At another place Mr. George himself, as well as Rollo, was much interested in seeing the process of tobacco inspection. There were a number of hogsheads of tobacco, with a party of porters, coopers, inspectors, and clerks examining them. It was curious to see how rapidly they would go through the process. The coopers would set a hogshead up upon its end, knock out the head, loosen all the staves at one end, whisk it over upon the platform of the scales, and then lift the hogshead itself entirely off, and set it down on one side, leaving the tobacco alone, in a great round pile, on the platform. Then when it was weighed they would tumble it over upon its side, and separate it into its layers, and the inspectors would take out specimens from all the different portions of it. Then they would pile up the layers again, and put the hogshead on over them, as you would put an extinguisher on a candle; and, finally, after turning it over once more, they would put it on the head, and bind it all up again tight and secure, with hoop poles which they nailed in and around it. The porters would then roll the hogshead off, in order to put it on a cart and take it away. The whole operation was performed with a degree of system, regularity, and promptness, that was quite surprising. The whole work of opening the hogshead, examining it thoroughly, weighing it, selecting specimens, and putting it up again, was accomplished in less time than it has taken me here to describe it.
There were a great many other operations of this sort that arrested the attention of Mr. George and Rollo, as they walked along the streets. Much of the merchandise which they saw thus landing from the ships, or going on board of them, was of great value, and the ships in which it came were of immense size, such as are engaged in the East India trade. Mr. George said that they were the kind that he had often read about in history, under the name of Dutch East Indiamen.
Rollo was very much amused at the signs over the doors of the shops, in those streets where there were shops, and in the efforts that he made to interpret them. There was one which read SCHEEP'S VICTUALIJ, which Mr. George said must mean victualling for ships. He was helped, however, somewhat in making this translation by observing what was exhibited in the windows of the shop, and at the door. There was another in which Rollo did not require any help to enable him to translate it. It was TABAK, KOFFY, UND THEE. Another at first perplexed him. It was this: HUIS UND SCHEEP'S SMEDERY. But by seeing that the place was a sort of blacksmith's shop, Rollo concluded that it must mean house and ship smithery, that is, that it was a place for blacksmith's work for houses and ships.