What Must Be The Natural Excellence Of The Harbor Of Portland, Will
Be Understood When It Is Borne In Mind That The Great Eastern Can
Enter It At All Times, And That It Can Lay Along The Wharves At Any
Hour Of The Tide.
The wharves which have been prepared for her -
and of which I will say a word further by-and-by - are joined to,
and in fact, are a portion of, the station of the Grand Trunk
Railway, which runs from Portland up to Canada.
So that passengers
landing at Portland out of a vessel so large even as the Great
Eastern can walk at once on shore, and goods can be passed on to
the railway without any of the cost of removal. I will not say
that there is no other harbor in the world that would allow of
this, but I do not know any other that would do so.
From Portland a line of railway, called as a whole by the name of
the Canada Grand Trunk Line, runs across the State of Maine,
through the northern parts of New Hampshire and Vermont, to
Montreal, a branch striking from Richmond, a little within the
limits of Canada, to Quebec, and down the St. Lawrence to Riviere
du Loup. The main line is continued from Montreal, through Upper
Canada to Toronto, and from thence to Detroit in the State of
Michigan. The total distance thus traversed is, in a direct line,
about 900 miles. From Detroit there is railway communications
through the immense Northwestern States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Illinois, than which perhaps the surface of the globe affords no
finer districts for purposes of agriculture. The produce of the
two Canadas must be poured forth to the Eastern world, and the men
of the Eastern world must throng into these lands by means of this
railroad, and, as at present arranged, through the harbor of
Portland. At present the line has been opened, and they who have
opened are sorely suffering in pocket for what they have done. The
question of the railway is rather one applying to Canada than to
the State of Maine, and I will therefore leave it for the present.
But the Great Eastern has never been to Portland, and as far as I
know has no intention of going there. She was, I believe, built
with that object. At any rate, it was proclaimed during her
building that such was her destiny, and the Portlanders believed it
with a perfect faith. They went to work and built wharves
expressly for her; two wharves prepared to fit her two gangways, or
ways of exit and entrance. They built a huge hotel to receive her
passengers. They prepared for her advent with a full conviction
that a millennium of trade was about to be wafted to their happy
port. "Sir, the town has expended two hundred thousand dollars in
expectation of that ship, and that ship has deceived us." So was
the matter spoken of to me by an intelligent Portlander.
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