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Show , ... . - $ : " S hiri ' Kti; -i h :" ' f ! t s L lXjWl't V '..llMiK ,v O f-- Ij, - ;r N ' : , , I - " .'V IJ j :r,'V'V :;;;J Hamburg's Memorial to Bismarck. Prepared by National Gei.p-aihle Society. Washington. V. C. UNU servlre. LIKE roars from the brass throats of giant mechanical animals, j steam whistles echo hoarsely over Hamburg. They are the city's voice, symbolic of its power. Railroad engines whistle, hauling trains here from all over Europe. Steamers whistle, for all ocean lanes load to Hamburg. Factories whistle, for here Industry is prodigious and builds some of the largest ships that plow the seas. Fly over It and look down on the smoking Elbe, Its slips and havens crowded with ships and boats of every size; look down on the armies of beaverlike men, moving trucks and barges of cargo, and you see that here Is. actually, a colossal warehouse for all Germany. Sail In from the North sea, and there Is more proof that a mighty world port is near. You can sense that, as you approach the Elbe's muddy mouth, by long lines of ships moving in and out. Steer past Cux-haven, Cux-haven, where the Elbe empties; follow fol-low the beacons and buoys some f!" miles up an S sliaped channel, and there Is the astonishing skyline of Hamburg Itself. Seen from the harbor, har-bor, it suggests a Jig-saw Jumble of medieval and modernistic works of man. That sense of confusion fades, once ashore. You still see a new city Imposed on an old ; but there Is genius and bold beauty In this architectural transfiguration. Yet In all Europe there Is nothing built since the World war quite like these bizarre structures which amaze every Hamburg visitor. They are so conspicuous, In contrast with the old city about them. You easily Imagine that some giant builder took a big broom and swept away enough old town to make room for those monsters. mon-sters. Consider, for example, the amazing Chile House. Its high front runs to a thin edge, like the sharp how of some fantastic ship plowing through Hamburg. Ham-burg. Its top floor even has side galleries gal-leries like promenade decks. No other modern structure anywhere resembles this enormous pile; It suggests an ancient an-cient eivilizatlnn. Assyrian in spirit. IOok up nt that overwhelming geometric geo-metric cube, the Kontorhaus Sprinken-hof, Sprinken-hof, rising In sheer arrogance above Its neighbors. You do not expect such Wolkenkratzer, fir "cloud scratchers." In Europe; but here they are. S'line Willi elevators that run like buckets on a chain no flours, no elevator men 1 During holiness hours I hey never stop. Traffic With All the World. These huge trade temples In themselves them-selves add nothing to Hamburg's power pow-er as chief seaport of Europe. It Is not their size that counts, but what goes on In them. The 0,000 tenants In Chile House, like workers on the narrow, nar-row, cobbled side si reds, do their part In Hamburg's enormous labors. Yet how unbelievably diversified those labors are! Among all her Infinite activities, ac-tivities, none amazes tho visitor more than Hamburg's Ingenious alliance with the tropics. Some nooks here, where tropic mils, fruils, oils, or wax are handled, actually smell more like Penang or Para than a cold city on the North sea. Facetiously, you might say. Hamburg Ham-burg has Imported everything from the tropics but the equator and the climate. Away up In this northern latitude, lat-itude, she even boasts the world's largest larg-est wlhl aiilmal mart. When yon visit Hagenbeck's cagcloss zoo.where growling growl-ing tigers seemingly roam free In striking strik-ing reproductions of their Jungle habitats, habi-tats, you can close your eyes and Imagine Imag-ine that even Noah's Ark came up the Elbe ahead of all the whistling si earners earn-ers and landed Its animals here! The more you explore Hamburg, es. peclaily afoot or by steam launch, the more you realize what an Inlenuil ional meeting place It Is; how the ships and shops serve each olher and help all Germany to barter with the world. Like rickshas parked before holds in Japan, rows of for hlre launches lie along Hamburg's harbor front. Raise a band, and a score of seagoing taxliuen leap to life, offering you a fascliial ing adventure, n cruise around this harbor. Ignore the boatman's chatter. What if there are 3G miles of wharves and quays, and cranes that will lift 230 tfins, and C0.000 harbor workers? Get all that later from the consul, if you must have your figures! Just now, look at that fleet of obsolete windjammers, wind-jammers, their paintless sticks long naked of sail; and that elephantine fireboat squirting hissing streams on a burning coal barge. There's a big liner, too, backing into the channel, off for Buenos Aires. On deck a brass band of waiter-musicians is playing "Over the Waves," labeled "Sobre las Olas" for the Spanish-speaking Spanish-speaking passengers who crowd the rail to wave and shout shrill "Adios!" to wet-eyed Argentine exiles on the pier. "Those left behind always do the crying," says your boatman, "not those who go." But the liner's farewell blast drowns his voice. Gulls scream and flock after an English collier, whose cook has Just dumped his scraps. The collier blends with mist and fog like a movie fade-out And yet another ship looms In her place, linked to a queer floating elevator, whose long curved spouts are pumping wheat from her hold. Ships From Far Lands. Here in the channel now are miles of "dolphins," or clumps of piles, to which boats tie up to save wharf charges. They are mostly tramps and freighters. Alongside one sluggish tub we drift, as she unloads hemp and rice. At her rail stands a steward, a slant-eyed slant-eyed Manila boy, gazing stoically over the strange harbor how different from his familiar Manila bay 1 Close by rusty, weather-beaten ships pass, ships from tropic ports, manned by lascars and other dark-skinned men. Exotic smells from their open cargo hatches hint at strange straw-baled straw-baled goods from heathen markets on the China coast; of Brazil-nut sheds along the Amazon, or nipa shacks ou sun-drenched Malay beaches, where copper-skinned girls comb long black hair, fragrant with coconut oil, or shirtless men squat about their lighting light-ing roosters. A giant seaplnne roars overhead, but a Chinaman, peeling potatoes outside out-side his galley door, doesn't even look up. We turn and start back to the quays, wharves, warehouses, the forest for-est of cranes, and the whistling tugs. Through four or five centuries Germany Ger-many wrestled to deepen this tidal Elbe, digging more and more berths for boats along its banks and declining declin-ing them as boats grew bigger. Today, no other port anywhere has more clev. cr labor-saving devices for the swift handling of ships, and the Juggling, sorting, weighing, and dispatching of goods endless miles of hulk, boxes, barrels, bags, and hales. Stupefying as the figures are to the casual visitor, they mean a lot to Germany; for this world trade-gate, with all Its smoke and whistles. Is the barometer that points out fat or lean years for the whole republic. "Our destiny Is on the water," Is an old German saying. Altona, Where Sailors Live. One man got rich making tablecloths table-cloths and napkins for German liners. Other profits come from salt fish and sea biscuits; some groups make oil cake, sonp and margarine, or chocolate choco-late bars. Others roast coffee, refine sugar, or make fertilizers and trade In guano from tropic bird islands. Thus this astonishing port functions. Walk along the Elbe late some Sunday Sun-day afternoon In summer, when Hamburg Ham-burg Is at play. Start, say, from the bathing beaches below Altona. When the bathhouses arc overcrowded, many bathers dress In the bushes, with that "freedom of the sens" characteristic of European bathing resorts, where shorts nnd lingerie also serve as swimming swim-ming suits. Allonu, with coal nnd llsh wharves, neat cottages, grape arbors, and boor gardens, Is an Ideal home town for sailors. Pine anywhere, by I lie SI. 1 'a ill I wharf, for example, and you see many deep-water men and their families fam-ilies celebrating pupa's homecoming. Ships lie so near some St. Paull cafes you can read the names ou their sterns. |