The San Francisco call., 1896-04-26

minutes on the streetcars takes
IN one from the midst of the City's
scenes of rushing trade to an at
mosphere that breathes of commerce with
lands afar. Down on the water front, by
the tall masts and the great cables and the
big hullS, where employees of the shipping
corporations are wheeling bundles and
bales and boxes from deck to wharf and
from wharf to deck, or swinging freight on
or off with beam and pulley and tackle,
the mind seems to expand with the widen
ing sphere of contemplation beyond the
confines of the busy landsman's life.
Standing on the wharf one easily realizes
that he is standing on the edge of CONT
nent, and that those huge shells, built to
lattle against the wave battalions of the
briny deep, are the messengers of the
spheres and carriers of civilization.
Many a lesson is to be learned along the
wharves. One may see what monsters the
ocean vessels are, and as tons upon tons of
merchandise are dropped into their holds,
q faint idea OF their immense capacity Is
obtained. These vessels often bring for
tunes into port and often bear fortunes
away.
Strewn along the docks are goods of al
most every description ready to be lowered
into the dark bottoms. In one small pile
is a thousand cases of oil for the Hawaiian
Islands. 1t sounds like large figure, but
the pile doesn't seem very large in COM
parison with the loads of other things near
by, and thousand cases of oil will occupy
only a very small corner of the craft any,
how.
There the planks seem bending under
no Iobt nj opb hat ic
tined for Central America, and few yards
further on some schooners are loading for
Alaska. There are stamp-mills for mines,
more sacks of -four than one can count,
some horses that will be put into service
at Forty-mile Greek, and bales of hay and
sacks of grain to teed the animals with;
there are hams and bacon, and salt and
dried meats by the barrel, and many boxes
full of cabbages or potatoes. Fancy food
is not in demand IN the region just under
the Arctic Circle. There is a crowd of
men near these vessels discussing Alaskan
prospects.
They'll come back with less than they
leave with" yentured one of the pro phets
of the water front.
"How do you make that out?'' inquired
a man who is counting a conversation and
who would like to get rid of some of his |
own surplus views.
"Well, the Forty-mile country up there
is full of men already, and the mines are
petering out, as it is. Those men are GO
ing up there right along. There won't be
any work for them and most of them are
poor, and l tell you if a small army of
them isn't stranded and starved or frozen
TO death it'll be wonder. say these men
are shortsighted."
"You don't know" says the other, "that
the old Yukon miners come down with
lots of shining gold at the close of every
mining season; that they always spread |
reports about the mines being worked out
and advise people to keep away from there |
and that these same foxy old miners re-
turn to the cold north just as soon as |
spring is far enough along to assure safe
yoyaging. Alaska is rich, sir. These peo-
pie are as keen as they make them nova
days."
But the miners and the seamen pay no
heed to these onlookers and debaters, they
have business to attend to and are going
about 1t as if they understood its require
ments.
Those vessels over yonder, which will
carry missionaries to China and Siberia.
will also go laden with flour and pork and
other things, so that America, while pay
ing some attention to the souls of heathens
and other benighted people, is neverthe-
less bending an eye to the main chance
and letting no opportunity slip by to pull
Asiatic shekels to the shores where those
shekels receive heartier welcome than the
Asiatic. Americans are such heavy tea
drinkers, however, that the Chinese make
matters financially interesting in com.
mercial way.
From North Beach to the foot of Har-
rison street one may behold all kinds OF
bay and sea going craft and see faces and
hear tongues of about every nation of anv
importance under the sun. One straight
way calls upon his geographical! knowl-
edge to locate points on various parts of
the globe whence these vessels come Tn
u.s.. One is disposed to believe that to he a
sailor and see many lands and mineIe
with many strange peoples in distant
climes is to obtain liberal education. but
it is, perhaps, the case on the sea as it is
on the land-many don't ia ke advantage
of opportunities that come to them, mapv
don't see them when they come, and some
don't care whether they come or not SO
long as they have plenty to eat and drink.