come around him, and eye his motions, and make pitying or impertinent
remarks at his ill-luck--the old man answers not, but fishes on
imperturbably. Anon, he gathers up his clams or worms, and his one
sun-baked flounder--you think he is going home--but no, he is merely
going to another corner of the wharf, where he throws his line under a
vessel's counter, and fishes on with the same deathlike patience as
before. He seems not quiet so much as torpid,--not kindly nor unkindly
feeling--but not to have anything to do with the rest of the world. He
has no business, no amusement, but just to crawl to the end of Long
Wharf, and throw his line over. He has no sort of skill in fishing,
but a peculiar clumsiness.

Objects on a wharf--a huge pile of cotton bales, from a New Orleans
ship, twenty or thirty feet high, as high as a house. Barrels of
molasses, in regular ranges; casks of linseed oil. Iron in bars
landing from a vessel, and the weigher's scales standing conveniently.
To stand on the elevated deck or rail of a ship, and look up the
wharf, you see the whole space of it thronged with trucks and carts,
removing the cargoes of vessels, or taking commodities to and from
stores. Long Wharf is devoted to ponderous, evil-smelling, inelegant
necessaries of life--such as salt, salt-fish, oil, iron, molasses,
etc.

Near the head of Long Wharf there is an old sloop, which has been
converted into a store for the sale of wooden ware, made at Hingham.
It is afloat, and is sometimes moored close to the wharf;--or, when
another vessel wishes to take its place, midway in the dock. It has
been there many years. The storekeeper lives and sleeps on board.

Schooners more than any other vessels seem to have such names as