"Coaling the Pacific Mail S. S. 'SIBERIA' at fortified Nagasaki, Japan"

stereograph

PHOTOGRAPHS
Underwood & Underwood
Japan, Nagasaki
paper
overall: 3-1/2 x 7 in.; image: 3-1/4 x 6 in.

Stereograph mounted on gray board with rounded corners; photograph of women and girls coaling, by hand, the Pacific Mail S.S. SIBERIA (built 1901) at fortified Nagasaki, Japan; printed on left "European Publishers/ Underwood & Underwood (London) Ltd."; printed on top "100"; printed on right "S978"; "Underwood & Underwood/ New York & Ottawa, Kas. Works, Arlington, N.J." and "SUN SCULPTURE/ UU/ TRADE MARK"; printed bottom right "(100)-3939 - Coaling the Pacific Mail S. S. 'Siberia' at fortified/ Nagasaki, Japan. Copyright Underwood & Underwood."; printed on back "You are looking from the pier up the towering/ side of one of the great ocean-liners plying between/ here and San Francisco, a journey of 4,800 miles/ taking from fourteen to eighteen days. This is/ the way the coaling for the voyage is accomplished./ Those lighters that you see drawn up alongside/ the Siberia have brought supplies from a great/ colliery and these women and girls are loading/ up the vessel ready for her start at the appointed/ hour. Certain ones keep certain places on those/ ladders, while others down here in the lighters/ fill the coal baskets. The full baskets are passed/ from hand to hand up the ladders and into the/ bins, the emptied baskets are returned by another/ set of girls, and so a steady upward stream of coal/ is kept flowing into the bins like water from an/ old-fashioned chain-pump./ The rate at which the frils work at their dusty/ task is something astonishing. It is on record/ that they once put 1,210 tons on board an ocean-/ liner in three hours and a quarter - that is at/ the rate of 372 tons per hour!/ The towels the women wear over their heads/ are a valuable protection against some part of/ the dirt and dust of their trade, but they are/ not peculiar to this line of work. All Japanese/ peasant women wear such towels as head-cover-/ ings when engaged in out-of-door work./ You can see in the distance just a glimpse of/ the lofty hills surrounding the harbor. You/ remember this is one of the best fortified harbors/ in Japan. Her war vessels come in here for coal,/ as well as peaceful merchant men, and the coal-/ ing of Japan's armored vessels means a serious/ busines.. Some of the finest war-ships now/ afloat are coaled here at Nagasaki. If you refer/ to a map of the Mikado's empire you see that/ this haven is only about two hundred miles from/ the Korean port of Fusan./ From Notes of Travel, No. 8, copyright, by/ Underwood & Underwood." and "Coaling an Ocean Steamship at Nagasaki, Japan./ Approvisionnement de Charbon d'un Navire Long-/ Courrier a Nagasaki, Japon./ Ein Ozeandampfer mird in Nagafati, Japan, mit/ Molen verfgehen./ Provevendo de Carbon a un Vapor Oceanieo en/ Nagasaki, Japon./ En Oceanangare alstande kol vid Nagasaki, Japan./ (Russian script, same text)."; handwritten on back "15-".

2000.89