step by step, as one followed the course of the river.  Here ran out from the sloping bank into the river a number of board rafts, some smaller, some larger, floating benches upon which, from early morning on, one saw maids at work washing clothes, always in cheerful conversation with one another, or with the sailors 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 changed and we have been growing as a world power.

For half an hour at a time, when possible, I watched the work of the English dredger, whose engineer, an old Scotchman by the name of Macdonald, was a special friend of mine.  Who could have told then that, a generation later, I should make a tour of his Scottish clan and, under the guidance of a Maedonald, should visit the spot on the island of Icolmkill, where, according to an old fiction, King Macbeth lies buried.