336 



TABLE-TALK AND VARIETIES. 



My friend twelve m 



under Indian canopies. 

 Sir Andrew calls the vineyards of 

 France our gardens ; the spice isl- 

 ands our hotbeds ; the Persians 

 our silk-weavers ; and the Chinese 

 our potters." It is only half a cen- 

 tury since the West India docks 

 were completed (in 1802) ; the Lon- 

 don Docks were opened three years 

 after (in 1805) ; the East India 

 Docks, now combined under the 

 same proprietary with the "West 

 India, were finished three years 

 later (in 1808) ; and St. Katherine's 

 Docks were not constructed for 

 twenty years more (in 1828). Ac- 

 cording to Mr. M'Culloch, the home 

 and foreign trade of London, taken 

 together, is equal to that of Liver- 

 pool or New York, although in 

 foreign trade alone London is greatly 

 surpassed by Liverpool. The pro- 

 duce conveyed into and from Lon- 

 don annually is estimated by the 

 same authority at the prodigious 

 value of sixty-five millions sterling. 

 A few statements will further illus- 

 trate the extent and distribution of 

 the commerce of London. In 1848 

 the number of vessels entering the 

 port of London with cargoes from 

 foreign parts was 



British, 4C3G ships ; 839,150 tons. 



Foreign, 3050 ships ; 427,745 tons. 



From our colonial dependencies 

 cargoes were received during the 

 same year by 1843 ships of 546,195 

 tons. The coasting vessels entering 

 the port of London in 1848 (the 

 number was rather less in 1849) 

 was 22,584, with a tonnage of 

 3,242,572. At the beginning of the 

 year 1850 the number of sailing and 

 steam vessels belonging to the port 

 of London was 3053 ; with a ton- 

 nage of 667,497 ; the crews being 

 estimated at 35,000 men and boys. 

 No British port owns an equally 

 \ large amount of shipping, although 

 it is surpassed by that of New York. 

 The gross amount of customs duty 

 collected upon the cargoes of these 

 vessels in 1849 was little short of 



.illions of money. The ex- 

 tent and capacity of the Docks 

 convey a still more striking idea of 

 the amount of commercial enter- 

 prise involved in the foregoing 

 statements. 



As we thread our way through 

 the mazes of these vast repositories, 

 where everything seems in a state 

 of transition, and yet every place 

 appears fully occupied where the 

 ship's cargo of cotton is being hoisted 

 up to one floor, and part of a ship- 

 load of tea is being lowered from 

 another on its way to the market, 

 we see bales of cotton from Ame- 

 rica, North and South, from India, 

 from Egypt, from the West Indies, 

 and Port Natal ; hemp, Manilla 

 hemp, and jute from three quarters 

 of the globe, for making cordage 

 and matting; flax for weaving- 

 linen, from Egypt and Holland ; 

 China grass, a fibre obtained from 

 a species of nettle, and capable of 

 being woven into fine fabrics ; 

 silks from Italy, China, Syria, 

 India ; horns of the deer and 

 buffalo, from India, for buttons and 

 knife-handles ; ivory, or elephants' 

 teeth, from Africa, and the teeth of 

 a hippopotamus of the west coast, 

 used in making artificial teeth ; 

 horse-hair and cow- hair from 

 Buenos Ayres and Monte Video, 

 for stuffing cushions and weaving 

 hair - cloth ; alpaca and llama 

 wool from Lima; camel's -hair 

 from Egypt; goats' wool from 

 Turkey ; sheeps' wool from north- 

 ern Europe, Iceland, Australia, the 

 Cape, India, Bombay, Syria, Tur- 

 key, Egypt, Spain, Portugal, West 

 Indies, South America ; skins and 

 furs from North America, Russia, 

 the United States ; dye-stuffs in 

 the shape of ship-loads of woods, 

 such as Nicaragua wood, camwood, 

 sapan-wood, bar-wood, logwood, 

 fustic, Brazil wood, from India, 

 Africa, the West Indies, Greece, 

 South America ; yellow berries 

 from the Levant, uid orchella 



