CHAPTER VIII
WHERE COTTON IS KING
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.”