It had been made in France somewhere around 1780, probably by a craftsman named Martin Carlin: a spindly, exquisite and useless object, all tulipwood and Sevres porcelain .
Every day, crowds of visitors roam the docks, hypnotized by a strange lumbering beast: a 50-ton (45-metric-ton) steel-and-tulipwood elephant, carrying passengers on its back and .