ailors who leaned
lazily over the street wall watching them. These rafts, which with the
figures upon them produced a most picturesque effect, were called
"clappers," and were used, especially by strangers and summer guests,
for orientation and description of location. E.g. "He lives down by
Klempin's clapper," or "opposite Jahnke's clapper." Between the rafts
or wash benches were regular spaces devoted to piers, and here the
majority of the ships were moored, in the winter often three or four
rows. The crews were on shore at this time, and the only evidence that
the vessels were not wholly unguarded was a column of smoke rising
from the kitchen stovepipes, or, more often, a spitz-dog sitting on a
mound of sailcloth, if not on the top of his kennel, and barking at
the passersby. Then in the spring, when the Swine was again free from
ice, everything began at once, as though by magic, to show signs of
life, and the activity along the river indicated that the time for
sailing was again near. Then the ships' hulls were laid on their
sides, the better to examine them for possible injuries, and if any
were found, one could see the following day, at corresponding places
along the wharf, little fires made of chips of wood and raveled-out
bits of old hawsers, and over them tar was simmering in three-legged
iron pots. Beside these lay whole piles of oakum. And now the process
of calking began. Then, as noon approached, another pot, filled with
potatoes and bacon, was shoved into the fire, and many, many a time,
as I passed by here on my way, at this hour, I eagerly inhaled the
appetizing vapors, not in the least disturbed by the admixture of
pitch. Even in my old age I am still fond of regaling myself, or at
least my nerves, with the bitumen smoke that floats through our Berlin
streets, when they are being newly asphalted.

In the spring and summer time activity was also resumed by the English
steam dredger, which lay in the middle of the river, and upon which it
was incumbent to clear the channel. The quantities of earth and slime
drawn up from the bottom were emptied at a shallow place in the river
and piled up so as to cause a little artificial island to come into
existence. A few years later this island was covered with a rank
growth of reeds and sedges, and in all probability it now supports
houses and establishments of the marine station, as evidence to all
those who saw the first third of the century, that times have chang