Cargo Basket

This is either a replica or an original of the baskets used to sway up bulk cargo or ballast from the hold. These baskets would have been filled by men using shovels down in the dusty darkness, and swayed up one by one (or several at a time if enough hoists could be deployed) to be dumped overside onto the quay or into waiting waggons or barrows. When you consider the enormous volume of her hold and the relatively small size of the baskets -- this one is no more than 4 feet across and less than that deep, and a truncated cone in form -- the hours needed to empty her out are staggering to contemplate. When you recall that one of her cargoes would have been guano from Chile, the mind boggles at the stench, sweat, and dirt of the task.