Like Mount Zion, this great seaport was beautiful for situation.
Located on the eastern tip of an island some thirty miles long, that
lay not far off the mainland and parallel with it, the little city sat
snugly between the Galveston Bay on the north and the swelling waters
of the Gulf on the south. Barren stretches of sand girt the city on the
west, while farther along the coast of the island rose some mound-like
structures above which flew the American flag. Roy had already learned
that this was Fort Crockett. But of the city before him he knew
practically nothing.
After standing straight in toward land for a considerable distance, the
ship turned to port and, like a match about to pass a sawlog, steamed
directly toward the island, but slightly to the right or north of it.
It was mid-forenoon and there was no wireless work for Roy to do at
the time. He came out of the wireless house and stood on the upper
deck, so as to obtain an unobstructed view. Captain Lansford was again
on the bridge. On the lower decks passengers were saying good-bye to
one another, and making all the preparations necessary for departure.
Stewards were bustling about, looking after baggage, helping passengers
with their slight wraps and hand luggage, and performing a multitude
of other acts designed in part to be helpful, but meant mostly to draw
forth generous tips from grateful travelers. Much of this was hidden
from Roy. But he could see enough of it to understand what was afoot.
He was glad he was by himself, where he did not have to watch it. The
very idea of seeking and taking tips was repugnant to him.
He paid slight heed to what was going on below him, however, for there
was so much to see elsewhere that he was soon deeply engrossed in the
scene before him. So deeply did he become interested that he even
failed to hear a footstep on the ladder and was not conscious that any
one had mounted to his deck until a voice sounded close to his ear.
Roy turned about with a start, then smiled a welcome. It was the chief
engineer whose duties, like Roy’s, were about ended for the journey.
“Good-morning, Mr. Anderson,” smiled Roy. “I’m glad to see you. What
brings you up here? Can I do anything for you? Any messages you want
sent?”
“Thank you, Mr. Mercer,” said the chief engineer. “I can’t think of a
soul I want to communicate with. The purser asked me to step up and
tell you about some of the things we shall see. He knew that you would
be interested in them, but you know this is his busy time. He’s up to
his eyes in work just now.”
“I am obliged both to you and to the purser,” said Roy. “I do want
to know about Galveston, but I don’t want to impose upon you, Mr.
Anderson.”
“That’s all right. It’s no imposition. You know I am an engineer and I
never tire of talking of some of the engineering feats that have been
accomplished here. There is nothing in all the world more interesting
from an engineering standpoint than some of the things that have been
done right on this little island.”
Roy opened his eyes wide. He had no idea that Galveston was anything
but a sleepy, southern seaport. He decided not to display his ignorance
and so said nothing. But he felt sure that after what he had seen in
New York, Galveston must prove to be tame indeed.
For a space the two stood shoulder to shoulder, surveying the scene in
silence. The usual morning breeze had sprung up and the blue waters
of the Gulf were foaming white under its breath. The whitecaps chased
one another shoreward, and broke on the beach in glistening foam. High
above them rose the town, looking for all the world like a city built
on a rock. Its white houses gleamed in the warm June sun.
Roy soon forgot the still-distant city in his astonishment at seeing
what looked like a gigantic stone wall that seemed to reach straight
out from the shore almost to the _Lycoming_. It made Roy think of some
of the old stone pasture walls on the farms about his home. But this,
being in the sea, couldn’t possibly be a pasture wall, and Roy had no
idea what it was. On the end of it stood a strong little structure that
evidently held a light to guide the way at night.
“What in the world is that curious stone wall for?” asked Roy, turning
to Mr. Anderson.
“I thought that you would soon find something of interest,” said the
chief engineer with a smile. “That is one of the jetties Uncle Sam
built to deepen the channel. If you look off to the right you will see
a second jetty that roughly parallels this. The jetty on the left is
nearly seven miles long. The one on the right is five miles long. That
makes twelve miles of stone wall, as you call it. The two walls are two
miles apart at the shore end and seven thousand feet at this end. We
run in between them.”
“Makes you think of a pasture lane fenced in with stone, doesn’t it?”
inquired Roy with a smile. “But how in the world can two stone walls
have anything to do with making the channel deeper?”
Smiling over Roy’s perplexity, Mr. Anderson replied, “That’s exactly
what these jetties are, in fact--a kind of lane for the waves to go
through. There are two bars that obstruct the entrance to this harbor,
which otherwise is one of the finest in the land. Over the outer bar
there were only twelve feet of water, and at the inner bar nine and
a half feet. An ocean liner draws twenty-five or thirty feet, you
know, and couldn’t possibly get over such a shallow place. That meant
that Galveston, though ideally situated for a seaport, could never be
reached by big ships. The government kept dredging the channel, but the
shoals filled up about as fast as the dredges dug them out. Finally
Uncle Sam’s engineers solved the problem by building those big stone
walls.”
“Even now I don’t understand what the stone walls have to do with
deepening the channel,” said Roy, still perplexed.
Mr. Anderson chuckled. “Those stones, as you call them, are granite
blocks weighing five to twelve tons each,” he said. “The jetties are
twelve to fifteen feet wide at the top and so solid that the water
can’t flow through them; so it has to run between them, exactly like
cattle going down your pasture lane. The tide runs so fast that it
washes the loose sand out of the channel, scouring it clean every day,
as it were. The result is that now Galveston has a thirty-one-foot
channel at high water.”
Roy whistled in astonishment. “That beats anything I ever heard of,” he
said. “It was a pretty slick idea, wasn’t it?”
Steadily the _Lycoming_ ploughed her way along between the jetties. As
they drew near the shore ends of the jetties, Roy noticed that the long
south jetty ran directly to Galveston Island, while the shorter north
jetty ended at a small island in Galveston Bay. Mr. Anderson said it
was called Pelican Island.
But what immediately gripped Roy’s attention was the great wall that
began at the end of the south jetty and ran around the outer side of
the city. Vaguely he remembered having heard of the Galveston sea-wall,
and he knew this must be it. He was amazed as he looked at it.
Evidently the wall was of cement, for it appeared like a solid piece of
stone. Its seaward side was concave, being far wider at the base than
at the top. Its base was protected by a wide riprap of huge granite
blocks, evidently intended to prevent the waves from undermining it.
Roy wondered how the waves could ever get up to the wall, let alone
threaten it, for a stretch of beach, fully two hundred feet wide, lay
between the wall and the waves that were now breaking on the glistening
sands.
“Well, what do you think of it?” inquired the chief engineer after a
time.
“I’ve heard of the Galveston sea-wall,” said Roy, “but I had no idea it
was anything like that. Why, that’s a wonderful piece of work.”
“It’s a great deal more wonderful than you think, Mr. Mercer. It is one
of the most wonderful things in the world. That wall is built on sand.”
“Yes?” said Roy, not appreciating exactly what a difference that meant.
“Yes; on _sand_,” repeated Mr. Anderson, with considerable emphasis on
the word. “You know a heavy sea would ordinarily quickly undermine such
a structure. The sand would be washed from underneath it.”
“Then what prevents the sea from doing it?” asked Roy, growing much
interested.
“It’s built on pilings,” replied the chief engineer. “Four rows of ’em
driven forty-three feet into the sand and projecting a foot up into
the wall itself. Then there’s a twenty-four-foot sheet piling behind
the outer row to prevent scouring, and the stone riprap at the foot
of the wall is twenty-seven feet wide and three feet thick. The wall
itself is sixteen feet thick at the base, five feet wide at the top,
and seventeen feet high. The city built three and a half miles of it,
and the government extended it more than a mile farther to protect Fort
Crockett.”
“Whew!” ejaculated Roy. “That is some piece of engineering. I don’t
wonder you like to look at it.”
“Oh! That’s only part of the story,” continued the chief engineer with
a smile, “and perhaps the smaller part. The raising of the city to the
level of the wall is perhaps more wonderful than the making of the wall
itself. Sea-walls aren’t unique by any means, but I know of nothing
quite like the raising of the level of Galveston. You know the entire
city was raised.”
Roy looked his astonishment. “Not really?” he gasped.
“Yes, really. Before the storm of 1900 the highest point in the city
was only six feet above tide level. Now it is nineteen feet. After the
sea-wall was done, they raised all the buildings and the street-car
tracks, built elevated plank sidewalks, dredged twenty million cubic
yards of sand from the Gulf and pumped it into the city until it filled
up to the proper level. Then they rebuilt foundations, repaved the
streets, replanted the trees and shrubs, and resowed the grass.”
“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Roy. “I never heard of anything like it. Why,
it’s wonderful, wonderful! I thought New York was great, but this beats
anything I saw there. Just to think of raising a whole city nineteen
feet in the air! Why, that’s as high as a two-story house.”
“It isn’t quite so wonderful as that,” smiled Mr. Anderson. “The
nineteen-foot elevation is only on the Gulf side. That point is two
hundred feet back from the sea-wall, so that if any water comes over
the wall it will run back into the sea. In the other direction the
ground slopes toward the Bay, where they raised the level only to eight
feet. As the island is about three and a half miles wide, that makes
only a very slight grade.”
For some time Roy stood in silent wonder. He was amazed at what the
chief engineer had told him. Suddenly he turned to his companion and
demanded, “What did they do it for? They’ll probably never have another
storm like that. Why, it must have cost a pile of money.”
“It cost millions,” said Mr. Anderson. “But it was worth it. The flood
of September 8, 1900, swept over the city to a depth of sixteen feet.
People used to live way out this side of the sea-wall, where now you
see only tossing water. The entire end of the island for eight blocks
inland was washed away, with all the houses. Eight or ten thousand
people were drowned and the property loss was many millions. It was
the worst catastrophe due to natural causes in the history of America.
As for storms, you never can tell. Every fall brings hard ones here in
the Gulf. They’ve had some bad ones besides the Galveston flood. In
September, 1875, a terrible hurricane swept the city. Late in August,
1886, another awful storm occurred. But the storm of 1900 was the worst
ever known. There was a tidal wave then that swept right over the
island. If the city was to be safe, it had to be protected somehow. So
they built the sea-wall. Such a wave might occur again at any time.
You might see one yourself this coming September. There are always bad
storms then.”
By this time the _Lycoming_ was close to her dock and Roy was more than
astonished at what he could see of the shipping facilities.
“Whew!” he said. “It looks as though they could handle almost as many
ships here as they do in New York. I had no idea Galveston was so much
of a seaport. There must be miles of wharves. What makes it such a
great seaport, anyway?”
“Some years Galveston ranks next to New York in the volume of its
shipping,” said the chief engineer, “so that it claims to be the second
most important seaport in America. So much of our cotton is shipped by
way of Galveston that it is the greatest cotton port in all the world.
The greatest cottonseed grinding plant in the world is right on the
water-front, where its products can be put directly aboard ships. And
the port handles an enormous amount of tropical products like bananas,
coffee, sugar, lumber, and corn and cattle from Mexico and Argentina.
There are probably sixty or seventy lines of steamboats that run
from here. Ships go direct from Galveston to all the important ports
in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Cuba. So you see they need vast
shipping facilities. There are six miles of wharves here and more than
one hundred great ocean freighters can load or unload at one time.”
“Great Cæsar!” ejaculated Roy. “This certainly must be a great city.
How big is it, anyway?”
“That’s the interesting thing about Galveston. It does all this
business, but it’s really only a small city. I doubt if there are more
than fifty thousand people here, and its total area is only about
fifteen square miles. You could put it in one of New York’s pockets,
so to speak. Yet it is the leading seaside resort in the southwest and
more than a million pleasure-seekers visit Galveston every year.”
“Gee whiz!” said Roy. “They must be hustlers if so few people can
handle so much traffic. It seemed to me it took almost five thousand
stevedores and truck drivers just to load the _Lycoming_.”
Mr. Anderson laughed. “They can handle so much freight,” he said,
“because everything is built so as to facilitate the work.”
He pointed out some grain elevators beside the wharf from which wheat
was pouring through great spouts directly into waiting steamships, and
he showed Roy water-front warehouses for steel materials, broom-corn,
cotton, and other products.
“We shall dock beside a cotton warehouse,” said the chief engineer.
“Step into the place when you go ashore and take a look at it.”
By this time the _Lycoming_ was close to her berth. The chief engineer
said good-bye and scrambled down the ladder. Roy watched Captain
Lansford dock the steamer. He could not but admire the skilful way
in which the commander laid the huge ship beside her pier as though
she were a mere foot-boat. Then Roy came down to the lower decks
and watched the passengers swarm ashore. Presently he went down the
gangplank himself. He walked up and down the wharf, which felt very
strange indeed because it did not move like the ship.
Presently he stepped into the cotton warehouse the chief engineer had
pointed out to him. Its size amazed him. It was hundreds of yards
long and many wide. Seemingly it contained thousands of huge bales
of cotton, each weighing five hundred pounds. On the landward side
freight trains were standing full of cotton. And the floors of trains,
warehouse, and wharf were on a level, so that the cotton could be
trucked direct from freight-car to steamer in one handling. Roy could
not help contrasting this expeditious way of handling freight with the
cumbersome system necessary in New York.
He was turning the matter over in his mind when the superintendent of
the warehouse came along. Noticing Roy’s uniform, he stopped and spoke
to him.
“Fine morning, sir,” he said. “Belong on the _Lycoming_?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Roy politely.
“Anything I can do for you?”
“Thanks. I think not,” said Roy. “I was just admiring your warehouse.”
The superintendent’s face lighted up. “Ain’t she a daisy?” he said.
“One of the finest in the world. Step in and look around.”
“My!” said Roy, “you’ve a lot of cotton here.”
“A mere handful, my boy, a mere handful,” repeated the superintendent.
“Our cotton concentration plants here can accommodate a million bales,
sir, a million bales. We’ve handled four million bales in a year at
this port, sir.”
Roy stepped across the warehouse to look at the cotton cars, but his
eye was instantly caught by the long lines of car tracks that ran
parallel with the wharves. The superintendent noticed his astonishment.
“There are more than seventy-five miles of tracks abutting on our
water-front,” he said, “so you see we can handle a heap of stuff.”
Roy whistled in amazement. “How do trains get here?” he asked. “This is
an island, isn’t it?”
“It sure is an island,” replied the superintendent, “but we are
connected with the mainland by a big causeway of reinforced concrete,
like the sea-wall. It’s two miles long, and has three railroad tracks,
a roadway for vehicles, and a path for pedestrians. It cuts right
across the Bay from the island to Virginia Point on the mainland. You
can see it from here.” And the obliging warehouseman showed Roy the
huge stone roadway spanning the Bay.
“Too bad it had to be built, isn’t it?” said Roy. “It cuts your harbor
in half, I suppose. If it weren’t for that you could sail ships clear
around the island.”
“We can, anyway,” replied the superintendent. “There’s a roller lift
bridge spanning the channel that lifts straight up to let ships pass
through.”
“Well, I never!” exclaimed Roy. “Is there anything you folks haven’t
done down here?”
The superintendent’s face glowed with pride. “Yes; that’s a pretty fine
causeway,” he said, “but as an engineering feat there’s nothing in
Galveston more interesting than our water supply. We get our drinking
water from artesian wells on the mainland, the water being carried
through huge pipes laid under the Bay.”
“You are certainly a wonderful lot of people, you Galveston folks,”
cried Roy.
Again the superintendent smiled with pleasure. Then his face became
serious. “We have done a lot of interesting things here,” he said,
“but we aren’t a bit different from the rest of the nation. We’re
Americans. That explains all these up-to-date achievements. They
represent the spirit of America. You’ll find Americans doing the same
kind of wonderful things wherever you go--New York, or San Francisco,
or here in Galveston.”
“I’m mighty glad I’m an American,” said Roy with emphasis.
“You ought to be, young man. Don’t ever forget that.”
The superintendent went on about his duties and Roy began to look about
him again. He wanted to see something of the city itself, but decided
to wait until the purser could go with him.
It was not until after luncheon that the purser found time for a stroll
with Roy. Then the two set out for a tour of the city. As they came
down the gangplank, the harbor-master was passing. Catching sight of
the purser, he turned about and hurried over to greet him.
“Good-evening, Mr. Robbins, good-evening,” he said heartily, shaking
the purser’s hand warmly. “I sure am glad to see you. You’ll pardon me
for hurrying away now, won’t you? For I have a pressing job on hand.
But won’t you all stop at my office later? If I’m not there you all
find chairs on the gallery. Nathan will look after you.”
“Thanks,” smiled the purser. “We’ll be delighted to stop.”
He introduced Roy and the harbor-master hurried away, again apologizing
for leaving them.
When the harbor-master was out of hearing, Roy turned to the purser.
“Did you notice that he said ‘good-evening’ to us, and it’s only
half-past one?”
The purser laughed. “In the south,” he explained, “evening begins at
one minute after noon. Nobody ever says good-afternoon down here.”
“Well, I never!” exclaimed Roy. “And what did he mean by ‘find a chair
on the gallery’?”
“Gallery is the southern name for piazza or portico,” said the purser.
“And did you notice how he said ‘you all’? Does everybody talk like
that down here?”
Again the purser laughed. “Unless he’s just landed, like yourself, he
does.”
“Well,” said Roy, with a sigh, “I see one thing. I’ve got to learn how
to speak English all over again or these folks won’t know what I’m
talking about. How does it come that southerners talk so different from
the rest of the country?”
“It’s easy to see that you’ve never traveled,” replied the purser, “or
you wouldn’t say that. New Englanders don’t talk any more like New
Yorkers than New Yorkers talk like folks out west.”
Roy’s eyes opened wide. “I never knew that,” he said. “What’s the
reason for it?”
“The size of the country,” said the purser. “The United States of
America is as big as half a dozen countries of Europe rolled into
one. We don’t think it strange that people of different nations speak
different languages and it isn’t any stranger that people in different
sections of such a vast country as the United States should develop
different dialects.”
“I never thought of that before,” said Roy.
They passed on into the city. But though it was midday very few persons
were to be seen.
“What’s the matter?” queried Roy. “The streets are almost deserted and
there doesn’t seem to be any business going on at all.”
Again the purser smiled. “Just another difference in customs,” he said.
“In England, you know, all business stops for five o’clock tea. Here
it is the custom to rest during the middle of the day. That’s a common
practice in all hot countries.”
“Well, I never!” cried Roy. “I’m certainly learning a lot.”
They passed on into the city. The business houses were mostly low and
old-fashioned. The dwellings were mostly detached frame structures,
each standing in a yard full of flowers and shrubbery. There was an
almost utter absence of large trees, but after what Roy had learned
about the grade raising he understood why there were none. It
astonished him to learn from the purser that there never had been any
real tall trees, because the island was so near tide level that the
salt water seeping through the sand killed all deep-rooted growths.
What particularly delighted Roy was the presence everywhere of rich
growths of oleanders, and other tropical plants that he had never seen
before.
“I feel almost as though I were in a foreign country,” said Roy after a
time. “It is all so different from the north.”
“In a sense you are in a foreign land,” replied the purser, “for
Galveston hasn’t been a part of the United States nearly as long as
your native Pennsylvania.”
“I didn’t realize that,” said Roy. “How did that happen?”
“You’ve evidently forgotten your history, Roy. Galveston Island, and
all of Texas, for that matter, once belonged to Mexico, and Mexico was
ruled by Spain.”
“Of course,” said Roy, somewhat mortified.
“This island,” continued the purser, “was named after the Count de
Galvez, the Spanish viceroy of Mexico. In 1836 Colonel Michael Menard
organized the Galveston Company and bought the island from the Republic
of Texas for $50,000, but the company didn’t prosper very well. Later
we fought Mexico and in 1848 acquired all of Texas and other border
states in the southwest. After that date Galveston was a sure enough
part of the nation, but you see Uncle Sam was a hale old gentleman of
nearly seventy years by that time. So Galveston has been a part of
the country only about half as long as the territory in the original
thirteen states.”
“It’s mighty interesting to think of the Spaniards being here,” said
Roy. “Reminds you of pirates.”
“There were pirates here all right, but I do not believe they were
Spanish. Jean Lafitte was a very notorious pirate, and in 1816 he made
this island his headquarters. Later he was driven out by the United
States government. What an ideal place this was for him, with this fine
bay to hide in until unsuspecting ships came near. He could probably
get fresh meat here, too, for this island was once a favorite hunting
ground of the Caronkawas, a powerful and warlike tribe of Indians that
lived along the Texas coast.”
The two continued straight on across the island and finally found
themselves on the Gulf side. They stood on the broad sea-wall and
looked out over the great expanse of tossing waves. Far as the eye
could see nothing was visible but shining water. Far below them the
waves broke on the sands and chased one another up the sloping beach.
High above the sands, on great pilings, stood numerous pavilions and
piers built for the accommodation of pleasure-seekers. Along the
sea-wall ran a broad promenade of asphalt, the water-front buildings
standing a hundred feet back from the sea-wall. There were few bathers,
but the purser said the beach would be crowded later in the day.
From the Gulf beach the two sightseers made their way back to the
_Lycoming_ by circuitous routes, walking this way and that to see
objects of interest that the purser wanted to point out. They saw some
of the twenty magnificent hotels that care for the floating population,
including the community hotel, The Galvez, that was built by popular
subscription. They took a look at the United States Custom-house and
other public buildings, saw the great dry dock and marine works, the
clearing and conditioning elevator, the creosoting plant, and a number
of big factories and warehouses. When they got back to the _Lycoming_,
after stopping for a chat with the harbor-master, Roy felt as though
he had been on a very long journey. He had seen more new things and
learned more than he believed possible in one day.
But nothing pleased him more than the fact that everybody treated him
as though he were a man. It was only a few days since people in Central
City had been shouting at him, “Hey, kid!” Now every one addressed
him as Mr. Mercer and was very courteous to him--that is, every one
excepting Captain Lansford, who hardly spoke to him at all and who
seemed annoyed every time he met him. Roy believed he was doing his
work well enough to deserve his captain’s good-will. He had been
absolutely faithful and had spent much more time at his post than the
regulations required. But the captain seemed to have no understanding
of that fact or appreciation of what he was doing.
“Well,” sighed Roy, “one swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one voyage
doesn’t make an experienced wireless man. The time will come when the
captain will be glad he’s got a wireless man aboard. I’ll learn all I
can and make myself as useful as possible. My opportunity will come.”