Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. — a MemoirBiddulph, Elizabeth Philippa, Baroness
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Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. — a Memoir
Biddulph, Elizabeth Philippa, Baroness
Hardwicke, Charles Philip Yorke, Earl of, 1799-1873
'The country is a Catholic country, wooden images of the crucified
Saviour on the road-sides, and the greater part of cottages here built
of timber log, and the people in an inferior condition.
'As soon as I had dined with the Consul I took my way to the shore of
the Vistula. The sight of its banks was to me most interesting, covered
with sheaves of wheat covering acres of ground, while the river is
covered with rafts of timber and large boats built for the voyage down,
but being broken up for fire wood as soon as the cargo of wheat is
landed. Here the grain remains till sold to the merchant, when it is
carried to the granaries in the town, or rather to an island in the
middle of the town called Speicher Insel. On this island there is no
other building but granaries. The corn contained is 500,000 or 600,000
qrs. of wheat. On a fine day on the shore of the river are to be seen
the figures of two hundred men and women, Poles, working the wheat by
turning it over and over with shovels till it is dry, as the voyage
down the river is sometimes five or six weeks, and the corn heats and
grows; thus it requires much turning on its arrival.
'The Poles who come down with it, are the most savage and uncouth
looking people I ever saw, excepting Finns and Esquimaux; indeed, they
are very like them. But their character here is that they are a most
inoffensive race, suffer much fatigue and privation, and gain but
little by their voyage. They are in the hands of Jewish supercargoes,
one of which nation is to be seen in every regiment and in every boat.
These poor people, after the cargo is sold, walk home again 600 or 700
miles. Price of wheat on the shore 55s. per qr. That won't hurt us. The
King is expected tomorrow late in the evening. Good-night.
'Monday night, ten o'clock.--The day is past and I have returned for
the night. The King arrived at six o'clock, I waited on him directly he
was in the room; he had me to dine with him, and seated me next him at
table. The Prince Menschikoff, the head of the Russian Navy, was there;
he has come to take the King to Russia with two steam ships.
'I visited to-day the lions of Dantzig--the Exchange, the Cathedral,
and the Armoury. The Exchange is a most curious building of great
antiquity, and the hall is certainly the most curious and grotesque
room in the world. The walls are covered with large pictures and wooden
statues painted in colour. It is a Gothic edifice built in 1379, and
the roof of the hall is supported by four slender pillars. The most
singular picture on the wall is a representation of the church under
the form of a ship sailing to heaven full of monks, who are throwing
out ropes and hooks to haul on board a few miserable sinners, who but
for this timely assistance would be drowned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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