Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 21, 2025
It is difficult even now to imagine that after landing the Prime Minister and couple of bishops at Cowes the yacht should have started off to keep a midnight appointment with a disreputable tramp steamer in an unfrequented part of the North Sea; that Bob Power, after making himself agreeable for a fortnight to Lady Moyne, should have sweated like a stevedore at the difficult job of transhipping a cargo in mid-ocean.
And he went on to explain, with a variety of nautical metaphors, that the couple, an elderly man and a young girl supposedly his grandchild, had appeared in Chepstow some weeks ago during fair-time; that the young woman "took observations," which I translated to mean that she told fortunes, supporting them both, it would seem, by the pennies she gained this way, for the man did no work, and was most often seen "hove to, transhipping cargo," at the bar of the Three Old Cronies or elsewhere, Crump said.
The sun had set, and the velvet dusk of the tropics was closing down upon the scene, when at length the Bangalore's boats were hoisted out, and the work of transhipping the booty began.
The most comfortable and the most restful travelling in the world that I know of is on board the large river steamers running up the Yangtse for six hundred miles from Shanghai to Hankow, and then transhipping to somewhat smaller vessels, for the additional four hundred miles to Ichang.
Some members of the Council were sceptical about the possibility of transhipping the cargo at sea, but Crawford, who had fully discussed it with Agnew, believed that if favoured by calm weather it could be done. When Carson, after hearing all that was to be said on both sides in the long debate between Fabius and Hotspur, finally supported the latter, the question was decided.
Before long the light air died away altogether, and the fleet was left floating idly, in picturesque groups and with flapping sails, on the glassy sea. Among the groups thus scattered about, there was one smack which had quietly joined the fleet when the men were busy transhipping or "ferrying" the fish to the steam-carrier.
After regarding her attentively through the lenses, therefore, for more than a minute, I passed the glass back to the chief mate with the quiet remark: "Yes, I believe I recognise her now that I come to see her distinctly. If I am not mistaken she is the British man-o'-war schooner Gadfly, and her presence yonder affords Captain Tourville an opportunity to fulfil his promise of transhipping me.
The question arises whether our labourers would enjoy a plump rat for supper? The question also arises why the Six Companies are engaged in transhipping Chinese labour from China to America? In California the Chinese work at a rate of wages absolutely impossible to the white man hence the Chinese difficulty there. In Queensland a similar thing is going on.
The Arabs began to harangue the occupants of the lower deck. We watched them curiously, perhaps wondering if they had poisoned the fish. The Tommies stared at them in silence. They were the first inhabitants of the country that we had seen. The business of transhipping at the bar is a burden to all concerned.
He recommended that we should go on deck and set about transhipping whilst the weather held, for he was an old hand in these seas and never trusted the sky longer than a quarter of an hour. "This here list," says he, "wants remedying and that'll follow our easin' of the hold."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking