The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-03-13
.OLD ANTWERP IS REMARKABLE CITY Is the Second Greatest Seaport
 of Europe SCENES ALONG WHARVES Sailors From All the World Are Gath cred There and the Greatest Activity PrevaIIs-Present
 Docks Not Sufficient.
SCENES ALONG WHARvES

New York. March 12.-Antwerp the port long connected with New YorK ana more recently with Boston by regular steamship services a favorite gateway oi entry to Europe, an emporium TOT the argosies of every nation-this is sioe oi the picturesoue old Belgium city which immediately impresses most American travellers, though they find the whole city full of spectacular and entertaining feature. There Is, in fact, no better in troduction to the old world than through Antwerp. The approach is more pictures que. the destination more interesting than at the termination of almost any other voyage.
 Aboard one of the big liners you sail up the broad Scheldt-"grayest of gray rivers.' as 1t has been called-looking down on either side upon the wide ex- panse of Netherlands protected from the river by dykes picturesque with wind mills, seeples, hamlets, copses of birch and oak and plantations of Scotch fir. In the thick atmosphere everything ap- pears fattened out, so that one seems to be looking almost at stage scenery Everywhere, too, at closer hand, are en- countered the odd Dutch river craft ply ing between Antwerp and the ports of Holland. so heavily laden with merchant disc that they often proceed with their decks all awash How their shippers con- trive to navigate them in the rough wat CTS of this tide river-for the winds in the Netherlands blow with prodigious force-excites the wonder of the Yankee tourist. Yet none of them ever sinks.
 Approaching the Port.
 After traversing wonderland for 40 miles one finally approaches the great port, situated in bend of the Scheldt in locality where Napoleon once de- signed to create city that should rival the English metropolis. For two cen- turies in the old days Antwerp was the leading emporium of Europe and as a trade centre it Is not far behind today The ancient wharves have been replaced with modern quays which the tourist finds alive with stirring nautical life: dock porters In queer blouses, vendors of remarkable liquids, shippers and crews of Dutch canal boats, sailors of every known hue, speaking every known tongue. The porters are particularly entertaining wearing huge cloth that covers head and shoulders and lifting with apparent ease bales of cloth or wod-pulp that must weight 400 pounds. The performers in this drama of commerce are cosmopolitan, as at every seaport, but the background Is Flemish, with delightful glimpses of an cient buildings seen through the narrow streets.
 Such is the strangers impression of nautical Antwerp, which as he usually learns with some surprise, has within n short time become greater in the extent of its commerce than any other European city except London, but which. despite the bustling commercial activity of its wharves, has kept its present so congru- ous with it's past that it remains the most distinetively European of continental cities.
 Statistics are Eloquent.
 The statistics, just published for the year 1903 of the commerce of the one steamship line, the Red Star. which maintains regular connection with Amer ican ports, are in themselves eloquent of the growth of this seaport situated up- wards of forty miles inland. Such in creases in single year are little short