned between trip and trip.
Some millions of tons OF shipping must
find their way to and from Calcutta each
twelve-month, and unless the Hugh were
watched as closely as men watch the At
lantic cables there Is fear that 1t might
silt up as IL has silted up round the
old Dutch and Portuguese ports twenty
and thirty miles behind Calcutta So the
port Office sounds and scours and dredges
and builds spurs and devices for coaxing
currents and labels all the buoys with
their proper letters and attends to the
semaphorAs and the lights and the drum.
ball and cone storm signals. and the pilots
of the Hugh do the rest. but in spite of all
the care the Hugh swallows ship or two
every year.
Nnen Martin Trevor nau toilOWeu THIS
life from his boyhood; when he had risen
to be a senior pilot entitled to bring up
to Calcutta the big ships drawing over
twenty-four feet that can Tor could till
few years ago. only pass by special ar
rangement: when he had talked nothing
but Hugh and pilotage all his life. he
was exceedingly indignant thathis only son
should decide upon following his fathers
profession Mrs. Trevor had died when
rhtl o.
older Trevor. In the intervals of his bust
ness, noticed that the lad was very often
by the river side--no nice place for a boy.
Once, when he asked him IL he could
make anything out of the shipping. little
Trevor replied by Keeling off the list OF
all the house-fiags in sight at the moor
ings.
you'll come to bad end JIM" said
Trevor. Little boys haven't any bust
ness to know house-fiags."
"Oh. Pedro at the Sailors home taught
me. He says you can't begin too early"
''At what please?"
"Piloting. I'm nearly fourteen now and
land l know where all the shipping In
the river is. and | know what there was
yesterday over the Mayapur bar, and I've
been down to Diamond harbor-oh. hum
dred times-and I've"
you'll go 10 school. son. and learn
what they'll teach you. and you'll turn
out better than a pilot" said his father.
but he might just az well have told a
shovel-nosed porpoise OF the river to
come ashore and begin life as hen.
Jim held his tongue-he noticed that all
the best pilots in the port Office did that
and devoted his young attention and
all his spare time and money TO the river
he loved.
Trevor's son became as well known as
the Bankshall itself. and the port police
let him inspect their launches, and the
tug boat captains had already place
for him at table. and the mates of the
big steam dredgers used to show him how
the machinery worked, and there were
certain native rowboats that Jim practi-
caiiy owned: and he extended his pat
ronage TO the rail that runs TO Diamond
harhor. forty miles down the river. In
the old days nearly all the East India
Company's ships used to discharge at
Diamond harhor on account of the shoals
above, but now ships go straight UP to
Calcutta, and they have only some moor
ings for vessels In distress there, and
telegraph service and harbor master, who
was Jim's intimate friend. He would sit
in the Office and listen TO the soundings
of the shoals as they were reported every
day. and attend 70 the movements OF the
steamers up and down dim always felt
he had lost something Il a boat got In or
out OF the river without his knowing III,
and when the big liners. with their rows
Of burning portfolios. tied up In Diamond
harhor for the night Jim would row from