ountering many
people rushing wildly to and fro with bags and bundles, still unable to
find their cabins, having come on at the last minute. In the great
saloon, those who are going ashore are hastily swallowing cups of hot
tea, and just as we arrive a bell rings to warn them to get off the ship
if they don't want to be carried away with her.

They flock down the gangway while we stand high above, and many
good-byes are shouted, and some are tearful and some are quite casual
and cheerful. Then the gangway is moved, but just before it goes down
with a run there is a shout, and two policemen hurry along the quay
hauling two shamefaced-looking men who are hustled up into the ship
again. They are stokers who fire the furnaces for the engines far down
below in the bowels of the ship. They had signed on for this voyage and
at the last minute tried to slink away, but have been caught and forced
back to their work.

Now the strip of water widens and very slowly we move from the quay,
being dragged ignominiously backward across the great basin in which we
lie by a diminutive steamer called a tug. We are not out in the river
yet and our own engines have not begun to work. You can understand that
it would be very difficult to load a ship if she stood always in the
river, where there are rising and falling tides, so, to make this
easier, great docks have been built along the river, and in them the
flow of the tides is regulated, so that the water remains always at
pretty much the same level.

The tug that pulls us across the dock on our way out looks absurdly
small, like a little Spitz dog pulling a great deerhound; but it does
its work well, and presently we glide into a narrow cut between high
walls; this is the lock, the entrance to the dock, and the water is held
up by great gates at each end as required, just as it is on river locks
for boats. Once we are inside the great gates behind us are shut, and
presently those at the farther end open and we see two other little tugs
waiting there to take us in charge. We are going out at the top of the
tide, and if we missed it should have to wait for another twelve hours,
or there would not be sufficient water in the river to float the ship
comfortably. We are still stern first, so if we want to see the fun we
must climb up to the top deck at that end. The wind is blowing a perfect
gale and almost drives us off our feet; it catches the side of the ship
and makes it far harder work f