HAMBURG: GENERAL IMPRESSIONS 51 



be brief, I am extremely well pleased with my explora- 

 tion. Unless appearances are absolutely deceiving, I 

 venture to say we shall have as good a vessel during our 

 voyage as could possibly be desired. There seems to be 

 a scarcit} 7 of transatlantic passengers, at least to South 

 America. So far, we three are the only ones, according 

 to Knohr and Burchard. In mentioning the "Victoria" 

 I cannot omit describing some harbor sights. Yesterday 

 I saw four vessels, bound for New York, take on board 

 their human cargo— the "Gutenberg," the "Leibnitz," 

 the "Oder" and— the name of the fourth vessel escaped 

 my memory. All were immense, three-masters, of at least 

 six hundred tons each. The sight of wholesale shipment 

 of emigrants is truly amazing and no one described it bet- 

 ter, in fewer words, than our noble Ferdinand Freiligrath 

 in his poem "Die Ausivanderer" (The Emigrants"*). 



One has only to walk along the shore for half an hour 

 to see representatives of all German Principalities (this 

 was fifty years ago.— Tr.) ; here he may listen to the many 

 dialects and look wonderingly at the gay costumes, pecul- 

 iar to the various sections of our beloved Fatherland. 

 Men, women and children were lying, standing or loung- 

 ing upon boxes, bundles or mattresses, waiting for the 

 wherry-boat, which was to take them and their belong- 

 ings on board the ship. These Hamburg wherry-boats are 

 very numerous on the lower Elbe and serve in forwarding 

 immense cargoes to and fro. They are indispensable for 

 the wholesaler; and an occasional strike among the 

 "Ewerfiihrer" or wherrymen is as much dreaded as that 

 of the longshoremen, though they are two very distinct 

 sets of workingmen. One ran witness such emigration 

 scenes several times every week, though not always in 

 as great a measure as I saw it yesterday. The reason for 

 this is that the influx of emigrants is the largest about the 

 beginning and middle of the month. There were at least 

 eight or nine hundred people shipped yesterday, as it 



*This poet is the Longfellow of Germany, whose "Hiawatha" 



and other poems he so beautifull} translated'. — J. C. B, 



