STEAMERS AND SAILING-SHIPS.
Early Shipping--Mediterranean Trade--Rise of the P. and O. and
other Lines--Transatlantic Lines--India and the East--Early
Steamships--First Steamer to cross the Atlantic--Rise of Atlantic
Shipping Lines--The _Great Eastern_ and the New Cunarders
_Campania_ and _Lucania_ compared--Sailing-ships.
THE CARRYING-TRADE OF THE WORLD.
Of all the industries of the world, that which is concerned with the
interchange of the products of nations is suffused with the most
interest for the largest number of people. Not only is the number of
those who go down into the sea in ships, and who do business on the
great waters, legion, but three-fourths of the population of the globe
are more or less dependent on their enterprise. The ocean-carrying trade
we are accustomed to date from the time of the Phoenicians; and
certainly the Phoenicians were daring mariners, if not exactly
scientific navigators, and their ships were pretty well acquainted
with the waters of Europe and the coasts of Africa. But the
Phoenicians were rather merchant-adventurers on their own account than
ocean-carriers, as, for instance, the Arabians were on the other side of
Africa, acting as the intermediaries of the trade between Egypt and East
Africa and India. In the early days, too, there is reason to believe
that the Chinese were extensive ocean-carriers, sending their junks both
to the Arabian Gulf and to the ports of Hindustan, long before Alexander
the Great invaded India. But there is nothing more remarkable in the
history of maritime commerce than the manner in which it has changed
hands.
Even down to the beginning of the present century, almost the whole of
the carrying-trade of the Baltic and the Mediterranean was in the hands
of the Danes, Norwegians, and Germans, while our own harbours were
crowded with foreign ships. This was one of the effects of our peculiar
Navigation Laws, under which foreigners were so protected that there was
hardly a trade open to British vessels. It is, indeed, just ninety years
since British ship-owners made a formal and earnest appeal to the
government to remove the existing shackles on the foreign trade of the
country, and to promote the development of commerce with the American
and West Indian colonies. One argument of the time was the necessity for
recovering and developing the Mediterranean trade, as affording one of
the best avenues for the employment of shipping and the promotion of
international commerce. It was a trade of which England had a very
considerable share in the time of Henry VII., who may very fairly be
regarded as the founder of British merchant shipping. He not only built
ships for himself for trading purposes, but encouraged others to do so,
and even lent them money for the purpose. And it was to the
Mediterranean that he chiefly directed his attention, in eager
competition with the argosies of Venice and Genoa. There resulted a
perfect fleet of what were called 'tall ships' engaged in carrying
woollen fabrics and other British products to Italy, Sicily, Syria, and
the Levant, and in bringing home cargoes of silk, cotton, wool, carpets,
oil, spices, and wine.
Steam has worked a change in favour of this country nowhere more
remarkable than in the Mediterranean trade. When the trade began to
revive for sailing-vessels, by a removal of some of the irksome
restrictions, Lisbon was the most important port on the Iberian
Peninsula for British shipping. There was a weekly mail service by
sailing-packets between Falmouth and Lisbon, until the Admiralty put on
a steamer. Some time in the 'thirties,' two young Scotchmen named Brodie
Wilcox and Arthur Anderson had a small fleet of sailing-vessels engaged
in the Peninsular trade, and in the year 1834 they chartered the steamer
_Royal Tar_ from the Dublin and London Steam-packet Company. This was
the beginning of the great Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation
Company, destined to revolutionise the carrying-trade both of the
Mediterranean and the East. When the Spanish government negotiated for a
line of steamers to be established between England and Spain, Wilcox and
Anderson took up the project, organised a small company, and acquired
some steamers, which at first did not pay. They persevered, however,
until shippers saw the superiority of the new vessels to the old
sailers, and at last the Peninsular Company obtained the first
mail-contract ever entered into by the English government. This was in
1837; the Cunard and Royal Mail (West Indian) lines were not established
until 1840. In a couple of years the Peninsular Company extended their
line through the Straits to Malta and Alexandria, and again to Corfu and
the Levant. In 1840 they applied for and obtained a charter as the
Peninsular and Oriental Steam-navigation Company, with the object of
establishing a line of steamers on the other side of the Isthmus of
Suez, from which have developed the great ramifications to India, China,
Japan, the Straits Settlements, and Australia. It was, indeed, through
the Mediterranean that we obtained our first hold on the Eastern
carrying-trade.
In considering the development of maritime commerce, it is always to be
remembered that the design of Columbus and the early navigators in
sailing westwards was not to find America, but to find a new way to
India and Far Cathay. Mighty as America has become in the world's
economy, its first occupation was only an incident in the struggle for
the trade of the Far East. But with the occupation of America came two
new developments in this carrying-trade--namely, one across the
Atlantic, and one upon and across the Pacific. To the eventful year in
which so many great enterprises were founded--namely, 1840--we trace the
beginning of steam-carrying on the Pacific, for in that year William
Wheelwright took or sent the first steamer round Cape Horn, as the
pioneer of the great Pacific Steam-navigation Company. Within about a
dozen years thereafter, the Americans had some fifty steamers constantly
engaged on the Pacific coast of the two Continents, besides those of the
English company. Out of one of those Pacific lines grew Commodore
Vanderbilt's Nicaragua Transit Company, a double service of two lines of
steamers, one on each side of the Continent, with an overland connection
through Nicaragua. Out of another grew the New York and San Francisco
line, connecting overland across the Isthmus of Panama--where M. de
Lesseps did _not_ succeed in cutting a Canal. And out of yet another of
those Pacific enterprises, all stimulated by Wheelwright's success, grew
in the course of years a line between San Francisco and Hawaii, and
another between San Francisco and Australia. Some forty years ago the
boats of this last-named line used to run down to Panama to pick up
passengers and traffic from Europe, and it is interesting to recall that
at that period the design was greatly favoured of a regular steam
service between England and Australia _via_ Panama. A company was
projected for the purpose; but it came to nothing, for various reasons
not necessary to enter upon here. But as long ago as the early fifties,
when the Panama Railway was in course of construction, there were eight
separate lines of steamers on the Atlantic meeting at Aspinwall, and
five on the Pacific meeting at Panama. Later on, when the Americans had
completed their iron-roads from ocean to ocean across their own
dominions, they started lines of steamers from San Francisco to China
and Japan. And later still, when the Canadian Pacific Railway was
completed across Canada, a British line of ships was started across the
Pacific to Far Cathay, and afterwards to Australia and New Zealand. So
that the dream of the old navigators has, after all, been practically
realised.
The repeal of the corn laws gave an immense impetus to British shipping,
by opening up new lines of traffic in grain with the ports of the
Baltic, the Black Sea, and Egypt; and the extension of steamer
communication created another new carrying-business in the transport of
coals abroad to innumerable coaling stations. Thus demand goes on
creating supply, and supply in turn creating new demand.
From the old fruit and grain sailers of the Mediterranean trade have
developed such extensive concerns as the Cunard line (one of whose
beginnings was a service of steamers between Liverpool and Havre), which
now covers the whole Mediterranean, and extends across the Atlantic to
New York and Boston; the Anchor line, which began with a couple of boats
running between the Clyde and the Peninsula, and now covers all the
Mediterranean and Adriatic, and extends from India to America; the Bibby
line, which began with a steamer between Liverpool and Marseilles, and
now covers every part of the Mediterranean (Leyland line), and spreads
out to Burma and the Straits. These are but a few of many examples of
how the great carrying-lines of the world, east and west, have
developed from modest enterprises in mid-Europe. And even now the goods
traffic between the Mediterranean and the United Kingdom, North Europe
and America, is less in the hands of these great lines than in that of
the vast fleets of ocean tramps, both sail and steam.
One of the most wonderful developments in the carrying-trade of the
world is the concern known as the Messageries Maritimes of France--now
probably the largest steamer-owning copartnery in the world. Prior to
the Crimean War, there was an enterprise called the Messageries
Imperiales, which was engaged in the land-carriage of mails through
France. In 1851 this company entered into a contract with the French
government for the conveyance of mails to Italy, Egypt, Greece, and the
Levant; and as years went on, the mail subsidies became so heavy that
the enterprise was practically a national one. During the war, the
Messageries Company's vessels were in such demand as transports, &c.,
that the company had to rapidly create a new fleet for mail purposes.
With peace came the difficulty of employing the enormously augmented
fleet. New lines of mail and cargo boats were therefore successively
established between France and the Danube and Black Sea; Bordeaux and
Brazil and the River Plate; Marseilles and India and China, &c. In fact,
the Messageries Company's ramifications now extend from France to Great
Britain, South America, the whole of the Mediterranean, the Levant, the
Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the China Seas, and the
South Pacific.
Few people, perhaps, have any conception of the numbers of regular and
highly organised lines of steamers now connecting Europe and America.
Besides the Messageries, the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd's and the Italian
mail lines run between the Mediterranean and the River Plate. Argentina
and Brazil are connected with different parts of Europe by about a
dozen lines. Between the United States and Europe there are now about
thirty distinct regular lines of steamers carrying goods and passengers;
and about a dozen more carrying goods only. Four of these lines are
direct with Germany, two with France, two with Holland, two with
Belgium, one with Denmark, and two with Italy, one of which is under the
British flag. All the rest of the passenger lines and most of the cargo
lines run between the United Kingdom and the United States. As for the
'tramps' steaming and sailing between North America and Europe, they are
of all nations; but again the majority fly the British flag, though once
upon a time the American-built clippers, of graceful lines and
'sky-scraping' masts, used to monopolise the American carrying-trade
under the stars and stripes. Once upon a time, too, these beautiful
American clippers had the bulk of the China tea-trade, and of the
Anglo-Australian general trade. But they were run off the face of the
waters by the Navigation Laws of America and the shipping enterprise of
Britain. The great and growing trade between the United States and
India, too, is now nearly all carried in British vessels; and a large
part of the regular steam service between New York and the West Indies
is under the British flag. That a change will take place when America
repeals the laws which forbid Americans to own vessels built abroad or
manned by foreigners is pretty certain.
With regard to India, the growth in the carrying-trade has been enormous
since Vasco da Gama, four hundred years ago, found his way round the
Cape of Good Hope to Calicut. For an entire century, down to 1600, the
Portuguese monopolised the trade of the East, and as many as two and
three hundred of their ships would often be gathered together in the
port of Goa, taking in cargo for different Eastern and European ports.
To-day, Goa is a deserted port, and the Portuguese flag is rarely
seen--a ship or two per annum now being sufficient for all the trade
between Portugal and India. In the century of Portuguese prosperity the
English flag was hardly known in Eastern waters. It was the Dutch who
drove out the Portuguese; and the reason why the Dutch were tempted out
to India was because the rich cargoes brought home by the Portuguese
could not be disposed of in Portugal, and had to be taken to Amsterdam,
or Rotterdam, or Antwerp, where the opulent Dutch merchants purchased
them for redistribution throughout Europe. This is how the Dutch came
into direct relations with the Indian trade before the English, and why
Barentz and others tried to find a near way to India for the Dutch
vessels by way of the north of Europe and Asia. Failing in the north,
the Dutch followed the Portuguese round the Cape, and reaching Sumatra,
founded the wide domain of Netherlands-India. This occupation was
effected before 1600; and between that year and 1670 they expelled the
Portuguese from every part of the Eastern Archipelago, from Malacca,
from Ceylon, from the Malabar Coast, and from Macassar.
The Dutch in turn enjoyed a monopoly of the Indian trade for about a
hundred years. Then with the rise of Clive came the downfall of the
Dutch, and by 1811 they were stripped of every possession they had in
the East. Later, we gave them back Java and Sumatra, with which Holland
now does a large trade, reserved exclusively to Dutch vessels. But in
India proper the Dutch have not a single possession, and it is doubtful
if in all the Indian Peninsula there are now a hundred Dutchmen
resident.
Two immense streams of trade are constantly setting to and from India
and Europe through the Suez Canal and round the Cape. Not only is the
bulk of that trade conducted by the well-known Peninsular and Oriental,
British India, City, Clan, Anchor, and other lines (though the
Messageries Maritimes, North German Lloyd's, and other foreign lines
have no mean share), but the whole coast-line of India is served by the
steamers of the British-India and Asiatic lines; and British vessels
conduct the most of the carrying-trade between India and Australia,
China, Japan, the Straits, Mauritius, &c.
A new carrying-trade was created when the Australasian colonies were
founded one after the other--in the taking out of home manufactures,
implements, machinery, &c., and bringing back wool and tallow; and then
gold, wheat, fruit, and frozen meat. This colonial trade is now divided
between sailers and steamers, and in the steamer traffic some of the
foreign lines are eagerly bidding for a share. Similarly, a new
carrying-trade has been of quite recent years developed by the opening
up of South Africa, and this is practically all in British hands.
An important item of international carriage of recent development is the
mineral oil of America and Russia. The carriage of these oils is a trade
of itself. Another special branch of the world's carrying-trade is
connected with the sea-fisheries. All the fishing-grounds of the
Atlantic and North Sea may be said to be now connected with the
consuming markets by services of steamers. The cod-fishers off the Banks
of Newfoundland transfer their dried and salted fish to vessels which
speed them to the good Catholics of Spain and France and Italy, just as
the steam auxiliaries bring to London the harvests gathered by the boats
on the Dogger Bank.
Of late years not unsuccessful efforts have been made, especially by
Captain Wiggins, to establish direct communication between Great Britain
and the arctic coasts of Russia once every summer. And hopes are
entertained that on the completion of the railway from Winnipeg to Fort
Churchill, the greatly shorter sea-route _via_ Hudson Strait and Hudson
Bay may greatly facilitate communication with Manitoba and the Canadian
North-west.
It is computed that on the great ocean highways there are not fewer than
ten thousand large and highly-powered steamers constantly employed. If
it be wondered how sailing-vessels can maintain a place at all in the
race of competition in the world's carrying-trade, a word of explanation
may be offered. Do not suppose that only rough and low-valued cargo is
left for the sailers. They still have the bulk of the cotton and wheat
and other valuable products, not only because they can carry more
cheaply, but because transport by sailing-vessels gives the merchant a
wider choice of market. Cargoes of staple products can always be sold
'to arrive' at some given port, and it is cheaper to put them afloat
than to warehouse them ashore and wait for an order.
What, then, are the proportions borne by the several maritime nations in
this great international carrying-trade? The question is not one which
can be answered with absolute precision, but the tables of the Marine
Department of the Board of Trade enable one to find an approximate
answer. In 1893 the tonnage of steam and sailing vessels of all
nationalities in the foreign trade entering and clearing at ports in the
United Kingdom was 74,632,847, of which 54,148,664 tons were British,
and 20,484,183 tons were foreign. In the foreign total, the largest
proportions were Norwegian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and French.
The Teutonic races have thus the most of the ocean-carrying; the United
States proportion of the above total was small.
So far the United Kingdom. Now let us see what part British shipping
plays in the foreign trade of other countries. We find that the total
tonnage of the British Empire was 10,365,567. The other principal
maritime countries owned 12,000,000 tons. Therefore, roughly speaking,
the British Empire owns about five-elevenths of the entire shipping of
the world. Even so recently as thirty years ago, about two-thirds of the
ocean-carrying trade was performed by sailing-vessels; to-day, about
four-fifths of it is performed by steamers.
THE FIRST STEAMER TO CROSS THE ATLANTIC.
The earliest steamers the world ever saw, not reckoning the experimental
craft constructed by such men as Fulton, Bell, Symington, and Watt, were
those employed in the transatlantic trade. As far back as the year 1819,
the Yankee paddle-steamer _Savannah_, of three hundred tons burden,
crossed from the port of that name, in Georgia, to Liverpool. She
occupied twenty-five days upon the passage; but, as she was fully
rigged, and under all sail during at least two-thirds of the voyage, the
merit of her performance, as an illustration of the superiority of the
engine over canvas, is somewhat doubtful. Yet she was beyond dispute the
first steamer to accomplish a long sea-voyage, and to the Americans
belong the credit of her exploit. Indeed, from the time of their last
war with us, down to within a quarter of a century ago, our Yankee
neighbours generally seemed to be a little ahead of this country in
maritime matters. They taught us a lesson in shipbuilding by their
famous Baltimore clippers, and they were the first to demonstrate in a
practical manner, and to the complete capsizal of the learned Dr
Lardner's theories, the possibility of employing steam for the purposes
of ocean navigation.
Although in 1838 the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_ successfully made
the journey from England to America, yet five years before that date,
Canadian enterprise accomplished the feat of bridging the Atlantic
Ocean with a little vessel propelled wholly by steam. This was the
_Royal William_, whose beautiful model was exhibited at the British
Naval Exhibition in London, where she attracted the attention and
curiosity of the first seamen in the empire. The _Royal William_--named
in honour of the reigning sovereign--was built in the city of Quebec by
a Scotchman, James Goudie, who had served his time and learned his art
at Greenock. The keel was laid in the autumn of 1830; and her builder,
then in his twenty-second year, writes: 'As I had the drawings and the
form of the ship, at the time a novelty in construction, it devolved
upon me to lay off and expand the draft to its full dimensions on the
floor of the loft, where I made several alterations in the lines as
improvements. The steamship being duly commenced, the work progressed
rapidly; and in May following was duly launched, and before a large
concourse of people was christened the _Royal William_. She was then
taken to Montreal to have her engines, where I continued to superintend
the finishing of the cabins and deck-work. When completed, she had her
trial trip, which proved quite satisfactory. Being late in the season
before being completed, she only made a few trips to Halifax.'
The launching of this steamer was a great event in Quebec. The
Governor-general, Lord Aylmer, and his wife were present, the latter
giving the vessel her name. Military bands supplied the music, and the
shipping in the harbour was gay with bunting. The city itself wore a
holiday look. The _Royal William_, propelled by steam alone, traded
between Quebec and Halifax. While at the last-named place, she attracted
the notice of Mr Samuel Cunard, afterwards Sir Samuel, the founder of
the great trans-continental line which bears his name. It is said that
the _Royal William_ convinced him that steam was the coming force for
ocean navigation. He asked many questions about her, took down the
answers in his note-book, and subsequently became a large stockholder in
the craft.
The cholera of 1832 paralysed business in Canada, and trade was at a
standstill for a time. Like other enterprises at this date, the _Royal
William_ experienced reverses, and she was doomed to be sold at
sheriff's sale. Some Quebec gentlemen bought her in, and resolved to
send her to England to be sold. In 1833 the eventful voyage to Britain
was made successfully, and without mishap of any kind. The _Royal
William's_ proportions were as follows: Builder's measurement, 1370
tons; steamboat measurement, as per Act of Parliament, 830 tons; length
of keel, 146 feet; length of deck from head to taffrail, 176 feet;
breadth of beam inside the paddle-boxes, 29 feet 4 inches; outside, 43
feet 10 inches; depth of hold, 17 feet 9 inches. On the 4th of August
1833, commanded by Captain John M'Dougall, she left Quebec, via Pictou,
Nova Scotia, for London, under steam, at five o'clock in the morning.
She made the passage in twenty-five days. Her supply of coal was 254
chaldrons, or over 330 tons. Her captain wrote: 'She is justly entitled
to be considered the first steamer that crossed the Atlantic by steam,
having steamed the whole way across.'
About the end of September 1833, the _Royal William_ was disposed of for
ten thousand pounds sterling, and chartered to the Portuguese government
to take out troops for Dom Pedro's service. Portugal was asked to
purchase her for the navy; but the admiral of the fleet, not thinking
well of the scheme, declined to entertain the proposition. Captain
M'Dougall was master of the steamer all this time. He returned with her
to London with invalids and disbanded Portuguese soldiers, and laid her
up off Deptford Victualling Office. In July, orders came to fit out the
_Royal William_ to run between Oporto and Lisbon. One trip was made
between these ports, and also a trip to Cadiz for specie for the
Portuguese government.
On his return to Lisbon, Captain M'Dougall was ordered to sell the
steamer to the Spanish government, through Don Evanston Castor da Perez,
then the Spanish ambassador to the court of Lisbon. The transaction was
completed on the 10th of September 1834, when the _Royal William_ became
the _Ysabel Segunda_, and the first war-steamer the Spaniards ever
possessed. She was ordered to the north coast of Spain against Don
Carlos. Captain M'Dougall accepted the rank and pay of a Commander, and,
by special proviso, was guaranteed six hundred pounds per annum, and the
contract to supply the squadron with provisions from Lisbon. The _Ysabel
Segunda_ proceeded to the north coast; and about the latter part of 1834
she returned to Gravesend, to be delivered up to the British government,
to be converted into a war-steamer at the Imperial Dockyard. The crew
and officers were transferred to the _Royal Tar_, chartered and armed as
a war-steamer, with six long thirty-two pounders, and named the _Reyna
Governadoza_, the name intended for the _City of Edinburgh_ steamer,
which was chartered to form part of the squadron. When completed, she
relieved the _Royal Tar_ and took her name.
In his interesting letter, from which these facts are drawn, to Robert
Christie, the Canadian historian, Captain M'Dougall thus completes the
story of the pioneer Atlantic steamer: 'The _Ysabel Segunda_, when
completed at Sheerness Dockyard, took out General Alava, the Spanish
ambassador, and General Evans and most of his staff officers, to Saint
Andero, and afterwards to St Sebastian, having hoisted the Commodore's
broad pennant again at Saint Andero; and was afterwards employed in
cruising between that port and Fuente Arabia, and acting in concert with
the Legion against Don Carlos until the time of their service expired
in 1837. She was then sent to Portsmouth with a part of those discharged
from the service, and from thence she was taken to London, and detained
in the City Canal by Commodore Henry until the claims of the officers
and crew on the Spanish government were settled, which was ultimately
accomplished by bills, and the officers and crew discharged from the
Spanish service about the latter end of 1837, and _Ysabel Segunda_
delivered up to the Spanish ambassador, and after having her engines
repaired, returned to Spain, and was soon afterwards sent to Bordeaux,
in France, to have the hull repaired. But on being surveyed, it was
found that the timbers were so much decayed that it was decided to build
a new vessel to receive the engines, which was built there, and called
by the same name, and now [1853] forms one of the royal steam-navy of
Spain, while her predecessor was converted into a hulk at Bordeaux.'
This, in brief, is the history of the steamer which played so important
a role in the maritime annals of Canada, England, and Spain. Her model
is safely stored in the rooms of the Literary and Historical Society of
Quebec, where it is an object of profound veneration. At the request of
the government, a copy of the model was made, and formed part of the
Canadian exhibit to the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893.
It was not, however, until five years later that the successful passages
of two memorable vessels from England to America fairly established the
era of what has been called the Atlantic steam-ferry. These ships were
respectively the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_. The former was a
craft of about 700 tons burden, with engines of three hundred and twenty
horse-power: she sailed from Cork on the 4th of April 1838, under the
command of Lieutenant Roberts, R.N., bound for New York. The latter
vessel was a steamer of 1340 tons, builders' measurement, with engines
of four hundred and forty horse-power: she was commanded by Captain
Hoskins, R.N., and sailed from Bristol on the 8th of April in the same
year, bound likewise for New York. The _Sirius_, it was calculated, had
a start of her competitor by about seven hundred nautical miles; but it
was known that her utmost capabilities of speed scarcely exceeded eight
knots an hour; whilst the _Great Western_, on her trial trip from
Blackwall to Gravesend, ran eleven knots an hour without difficulty.
The issue of the race was therefore awaited with the utmost curiosity on
both sides of the Atlantic. Contemporary records usually afford good
evidence of the significance of past events, and the interest in this
novel ocean match was prodigious, to judge from the accounts with which
the Liverpool and New York papers of the day teemed. The following is in
brief the narrative of the voyage of these two famous ships across the
Western Ocean. The _Sirius_, after leaving Cork on the 4th of April,
encountered very heavy weather, which greatly retarded her progress. She
arrived, however, off Sandy Hook on the evening of Sunday, the 22d of
April; but going aground, she did not get into the North River until the
following morning. When it was known that she had arrived, New York grew
instantly agitated with excitement.
'The news,' ran the account published by the _Journal of Commerce_ in
the United States, 'spread like wildfire through the city, and the river
became literally dotted all over with boats conveying the curious
to and from the stranger. There seemed to be a universal voice in
congratulation, and every visage was illuminated with delight. A tacit
conviction seemed to pervade every bosom that a most doubtful problem
had been satisfactorily solved; visions of future advantage to science,
to commerce, to moral philosophy, began to float before the "mind's
eye;" curiosity to travel through the old country, and to inspect
ancient institutions, began to stimulate the inquiring.
'Whilst all this was going on, suddenly there was seen over Governor's
Island a dense black cloud of smoke spreading itself upward, and
betokening another arrival. On it came with great rapidity, and about
three o'clock in the afternoon its cause was made fully manifest to the
accumulated multitudes at the Battery. It was the steamship _Great
Western_, of about 1600 tons burden (_sic_) [the difference probably
lies between the net and the gross tonnage], under the command of
Lieutenant Hoskins, R.N. She had left Bristol on the 8th inst., and on
the 23d was making her triumphant entry into the port of New York. This
immense moving mass was propelled at a rapid rate through the waters of
the Bay; she passed swiftly and gracefully round the _Sirius_,
exchanging salutes with her, and then proceeded to her destined
anchorage in the East River. If the public mind was stimulated by the
arrival of the _Sirius_, it became almost intoxicated with delight upon
view of the superb _Great Western_. The latter vessel was only fourteen
clear days out; and neither vessel had sustained a damage worth
mentioning, notwithstanding that both had to encounter very heavy
weather. The _Sirius_ was spoken with on the 14th of April in latitude
45 deg. north, longitude 37 deg. west. The _Great Western_ was spoken on
the 15th of April in latitude 46 deg. 26' north, longitude 37 deg. west.
At these respective dates the _Great Western_ had run 1305 miles in seven
days from King Road; and the _Sirius_ 1305 miles in ten days from Cork.
The _Great Western_ averaged 186-1/2 miles per day, and the _Sirius_
130-1/2 miles; _Great Western_ gained on the _Sirius_ fifty-six miles per
day. The _Great Western_ averaged seven and three-quarter miles per hour;
the _Sirius_ barely averaged five and a half miles per hour.'
Such was the first voyage made across the Atlantic by these two early
steamships, and there is something of the true philosophy of history to
be found in the interest which their advent created. It is worthy of
passing note to learn what ultimately became of these celebrated
vessels. The _Sirius_, not proving staunch enough for the Atlantic
surges, was sent to open steam-communication between London and St
Petersburg, in which trade she was for several years successfully
employed. The _Great Western_ plied regularly from Bristol to New York
until the year 1847, when she was sold to the Royal Mail Company, and
ran as one of their crack ships until 1857, in which year she was broken
up at Vauxhall as being obsolete and unable profitably to compete with
the new class of steamers being built.
The success of these two vessels may be said to have completely
established steam as a condition of the transatlantic navigation of the
future. 'In October 1838,' says Lindsay, in his _History of Merchant
Shipping_, 'Sir John Tobin, a well-known merchant of Liverpool, seeing
the importance of the intercourse now rapidly increasing between the Old
and New Worlds, despatched on his own account a steamer to New York. She
was built at Liverpool, after which place she was named, and made the
passage outwards in sixteen and a half days. It was now clearly proved
that the service could be performed, not merely with profit to those who
engaged in it, but with a regularity and speed which the finest
description of sailing-vessels could not be expected to accomplish. If
any doubts still existed on these important points, the second voyage of
the _Great Western_ set them at rest, she having on this occasion
accomplished the outward passage in fourteen days sixteen hours,
bringing with her the advices of the fastest American sailing-ships
which had sailed from New York long before her, and thus proving the
necessity of having the mails in future conveyed by steamers.'
In fact, as early as October 1838, the British government, being
satisfied of the superiority of steam-packets over sailing-ships, issued
advertisements inviting tenders for the conveyance of the American mails
by the former class of vessels. The owners of the _Great Western_, big
with confidence in the reputation of that ship, applied for the
contract; but, not a little to their chagrin, it was awarded to Mr
(afterwards Sir Samuel) Cunard, who as far back as 1830 had proposed the
establishment of a steam mail service across the Atlantic. The terms of
the original contract were, that for the sum of fifty-five thousand
pounds per annum, Messrs Cunard, Burns, and MacIver should supply three
ships suitable for the purpose, and accomplish two voyages each month
between Liverpool and the United States, leaving England at certain
periods; but shortly afterwards it was deemed more expedient to name
fixed dates of departure on both sides of the Western Ocean.
Subsequently, another ship was required to be added to the service, and
the amount of the subsidy was raised to eighty-one thousand pounds a
year. The steam mail service between Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston was
regularly established in 1840, the first vessel engaged in it being the
_Britannia_, the pioneer ship of the present Cunard line.
We get an admirable idea of what these early steamships were from
Dickens's account of this same _Britannia_, which was the vessel he
crossed to America in on his first visit to that country in 1842. In one
of his letters to John Forster, describing a storm they were overtaken
by, he unconsciously reflects the wondering regard with which the world
still viewed the triumphant achievements of the marine engine. 'For two
or three hours,' he writes, 'we gave it up as a lost thing. This was not
the exaggerated apprehension of a landsman merely. The head-engineer,
who had been in one or the other of the Cunard vessels since they began
running, had never seen such stress of weather; and I afterwards heard
Captain Hewitt say that nothing but a steamer, and one of that strength,
could have kept her course and stood it out. A sailing-vessel must have
beaten off and driven where she would; while through all the fury of
that gale they actually made fifty-four miles headlong through the
tempest, straight on end, not varying their track in the least.' What
would the skipper of one of the modern 'Atlantic greyhounds' think of
such a feat? And, more interesting speculation still, what must Dickens
himself have thought of the performances he lived to witness as against
this astonishing accomplishment on the part of the old _Britannia_?
There exists a tendency to ridicule the early steamers as they appear in
portraits, with their huge paddle-boxes; tall, thin, dog-eared funnels;
and heavily-rigged masts, as though their engines were regarded as quite
auxiliary to their sail-power, and by no means to be relied upon.
Contrasted with some of the leviathans of the present day, the steamers
of half a century ago are no longer calculated to strike an awe into the
beholder; but, in truth, some very fine vessels were built whilst the
marine engine was still quite in its infancy. In a volume of the
_Railway Magazine_ for 1839 is an account of what are termed colossal
steamers. 'An immense steamer,' runs the description, 'upwards of two
hundred feet long, was lately launched at Bristol, for plying between
England and America; but the one now building at Carling & Co.'s,
Limehouse, for the American Steam-navigation Company, surpasses anything
of the kind hitherto made. She is to be named after our Queen, the
_Victoria_; will cost from eighty to one hundred thousand pounds, has
about one hundred and fifty men now employed daily upon her, and is
expected to be finished in November next. The extreme length is about
253 feet; but she is 237 feet between the perpendiculars, 40-1/4 feet
beam between the paddle-boxes, and twenty-seven feet one inch deep from
the floor to the inner side of the spar-deck. The engines are two, of
250 horse-power each, with six feet four inch cylinders, and seven feet
stroke. They are to be fitted with Hall's patent condensers, in addition
to the common ones. She displaces at sixteen feet 2740 tons of water;
her computed tonnage is 1800 tons. At the water-line every additional
inch displaces eighteen and a half tons. The average speed is expected
to be about two hundred nautical miles a day, and consumption of coal
about thirty tons. The best Welsh coal is to be used. It is calculated
she will make the outward passage to New York in eighteen days, and the
homeward in twelve, consuming 540 tons of coal out, and 360 home.
Expectation is on tiptoe for the first voyage of this gigantic steamer,
alongside of which other steamers look like little fishing-boats.'
The next route on which steam-navigation was opened, following upon that
of the North Atlantic passage, was between Great Britain and India. The
steamers of the Honourable Company had indeed doubled the Cape nearly
two years before the _Sirius_ and _Great Western_ sailed upon their
first trip. The _Nautical Magazine_ for 1836 contains the original
prospectus issued by a syndicate of London merchants upon the subject of
steam-communication with the East Indies. As an illustration of the
almost incredible strides that have been made in ocean travelling since
that period, this piece of literature is most instructive. The circular
opens by announcing that it is proposed to establish steam traffic with
India, extending, perhaps, even to Australia! It points out in sanguine
terms how those distant parts of the earth, by the contemplated
arrangement, 'will be reached at the outset in the short period of
seventy-three days; and, when experience is obtained, this time will in
all probability be reduced by one-third; shortening the distance by the
route in question, from England to Australia, in forty days' steaming,
at ten miles an hour. If two days be allowed for stoppages at stations,
not averaging more than a thousand miles apart throughout the line, the
whole time for passing between the extreme points would only be sixty
days, but a relay of vessels will follow, if the undertaking be matured,
in which case twenty-four hours will be ample time at the depots, and a
communication may be expected to be established, and kept up throughout
the year, between England and Australia, in fifty days. It is reasonably
expected that Bombay will be reached in forty-eight days, Madras in
fifty-five, Calcutta in fifty-nine, Penang in fifty-seven, Singapore in
sixty, Batavia in sixty-two, Canton in sixty-eight, and Mauritius in
fifty-four days.'
The _Nautical Magazine_ writer gravely comments upon this scheme as
quite plausible. He is indeed inclined to be anticipatory. Instead of
seventy-three days to Australia, he is of opinion that the voyage may
ultimately be accomplished in fifty, and that the table of time
generally may be reduced by about one-third throughout; although, to
qualify his somewhat daring speculations, he admits that it is well to
base the calculations on the safe side. But the Honourable East India
Company asserted their prerogatives, and put a stop to the scheme of the
New Bengal Steam Company, as the undertaking was to have been called.
This raised a strong feeling of dissatisfaction, and the Court of
Directors was obliged to provide a substitute in lieu of the new line
they had refused to sanction. Their own homely, lubberly craft were
quite unequal to the requirements of 'prompt despatch' which even then
was beginning to agitate the public mind. The possibility of
establishing steam-communication between England and India had been
clearly demonstrated as early as the year 1825, when the _Enterprise_,
of 480 tons and 120 horse-power, sailed from London on the 16th of
August, and arrived in Calcutta on the seventh of December. She was the
first steamer to make the passage from this country to our great Eastern
Empire; the first, indeed, ever to double the stormy headland of the
Cape.
But it was not until the people of India began to petition and the
merchants of London to clamour for the adoption of steam-power in the
Indian navigation that the conservative old magnates of John Company
were stimulated into action. Lieutenant Waghorn's Overland Route had
almost entirely superseded the sea-voyage by way of the Cape; but the
want of an efficient packet service between London and Alexandria, and
Suez and Bombay, was greatly felt. Accordingly, in December 1836, the
steamship _Atalanta_ was despatched from Falmouth to ply on the Indian
side of the route. She was a vessel of 630 tons burden, with engines of
210 horse-power, and was built at Blackwall by the once famous firm of
Wigram & Green. The orders of Captain Campbell, who commanded her, were
that he was to steam the whole distance, only resorting to sail-power in
case of a failure of machinery, in order fully to test the superiority
of the marine engine over canvas. She sustained an average speed of
about eight knots an hour during the entire passage, and but for her
repeated stoppages would undoubtedly have accomplished the quickest
voyage yet made to India. She was followed, in March 1837, by the
_Bernice_, of 680 tons and 230 horse-power. This vessel, which likewise
made the run without the assistance of her sails, left Falmouth on March
17, and arrived at Bombay on the 13th of June.
As the race between the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_ may be said to
have inaugurated the steam-navigation of the Atlantic, so did the
voyages of the _Atalanta_ and _Bernice_ first establish regular
communication by steamers between Great Britain and India. True, there
had been desultory efforts of enterprise prior to this time, and the
pioneer of the Peninsular and Oriental steamers, the _Royal Tar_, had
sailed some three years before; but there was no continual service. The
_Times_ of November 11, 1838, pointed out the approaching change.
'Scarcely,' it says, 'has the wonder created in the world by the
appearance of the _Great Western_ and _British Queen_ begun to subside,
when we are again called upon to admire the rapid strides of enterprise
by the notice of an iron steamship, the first of a line of steamers to
ply between England and Calcutta, to be called the _Queen of the East_,
2618 tons, and 600 horse-power. This magnificent vessel is designed by
Mr W. D. Holmes, engineer to the Bengal Steam Committee, for a
communication between England and India. Great praise is due to Captain
Barber, late of the Honourable East India Company's service, the agent
in London for the Steam Committee in Bengal, who has given every
encouragement to Mr Holmes in carrying forward his splendid undertaking.
When these vessels are ready, we understand the voyage between Falmouth
and Calcutta will be made in thirty days.'
From this time ocean steamers multiplied rapidly. One after another of
the now famous shipping firms sprang up, beginning with the Cunard and
the Peninsular and Oriental lines. The first British steamship was
registered at London in the year 1814: in 1842 there were 940 steamers
registered; and already was the decay of the sailing-ship so largely
anticipated, that Mr Sydney Herbert, in a Committee of the House of
Commons, had this same year pointed out 'that the introduction of
steamers, and the consequent displacement of the Leith smacks, Margate
hoys, &c., would diminish the nursery for seamen by lessening the number
of sailing-vessels.'
THE NEW CUNARDERS.
Less than fifty years ago the Eastern Steam-navigation Company having
failed to obtain the contract to carry the mails from Plymouth to India
and Australia--in vessels of from twelve hundred to two thousand tons,
with engines of from four to six hundred horse-power, which were never
built--began to consider a new enterprise, suggested by the late
Isambard K. Brunei. This was to build the largest steamer ever yet
constructed, to trade with India round the Cape of Good Hope. The
general commercial idea was, that this leviathan vessel was to carry
leviathan cargoes at large freights and great speed, to Ceylon, where
the goods and passengers would be rapidly trans-shipped to smaller swift
steamers for conveyance to various destinations in India, China, and
Australia. The general mechanical idea was, that in order to obtain
great velocity in steamers it was only necessary to make them
large--that, in fact, there need be no limit to the size of a vessel
beyond what might be imposed by the tenacity of material. On what was
called the tubular principle, Brunei argued--and proved to the
satisfaction of numerous experts and capitalists--that it was possible
to construct a vessel of six times the capacity of the largest vessel
then afloat that would steam at a speed unattainable by smaller vessels,
while carrying, besides cargo, all the coal she would require for the
longest voyage.
Thus originated the _Great Eastern_, which never went to India, which
ruined two or three companies in succession, which cost L120,000 to
launch, which probably earned more as a show than ever she did as an
ocean-carrier--except in the matter of telegraph cables--and which
ignobly ended a disastrous career by being sold for L16,000, and broken
up at New Ferry, on the Mersey.
We are now entering upon a new era of big ships, in which such a monster
as the _Great Eastern_ would be no longer a wonder. Two additions to the
Cunard fleet, the _Campania_ (1892) and _Lucania_ (1893), are within a
trifle as large as she, but with infinitely more powerful engines and
incomparably greater speed.
We need not suppose, however, that the idea of big ocean steamers has
been the monopoly of this country. So long ago as 1850 or thereabouts,
Mr Randall, a famous American shipbuilder, designed, drafted, and
constructed the model of a steamer for transatlantic service, 500 feet
long by 58 feet beam, to measure 8000 tons. A company was formed in
Philadelphia in 1860 to carry out the project; but the civil war broke
out soon after, and she was never built.
The _Great Eastern_ was launched in January 1858, and her principal
dimensions were these: Length between perpendiculars, 680 feet; breadth
of beam, 83 feet; length of principal saloons, 400 feet; tonnage
capacity for cargo and coals, 18,000 tons; weight of ship as launched,
12,000 tons; accommodation for passengers, (1) 800, (2) 2000, (3) 1200 =
4000; total horse-power, 7650. She had both screw and paddles for
propulsion, and her displacement was 32,160 tons.
By this time the Cunard Company had been eighteen years in existence.
They started in 1840 with the _Britannia_--quickly followed by the
_Acadia_, _Columbia_, and _Caledonia_, all more or less alike--which was
a paddle-steamer of wood, 207 feet long, 34 feet broad, 22 feet deep,
and of 1156 tons, with side-lever engines developing 740 indicated
horse-power, which propelled the vessel at the average speed of nine
knots an hour. There was accommodation for 225 tons of cargo and 115
cabin passengers--no steerage in those days--who paid thirty-four
guineas to Halifax and thirty-eight guineas to Boston, for passage,
including provisions and wine.
At the time of the _Great Eastern_ the latest type of Cunarder was the
_Persia_, and it is interesting to note the development in the interim.
This vessel was 380 feet long, 45 feet broad, 31 feet deep, of 3870
tons, with engines developing 4000 indicated horse-power, propelling at
the rate of thirteen and a half knots an hour. The _Persia_ and the
_Scotia_, sister-ships, were the last of the Atlantic side-wheelers. In
1862 the first screw-steamer was added to the Cunard fleet. This was the
_China_, built by the Napiers of Glasgow, 326 feet long by 40-1/2 feet
broad, and 27-1/2 feet deep, of 2600 tons, and with an average speed of
about twelve knots.
Such was the type of Cunarder in the early days of the _Great Eastern_,
whose dimensions have now been nearly reached. The _Campania_, however,
was not built with a view to outshine that huge failure, but is the
outcome of a wholly different competition. The _Campania_ and the
_Lucania_ represent the highest development of marine architecture and
engineering skill, and are the product of long years of rivalry for the
possession of the 'blue ribbon' of the transatlantic race.
[Illustration: The _Great Eastern_ and the _Persia_.]
The competition is of ancient date, if we go back to the days when the
American 'Collins' Company tried to run the Cunard Company off the
waters; and during the half-century since the inauguration of steam
service the Cunard Company have sometimes held and sometimes lost the
highest place for speed. The period of steam-racing--the age of
'Atlantic greyhounds'--may be said to have begun in the year 1879, when
the Cunard _Gallia_, the Guion _Arizona_, and the White Star _Britannic_
and _Germanic_ had all entered upon their famous careers. It is matter
of history now how the _Arizona_--called the 'Fairfield Flyer,'
because she was built by Messrs John Elder & Company, of Fairfield,
Glasgow--beat the record in an eastward run of seven days twelve and a
half hours, and a westward run of seven days ten and three-quarter
hours. To beat the _Arizona_, the Cunard Company built the _Servia_, of
8500 tons and 10,300 horse-power; but she in turn was beaten by another
Fairfield Flyer, the _Alaska_, under the Guion flag. The race continued
year by year, as vessels of increasing size and power were entered by
the competing companies. While all the lines compete in swiftness,
luxury, and efficiency, the keenest rivalry is now between the Cunard
and the White Star companies. And just as the _Campania_ and _Lucania_
were built to eclipse the renowned _Teutonic_ and _Majestic_, so the
owners of these boats prepared to surpass even the two Cunarders we
describe.
Let us now see something of these marvels of marine architecture. They
are sister-ships, both built on the Clyde by the Fairfield Shipbuilding
and Engineering Company, and both laid down almost simultaneously. They
are almost identical in dimensions and appointments, and therefore we
may confine our description to the _Campania_, which was the first of
the twins to be ready for sea.
This largest vessel afloat does not mark any new departure in general
type, as the _Great Eastern_ did in differing from all types of
construction then familiar. In outward appearance, the _Campania_, as
she lies upon the water, and as seen at a sufficient distance, is just
like numbers of other vessels we have all seen. Nor does her immense
size at first impress the observer, because of the beautiful proportions
on which she is planned. Her lines are eminently what the nautical
enthusiast calls 'sweet;' and in her own class of naval art she is as
perfect a specimen of architectural beauty as the finest of the grand
old clippers which used to 'walk the waters as a thing of life.' The
colossal size of St Peter's at Rome does not strike you as you enter,
because of the exquisite proportions. And so with the _Campania_--you
need to see an ordinary merchant-ship, or even a full-blown liner,
alongside before you can realise how vast she is.
Yet she is only 60 feet shorter than the mammoth _Great Eastern_, and
measures 620 feet in length, 65 feet 3 inches in breadth, and 43 feet in
depth from the upper deck. Her tonnage is 12,000, while that of the
_Great Eastern_ was 18,000; but then her horse-power is 30,000 as
against the _Great Eastern's_ 7650!
This enormous development of engine-power is perhaps the most remarkable
feature about these two new vessels. Each of them is fitted with two
sets of the most powerful triple-expansion engines ever put together. A
visit to the engine-room is a liberal education in the mechanical arts,
and even to the eye of the uninitiated there is the predominant
impression of perfect order in the bewildering arrangement of pipes,
rods, cranks, levers, wheels, and cylinders. The two sets of engines are
placed in two separate rooms on each side of a centre-line bulkhead
fitted with water-tight doors for intercommunication. Each set has five
inverted cylinders which have exactly the same stroke, and work on three
cranks. Two of the cylinders are high-pressure, one is intermediate, and
two are low-pressure. Besides the main engines, there are engines for
reversing, for driving the centrifugal pumps for the condensers, for the
electric light, for the refrigerating chambers, and for a number of
other purposes--all perfect in appointment and finish. In fact, in these
vast engine-rooms one is best able to realise not only the immense size
and power of the vessel, but also the perfection to which human
ingenuity has attained after generations of ceaseless toil--and yet it
is only half a century since the _Britannia_ began the transatlantic
race.
Each of the various engines has its own steam-supplier. The main engines
are fed by twelve double-ended boilers, arranged in rows of six on each
side of a water-tight bulkhead. The boilers are heated by ninety-six
furnaces, and each set of six boilers has a funnel with the diameter of
an ordinary railway tunnel. In the construction of these boilers some
eight hundred tons of steel were required, the plates weighing four tons
each, with a thickness of an inch and a half. From these mighty machines
will be developed a power equal to that of 30,000 horses! Compare this
with the _Great Eastern's_ 7650 horse-power, or even with the later
'greyhounds.' The greatest power developed by the two previous additions
to the Cunard fleet, the _Etruria_ and _Umbria_, is about 14,000 horses,
which is the utmost recorded by any single-screw engines. The _City of
Paris_ has a power of 18,500, and the _Teutonic_ a power of 18,000 by
twin-screw engines. The _Campania_, therefore, is upwards of half as
much again more powerful than the largest, swiftest, and most powerful
of her predecessors.
These engines of the _Campania_ work two long propeller-shafts, each
carried through an aperture in the stern close to the centre-line, and
fitted to a screw. Unlike other twin-screw vessels, the propellers and
shafts are, as it were, carried within the hull, and not in separate
structures. Abaft of the screws, the rudder is completely submerged, and
is a great mass of steel-plating weighing about twenty-four tons.
With a straight stem, an elliptic stern, two huge funnels, and a couple
of pole-masts--intended more for signalling purposes than for
canvas--the _Campania_ looks thoroughly business-like, and has none of
the over-elaborated get-up of the _Great Eastern_, with her double
system of propulsion and small forest of masts. The bulwarks are close
fore and aft; and from the upper deck rise two tiers of houses, the
roofs of which form the promenade deck and the shade deck. In the
structure of the hull and decks enormous strength has been given, with
special protection at vital parts, as the vessel is built in compliance
with the Admiralty requirements for armed cruisers. Below the line of
vision are four other complete tiers of beams, plated with steel
sheathed in wood, on which rest upper, main, lower, and orlop decks. The
last is for cargo, refrigerating-chambers, stores, &c.--all the others
are devoted to the accommodation of passengers.
The _Campania_ is fitted to carry 460 first-class passengers, 280
second-class, and 700 steerage passengers--in all, 1440, besides a crew
of 400. She has cargo-space for 1600 tons, which seems a trifle in
comparison with her size, but then it is to be remembered that the fuel
consumption of those 96 furnaces is enormous, and requires the carrying
of a very heavy cargo of coals for internal consumption.
[Illustration: The _Campania_.]
The accommodation for passengers is probably the most perfect that has
yet been provided on an ocean steamer, for here the experience of all
previous developments has been utilised. The dining-room is an apartment
100 feet long and 64 feet broad, furnished in handsome dark old
mahogany, to seat 430 persons. The upholstery is tastefully designed,
and the fittings generally are elegant; but the peculiar feature is a
splendid dome rising to a height of thirty-three feet from the floor to
the upper deck, and designed to light both the dining-room and the
drawing-room on the deck above it. The grand staircase which conducts to
these apartments is of teak-wood; the drawing-room is in satin-wood
relieved with cedar and painted frieze panels. The smoking-room on the
promenade deck is as unlike a ship's cabin as can be imagined; it is,
in fact, a reproduction of an old baronial hall of the Elizabethan
age, with oaken furniture and carvings. The other public apartments,
library, boudoir, &c., are all more remarkable for quiet taste and
artistic effect than for the gorgeousness of gilded saloons affected on
some lines, but the prevailing feeling is one of luxurious comfort. The
staterooms for first-class passengers occupy the main, upper, and
promenade decks, and they are as much like real bedrooms as the old type
of 'berths' are not. Besides the single bedrooms, there are suites of
rooms for families or parties, finely appointed with ornamental woods,
rich carpets, and with brass bedsteads instead of the old wooden bunks.
All the sleeping-rooms are as light, lofty, and well ventilated as the
sleeping-rooms on the old liners were the reverse.
The first-class passengers are placed amidships; the second-class are
placed aft; and the steerage, forward. The steerage accommodation is
superior to anything yet provided in that class; while the second-class
accommodation is quite up to the usual first-class, with spacious,
beautifully furnished staterooms, a handsome dining-room in oak, an
elegant drawing-room in satin-wood, and a cosy smoking-room. Indeed,
some of the second-class apartments look as if they were intended to be
utilised for first-class passengers in times of extra pressure.
These are details of interest to possible passengers and to those who
have already experienced the comforts and discomforts of the Atlantic
voyage. But the great interest of the ship, of course, is in her immense
size and enormous power. The navigating-bridge from which the officer in
charge will direct operations, is no less than sixty feet above the
water-level, and from there one obtains a survey unique of its kind. The
towering height, the vast expanse of deck, the huge circumference of the
funnels, the forest of ventilators indicative of the hives of industry
below, the great lighthouse structures which take the place of the old
angle-bedded side-lights--everything beneath you speaks of power and
speed, of strength and security.
The following table shows at a glance how the _Campania_ compares with
her largest predecessors in point of size and power:
Tonnage. Length Breadth Horsepower.
in feet. in feet.
Great Eastern 18,900 682 82 7,650
Britannic 5,000 455 46 5,500
Arizona 5,150 450 45 6,300
Servia 8,500 515 52 10,300
Alaska 6,400 500 50 10,500
City of Rome 8,000 545 52 11,890
Aurania 7,270 470 57 8,500
Oregon 7,375 500 54 7,375
America 5,528 432 51 7,354
Umbria 7,700 501 57 14,320
Etruria 7,800 520 57 14,500
City of Paris 10,500 560 63 18,500
Teutonic 9,860 582 57-1/2 18,000
Normannia ---- 520 57-1/4 16,350
Campania }
Lucania } 12,950 620 65 30,000
As to speed, the record of course has been broken. In 1850 the average
passage of a Cunarder westward was thirteen days, and eastward twelve
days sixteen hours; in 1890, the average was reduced to seven days
fifteen hours twenty-three minutes, and seven days four hours and
fifty-two minutes, respectively. The fastest individual passages down to
1891 were made by the _Etruria_, westwards in six days one hour and
forty-seven minutes; and by the _Umbria_, eastwards in six days three
hours and seventeen minutes. But these were beaten by the _Teutonic_,
which reduced the homeward record to five days and twenty-one hours; and
by the _City of Paris_, which reduced the outward passage to five days
and sixteen hours. Roughly speaking, these new Cunarders are about ten
times the size and forty times the power of the pioneers of the fleet,
and the _Campania_ will run every twenty minutes almost as many miles as
the _Britannia_ could laboriously make in an hour.
Is it possible that within the next fifty years we shall be able to make
the voyage to New York in three days? The old _Britannia_ took fourteen
days to Boston, and it was not until 1852 that the ten days' record to
New York was broken by the 'Collins' Company. If, then, in forty years
we reduced the record from ten to five, who can say that the limit of
speed has yet been reached?
SAILING-SHIPS.
A modern sailing-ship replete with labour-saving appliances is a
veritable triumph of the naval architect's art, and an excellent object
lesson on man's power over the forces of nature. If Christopher Columbus
could revisit our planet from the shades, he would doubtless be
astonished by a critical comparison between the tiny wooden caravel with
which he discovered a New World, and a leviathan four-masted steel
sailing-ship, now navigated in comparative comfort to every possible
port where freight is obtainable. Wooden cargo-carrying craft impelled
by the unbought wind are surely diminishing in numbers; and in the near
future it is not improbable that a stately sailing-ship will be as
seldom seen on the waste of waters as a screw steamship was half a
century ago. Even looking leisurely backward down the imposing vista of
the last thirty years of the Victorian era, it will be readily perceived
with what marvellous mastery iron and steel have supplanted, not only
wood in the hulls, masts, and yards of sailing-ships, but also hemp in
their rigging.
[Illustration: Clipper Sailing-ship of 1850-60.]
A radical revolution has been effected in the form, size, and
construction of these cargo-carriers during such a relatively
insignificant interval, and the end is not yet. The old-fashioned type
of wooden merchantman remained practically invariable for more than a
hundred years; but change is all-powerful at present, so that a vessel
is almost of a bygone age before she shall have completed her maiden
voyage. It would appear, however, that the limit of size has been
reached. Ship-owning firms and shipbuilders will probably soon be
compelled to keep the modern steel sailing-ship within more moderate
dimensions. Vessels of exceptionally large carrying capacity are in
demand owing to the fact that experience proves them to be the best kind
for affording a fair return to the capital invested. Salvage appliances
and docks do not keep pace with the requirements of such leviathans; so
that underwriters evince an increasing dislike to big ships, and the
premium for insurance rises accordingly, to compensate for extra risk.
Many mariners and some shipbuilders were at one time quick to express a
pronounced opinion that it was quite unnatural for an iron ship to
remain afloat. Wood was made to swim, but iron to sink, said these
sincere but mistaken admirers of the good old days. Their misgivings
have proved to be without foundation in fact, for iron ships have ousted
wooden craft almost utterly from the ocean-carrying traffic. Iron has
also reached its meridian altitude, and steel is rapidly rising above
the horizon of progress. The shipbuilding yards of Nova Scotia, Canada,
the United States of America, and British Columbia, however, still
launch wooden sailing-vessels, although in decreasing numbers, and, as a
rule, of inconsiderable tonnage.
It seems scarcely credible that only as recently as 1870 there were not
more than ten sailing-ships afloat of two thousand tons register and
upwards under the red ensign of the British mercantile marine. To-day we
have more than that number of splendid steel sailing-ships, each having
a register tonnage in excess of three thousand. During the twelve months
of 1892 there were turned out from one yard alone on the Clyde, that of
Messrs Russell & Co., no fewer than thirteen huge sailing-vessels,
varying in register tonnage from two thousand three hundred to three
thousand five hundred! One of the largest wooden sailing-ships afloat in
1870 was the _British Empire_, of two thousand seven hundred tons
register, which, under the command of Captain A. Pearson, was an ark of
safety to the families of European residents in Bombay during the Indian
Mutiny. She had been originally intended for a steamship, and this will
account for her exceptional dimensions. The shipbuilding firm of A.
Sewall & Co., of Bath, Maine, U.S.A., in 1889 built the _Rappahannock_,
of 3054 tons register; in 1890, the _Shenandoah_, 3258 tons; in 1891,
the _Susquehanna_, 2629 tons; and in 1892, the _Roanoke_, of 3400 tons
register.
Several cities claim to be the birthplace of Homer, and there exists
similar rivalry with respect to the first iron ship. This at least is
certain, that the first iron vessel classed by Lloyd's was the British
barque _Ironsides_, in 1838. She was but 271 tons register. The Clyde
stands _facile princeps_ in this most important branch of industry.
Vessels built on the banks of that river have rendered a praiseworthy
account of themselves on every sea and under every flag. No other
country, save ourselves, launched any iron or steel ships of 2000 tons
register or above, but preferred to obtain them from our shipbuilding
yards. The so-called protection of native industry principle prevailing
in America precludes ship-owners over there from taking advantage
directly of the cheapest market. Several of the large sailers, however,
built on the Clyde for citizens of the United States are therefore
necessarily sailed under the British, Hawaiian, or some flag other than
that of the country to which they actually belong.
The number of seamen carried per one hundred tons in the modern
four-masted sailing-ship is cut down to the uttermost limit consistent
with safety; and, as a consequence, dismasting and tedious passages are
not infrequent. The _Hawaiian Isles_, 2097 tons register, a United
States ship under a foreign flag, bound to California with a cargo of
coal, found it impossible to weather Cape Horn by reason of violent
westerly gales. She was turned round, ran along the lone Southern Ocean,
before the 'brave west winds' so admirably described by Maury, and
eventually reached her destination by the route leading south of
Australia. She was one hundred and eighty-nine days on the passage, and
no fewer than sixty guineas per cent. had been freely paid for her
re-insurance. A similar ship, the _John Ena_, carrying a substantial
cargo of 4222 tons of coal from Barry to San Francisco, also encountered
bad weather, made a long passage, and twenty guineas per cent. was paid
on her for re-insurance. Another new ship, the _Achnashie_, 2476 tons
register, got into still more serious difficulty under like
circumstances. She had to put back to Cape Town, damaged and leaky,
after attempting in vain to contend against the bitter blast off Cape
Horn. There, her cargo was discharged, and she went into dry-dock for
the absolutely necessary repairs. The _Austrasia_, 2718 tons register,
was almost totally dismasted near the island of Tristan da Cunha, in the
South Atlantic, on her maiden passage, while bound from Liverpool to
Calcutta with a cargo of salt. By dint of sterling seamanship she was
brought to Rio Janeiro in safety, returned to Liverpool under improvised
masts, discharged her cargo, refitted, took in quite a different cargo
at London, and sailed for California. The _Somali_, 3537 tons register,
the largest sailing-ship launched in 1892, was dismasted in the China
Sea. Everything above the lower masts had to be made for her on the
Clyde; yet, within fifteen days of the order being received by Messrs
Russell & Co., the spars and gear were completed and shipped for passage
to the _Somali_ at Hong-kong. Underwriters suffer severely with such
ships.
One of the largest sailing-ships afloat is the French five-master, _La
France_, launched in 1890 on the Clyde, and owned by Messrs A. D. Bordes
et Fils, who possess a large fleet of sailing-vessels. In 1891 she came
from Iquique to Dunkirk in one hundred and five days with 6000 tons of
nitrate; yet she was stopped on the Tyne when proceeding to sea with
5500 tons of coal, and compelled to take out 500 tons on the ground that
she was overladen. There is not a single five-masted sailing-ship under
the British flag. The United States has two five-masters, the _Louis_ of
830 tons, and the _Gov. Ames_ of 1778 tons, both fore-and-aft schooners,
a rig peculiar to the American coast. Ships having five masts can be
counted on the fingers of one hand; but, strange to say, the steamship
_Coptic_, of the Shaw, Savill, & Albion Co., on her way to New Zealand,
in December 1890, passed the _Gov. Ames_ in fourteen degrees south,
thirty-four degrees west, bound for California; and two days later, in
six degrees south, thirty-one degrees west, the French five-master, _La
France_, bound south. Passengers and crew of the _Coptic_ might travel
over many a weary league of sea, and never again be afforded two such
excellent object lessons in the growth of sailing-ships in quick
succession.
Some large sailing-ships experience a decided difficulty in obtaining
freights that will repay expenses, even ignoring a margin for profit,
and we are reluctantly compelled to confess that the days of
sailing-ships are almost numbered. The cry for huge sailers is an
evidence that steam is determining the dimensions of the most modern
cargo-carriers under sail.
[Illustration: _La France._]
[Illustration]