IV.
A wonderful place is Fairfield. When a ship is taken in hand for construction the design for each and every part is proceeded with simultaneously. It is not the keel first, then the frames, then the reverse frames, then the flooring, and so on, as it is in smaller ship-yards. Keel, frames, flooring are put in hand together, and the hull plates are ready before the keel is in position. Simultaneously, too, the sawmill is preparing the planks which are to cover the steel decks: the joiners are at work on the saloon and cabins; the upholsterers are cutting and stitching the brocades, plushes, and silks which are so freely used in modern ocean steamers; the chain-maker is forging the cables, and each department is busying itself with its own share, conscious that what it produces will presently be sought to take its place in the rapidly progressing whole.
How rapid the progress is may be judged from the fact that on August 14, 1885, the steel intended for a North German Lloyd steamer began to enter the yard, and exactly one month later the ship was in frame with keelsons and beams in position, and the plating for the hull, rolled to waterline shape, lying alongside.
The works cover nearly seventy-four acres, and lie on the south side of the Clyde, about three miles from Glasgow, with which city they are connected by a continuous chain of docks, warehouses, and other ship-yards. Not very long ago this great inclosure was arable land attached to a comfortable mansion which still retains a few vestiges of its former dignity. But now the verdure has been trampled down and the face of the earth is hidden by paving-stones and iron rails. The river is inky, and the smoke lying in a brown fog over-head is ever being replenished from the high chimneys of the neighborhood.
The scene within the high brick walls which keep out idlers is exhilarating but scarcely picturesque. All the materials which enter into the construction of a modern ship are visible in profusion. A bird’s-eye view reveals great stacks of timber, iron, and steel; a net-work of rails which connect the works with all the principal lines converging at Glasgow; long brick sheds, and edging the water-front the launching-slips, where as many as fifteen vessels have been in course of construction at the same time. There the great hulls of many of the most famous Atlantic liners have been put together; this was the birthplace of all the new ships of the North German Lloyd line; of the Arizona, the Alaska, the Oregon, the Umbria, and the Etruria.
Running at right angles from the river, a dock has been excavated, large enough to accommodate a vessel of twelve thousand tons, and after launching, the steamers are hauled in here to receive their engines and boilers. Immediately in the rear of the launching-slips there is an enormous shed, with a roof of glass and iron, where all the iron-work for the hulls of fifteen ships has been handled at one time. Within it gangs of workmen, each skilled in a specialty, carry on that part of the work which belongs to them. Some are carriers of angle steel or iron, others receivers of angle iron, which they place in the furnaces until the metal is at such a heat that it can be shaped to suit the water-lines of the vessel for which it is intended. Others still are busy with reverse frames and with the bending of plates; others with funnels, ventilators, and skylights.
The Manganese Bronze Propeller-Blade of the Wrecked Steamer Mosel, after it had beaten upon a reef.
There is a special department for the casting of manganese bronze, which is used for the blades of propellers. Standing against a wall not far off is a blade saved from the propeller of the wrecked steamer Mosel. She ran ashore on a rocky coast, and her propeller played upon the reef like a flail upon a threshing-floor without break or fracture; so great is the strength of the bronze that the only effect upon it was a feathering of the edges as revealed by the blade in question.
Then we see the engineering, forge, and pattern shops. Forgings of steel are made which weigh as much as thirty tons, as in the case of the crank-shafts of the new North German Lloyd steamers. A shafting of that weight is lifted as easily, and with as little commotion, as a bar of angle iron, and placed on a table to be finished. All the tools are of enormous size, and nearly all of them are adaptations of the well-known turning-lathe. Either the tool turns or the work turns. A steamer’s cylinders are bored out with a bar, the bar moving. In turning a thrust-shaft the shaft moves, not the tool. In facing a condenser the tool moves, not the condenser. Cutting, planing, and turning are all accomplished by modifications of the lathe. There are in all nearly forty lathes, vertical, horizontal, and oblique, each gnawing at some vital part of a ship, and there—there is the “devil.” This is the name given by the workmen to an immense metallic disk, over sixteen feet in diameter, which bores through solid steel at the rate of two and a quarter inches in four minutes. The workmen fill what standing room there is between propeller blades, cylinder liners, piston-valves, and sole-plates; they swarm like ants, each gang carrying on its specified work with diligence and singleness of purpose.
Let the reader figure to himself the gleaming tools, the whirring machinery for the distribution of power, the begrimed toilers, the ponderous masses of iron and steel—now swinging in mid-air, then clutched to the breast of an excoriating monster like the “devil;” let his eye rest on those forty lathes all busy at once, eating with unwearying jaws into the metal fed them, and on the plane which shaves an armor-plate as if it were a deal board; then let him fill his ears with the groaning, creaking, hissing, grinding, shrieking of all this activity, and add to it the battle-like din of the boiler-makers. Thus he may know what Fairfield is like.
Ranging up and down these work-shops, and pausing before this or that lathe, we see in undistinguishable fragments the engines that are designed to propel the seven or eight thousand-ton ship; then the pieces are gathered together and united in a pit; power is applied from an auxiliary engine, and the work of final adjustment is proceeded with. That completed, the engines are again taken apart and transferred to the vessel for which they have been built.
A Stern View, showing Twin Screws.
Has the reader ever stood in the engine-room of an ocean steamer when she was plunging through an Atlantic gale at the rate of seventeen or more knots an hour? Even if he has done so, and been awed by the experience, it is not likely that he has been able to fully realize the immensity of the power exerted. He needs some standard of comparison, and for that purpose we may offer him the ancient galley, and repeat a passage from the address made by Sir Frederick Bramwell at the meeting of the British Association last September: “Compare a galley, a vessel propelled by oars, with the modern Atlantic liner…. Take her length as some 600 feet, and assume that place be found for as many as 400 oars on each side, each oar worked by three men, or 2,400 men; and allow that six men under these conditions could develop work equal to one horse-power; we should have 400 horse-power. Double the number of men, and we should have 800 horse-power, with 4,800 men at work, and at least the same number in reserve, if the journey is to be carried on continuously. Contrast the puny result thus obtained with the 19,500 horse-power given forth by a large prime-mover of the present day, such a power requiring on the above mode of calculation 117,000 men at work and 117,000 men in reserve; and these to be carried in a vessel less than 600 feet in length. Even if it was possible to carry this number of men in such a vessel, by no conceivable means could their power be utilized so as to impart to it a speed of twenty knots an hour.”
The City of New York ready for Launching.
Model of a Steamer Designed to Cross the Atlantic in Five Days.
Huge as the several parts are, their adjustment is a matter of extreme delicacy, and yet so carefully is it accomplished that a steamer may leave the builder’s hand at Fairfield and proceed on a voyage of twenty days or more without once having to slacken speed on account of her engines.
It is a fair sight to see the men come to work when the bell rings in the morning. When the yard is fully occupied there are between six and seven thousand of them, and the wages paid have amounted in one year to one million eight hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.
The head and front of all this industry—Sir William Pearce—was himself in early life a workman in the yard. I met him soon after his elevation by the Queen to the baronetage. He was then, apparently, in the best of health, and was full of plans for building still faster steamers for the Atlantic. That he would have soon put afloat a vessel of greater speed than his own Etruria, there is no doubt in the minds of those who knew his genius as a naval architect, and the indomitable and imperious will with which he carried out all his plans. But he died suddenly in 1888, and though his work was incomplete, he had already done wonders in minimizing the discomfort and duration of the now familiar passage of the Atlantic.
OCEAN PASSENGER TRAVEL.
By JOHN H. GOULD.
The First Ocean Race—Passenger Traffic in the Old Clipper Days—State-rooms and Table Fare in Early Days—The First Ocean Mail Contract—Discomforts Fifty Years Ago—American Transatlantic Lines—Government Subsidies—Novelties on the Collins Line—When Steerage Passengers were Allowed on Ocean Steamships—Important Changes in the Comfort of Passengers Wrought by the Oceanic in 1870—The Present Era of Twin-screw Ships—Their Advantages—The Fastest Voyages East and West—Records of the Great Racers—Modern Conveniences and Luxuries—The Increase in the Number of Cabin Passengers from 1881 to 1890—How the Larder is Supplied—Electric Lights, Libraries, and Music-rooms—Customs Peculiar to the French, German, and British Lines—Life in the Steerage—Immigration Statistics—Government Regulations.
THERE are, undoubtedly, many men and women in New York to-day who went down to the Battery and cheered and waved their hands in greeting to the first steamship that entered this port from Europe. This important event took place on April 23, 1838, and it was doubly interesting and significant because not only the first transatlantic steamship came to anchor in the harbor on that day, but the second also; steam travel across the sea thus beginning with a race that was earnestly contested and brilliantly won. Furthermore, it was a race that attracted infinitely more attention than any of the contests that have succeeded it. Two steam-vessels had crossed the Atlantic in years previous, both having started from this side; the Savannah, from Savannah, in 1819;[16] and the Royal William from Quebec, in 1831; but neither of these voyages had demonstrated the feasibility of abandoning the fine sailing packets and clippers for steamers when it came to a long voyage. The Savannah used both steam and sail during eighteen of the twenty-five days required for a passage to Liverpool, and more than one clipper overtook and passed her during the voyage. The Royal William had to utilize all her hold for coal in order to carry sufficient fuel to insure a completion of the voyage. The reasons for the commercial failure of such craft are, therefore, apparent; but they proved to be available and profitable for coastwise traffic, and meantime inventive genius was at work on plans and models and theories, all intended for the construction of a steamship capable of carrying goods and passengers between Europe and America, and of outrunning the packets. Public interest, accordingly, was deeply stirred on both sides of the ocean when, in 1837, it was learned that two steam-vessels were on the stocks, building for the American service. These were the Sirius, at London, and the Great Western, at Bristol. It was these vessels that made the first race; the Sirius making the trip, measured from Queenstown, in eighteen and a half days, and the Great Western in fourteen and a half days. The Sirius, having had nearly four days’ start, came in a few hours ahead of the winner. She brought seven passengers, and whether the Great Western had others than her crew on board cannot now be ascertained.
At this time there were several lines of sailing vessels in operation between America and Europe, among the most important of which were Williams & Guion’s Old Black Star line, afterward merged into the Guion line of Steamships; Grimshaw & Co.’s Black Star line; C. H. Marshall & Co.’s Black Ball line; and Tapscott’s line. All these concerns conducted a profitable business in carrying passengers, and the ships were provided with accommodations for the three classes into which travellers have been divided from early times. It is impossible at this day to determine with exactness the volume of passenger traffic in clippers, for no complete records were kept; but that it was comparatively light may be inferred from the fact that provision was made in the large ships for from ten to thirty first-cabin and twenty second-cabin passengers.
The steerage capacity varied from eight hundred to one thousand, and it was a long time after steamship lines had been established before immigrants ceased to come over in clippers. In fact, for ten years after the inauguration of the first steam line the immigrants had no choice—the steamships carrying none but cabin passengers. The rates were, £30 for first cabin; £8 for second cabin; and £5 to £8 for steerage. The appointments of cabins and state-rooms were meagre as compared with the great steamships of to-day, but the table fare was substantially the same that is provided now. The first-cabin passengers fared as they might in a good hotel; those in the second cabin, or “intermediates,” as they were called, had a plentiful supply of plain well-prepared food, and the needs of the steerage passengers were looked after by the British Government, which instituted an official bill of fare. These matters will be described in greater detail farther on.
In the Marine News of April 4, 1838, published in New York, the agents of the Sirius advertise her as a “New and Powerful Steamship, 700 tons burden, 320 horse-power.” The advertisement continues:
This vessel has superior accommodations, and is fitted with separate cabins for the accommodation of families, to whom every possible attention will be given.
Cabin, $140.00, including provisions, wines, etc.
Second cabin, $80.00, including provisions.
Commenting upon the arrival of the Sirius and Great Western, the New York Courier and Enquirer of April 24, 1838, said:
What may be the ultimate fate of this excitement—whether or not the expenses of equipment and fuel will admit of the employment of these vessels in the ordinary packet service—we cannot pretend to form an opinion; but of the entire feasibility of the passage of the Atlantic by steam, as far as regards safety, comfort, and despatch, even in the roughest and most boisterous weather, the most sceptical must now cease to doubt.
In the Grand Saloon of an Inman Steamer.
The “fate of the experiment,” as far as the Sirius was concerned, was decided by the initial voyage. She had taken on four hundred and fifty tons of coal at Queenstown, all of which had been consumed before passing Sandy Hook, and had it not been for the sacrifice of spare spars and forty-three barrels of rosin to the demands of the furnace, she would not have entered the upper bay under steam. Nevertheless there were people who trusted her capability to get back to Queenstown with the same quantity of coal, and among these confident, not to say venturesome, travellers, were the Chevalier Wyckoff and James Gordon Bennett, Sr. The Sirius made better time on the eastward trip, but she never again crossed the ocean. For many years she plied between Cork and Dublin.
As a business venture the Great Western was more successful, and she made in all thirty-seven round voyages between Bristol, or Liverpool, and New York. Sixty-six passengers sailed in her on her first voyage from New York. Enthusiastic reporters of that day record that at least one hundred thousand persons crowded the Battery and other points of view to see her off. She had been advertised as follows:
British Steam-Packet Ship Great Western,
James Hosken, R.N., Commander:
Having arrived yesterday from Bristol, which place she left on the 8th inst., at noon, will sail from New York for Bristol on Monday, May 7th, at 2 o’clock P.M.
She takes no Steerage Passengers. Rates in the Cabin, including Wines and Provisions of every kind, 30 guineas; a whole State-room for one person, 50 guineas. Steward’s fee for each passenger, £1 10s. sterling. Children under 13 years of age, half price. No charge for Letters or Papers. The Captain and Owners will not be liable for any Package, unless a Bill of Lading has been given for it. One to two hundred tons can be taken at the lowest current rates.
Passage or freight can be engaged, a plan of cabin may be seen, and further particulars learned, by applying to
Richard Irvin,
98 Front St.
Other steamships made experimental voyages across the Atlantic after this, and several attempts were made to establish regular lines, that is, a service with stated times of sailing from one year’s end to another; but none of these succeeded until 1840, when the British & North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company was organized. The chief promoter of this concern was Mr. Samuel Cunard, of Halifax, and the name of the corporation was speedily forgotten in the popular adoption of his name to designate the line. Mr. Cunard and his associates had been keen observers of the various experiments in steam navigation, and naturally they profited by others’ failures. By no means the least important feature of their enterprise, by which it differed from previous ventures, and by which it secured a fighting chance for prosperity, was an arrangement with the British Government for carrying the mails. The first mail contract covered a period of seven years at £60,000 annually. This service was monthly in the beginning, afterward fortnightly, and the points touched were Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston. Eventually, with increased subventions from the Government, a weekly service was established between Liverpool and New York, as well as a semi-monthly service between Liverpool and Boston. The first fleet of the Cunard line consisted of four vessels—the Britannia, Acadia, Caledonia, and Columbia. Another steamship, the Unicorn, made what was probably a voyage of announcement for the company. The Unicorn was the first steam-vessel from Europe to enter Boston Harbor, where she arrived on June 2, 1840. Although Boston made as much fuss over this event as New York had over the arrival of the Sirius and Great Western two years before, regular communication with Europe was not established until the arrival of the Britannia, the real pioneer of the Cunard line. She left Liverpool on Friday, July 4, 1840, and made the voyage to Boston, including the détour to Halifax and delay there of twelve hours, in fourteen days and eight hours. That Mr. Cunard was correct in believing that transportation by steam would stimulate travel between the continents is clear enough to us now; but he and his associates must have felt justified in the undertaking by the fact that the Britannia carried ninety cabin passengers on her first trip.
Although the passengers had “the run” of the entire ship, their accommodations were little, if any, better than those provided in the clippers. The saloon and state-rooms were all in the extreme after-part of the vessel, and there were no such things as comfortable smoking-rooms on deck, libraries, sitting-rooms, electric lights and annunciators, automatic windows to port-holes; and there were no baths to be obtained except through the kind offices of the boatswain or his mate, who vigorously applied the hose on such passengers as came dressed for the occasion when the decks were being washed in the early morning. “State-room” was much more of a misnomer then than it is now. On the most unpretentious modern steamship there is room enough in the chambers to put a small trunk, and even other articles of convenience to the traveller; and one may dress, if he takes reasonable care, without knocking his knuckles and elbows against the wall or the edges of his berth. Nowadays, too, the state-room is usually large enough to accommodate three or four persons, while some are arranged to hold more, if the ship is crowded. The pioneer steamship had chambers so narrow that there was just room enough for a stool to stand between the edge of the two-feet-wide berth and the wall—mere closets. There were two berths in each room, one above the other. By paying somewhat less than double fare a passenger given to luxury might have a room to himself, according to the advertisement of the Great Western. Within such narrow quarters, however, everything possible was done for the passenger’s comfort. A gentleman, now in business in New York, who crossed in the earliest days of the Cunard line, and who has since sailed on the modern racers, says that the difference is by no means as great as might be expected. He puts it this way:
“The table was as good then as it is now, and the officers and stewards were just as attentive. There is more costly ornamentation now; but that aside, the two great improvements over the liners of forty-five years ago are in speed and space. There is more room now to turn around in, and the service is somewhat better.”
This is a very good-humored view of the matter. It is not probable that latter-day travellers would be content to put up with narrow rooms, smoking lamps, low ceilings, and plain edibles, all of which are now entirely changed. The traveller to-day demands more than comfort and safety. Travelling is in the main itself a luxury, and as more and more Americans have found themselves with sufficient means to indulge in it, they have demanded more and more luxurious surroundings and appointments. It is in response to this demand and the growth of the traffic, that within the last few years there has been placed upon the transatlantic lines a fleet of steamships that surpass in every respect anything that the world has seen.
For several years the Cunard line enjoyed what was substantially a monopoly of the steam carrying trade between England and America, although individual vessels made trips back and forth at irregular intervals, and various and unsuccessful attempts were made to establish a regular service. The first enterprise of this kind that originated in the United States was the Ocean Steam Navigation Company. In 1847 this corporation undertook to carry the American mails between New York and Bremen twice a month. The Government paid $200,000 a year for this service, and the vessels touched at Cowes, Isle of Wight, on each trip. Two steamships were built for this line, the Washington and Herman. When the contract with the Government expired both were withdrawn and the project was abandoned. About the same time C. H. Marshall & Co., proprietors of the Black Ball line of packet-ships, built a steamship, the United States, to supplement their transatlantic business, but the venture proved to be unprofitable. Then came the New York & Havre Steam Navigation Company. This line was also subsidized by the Government for carrying the United States mails between New York, Southampton, and Havre, fortnightly, at $150,000 annually. The two steamships built for this purpose were wrecked, and two others were chartered in order to carry out the mail contract, until the Fulton and the Arago, two new steamships built for the line, were ready for service in 1856.
The Steamer’s Barber-Shop.
The most important American rival which foreign corporations have encountered in transatlantic steam navigation was the famous Collins line. Mr. E. K. Collins had grown up in the freight and passenger business between New York and Liverpool, and in 1847 he began to interest New York merchants in a plan to establish a new steamship line. Two years later a company which he had organized launched four vessels—the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Baltic. They were liberally subsidized; the Government paying to the company $858,000 yearly for carrying the mails; conditions imposed being that the vessels should make twenty-six voyages every year, and that the passage from port to port should be better in point of time than that made by the Cunarders. The Collins line met the conditions successfully; its vessels making westward trips that averaged eleven days, ten hours, and twenty-one minutes, as compared with twelve days, nineteen hours, and twenty-six minutes by the British steamships. The vessels of the Collins line cost upward of $700,000 each. This was a great deal of money to put into a steamship in those days, and as the largest of the fleet was considerably smaller than the smallest of the steamships that now ply between New York and European ports, there was naturally a good percentage of cost in the appointments for the comfort of the passengers. Many features that have since come to be regarded as indispensable on board ship were introduced by the Collins vessels. Among them none attracted more comment when the Atlantic arrived at Liverpool, at the end of her first voyage, May 10, 1849, than the barber-shop. English visitors to the vessel, as she lay at anchor in the Mersey, saw for the first time the comfortable chair, with its movable head-rest and foot-rest, in which Americans are accustomed to recline while undergoing shaving. Another novelty was a smoking-room in a house on the after-part of the deck. In the predecessors of the Atlantic smokers had to get on as well as might be in an uninviting covered hatchway known as the “fiddley.” The Collins line vessels had not only a dining-room sixty feet long by twenty feet broad, but had a general saloon sixty-seven feet by twenty feet. These were divided by the steward’s pantry. Rose, satin, and olive woods figured prominently in the decorations; there were rich carpets, marble-topped tables, expensively upholstered chairs and sofas; a profusion of mirrors; all the panels and the saloon windows were ornamented with coats-of-arms and other designs emblematic of American freedom; all of which made, according to an English writer, a “general effect of chasteness and a certain kind of solidity.”
The Collins line obtained its share of a steadily increasing passenger traffic between the Old and New Worlds. It carried freight at from $30 to $40 a ton; it had the advantage of an immense subsidy; but to all intents and purposes the corporation was bankrupt at the end of six years. It cost too much to maintain the high rate of speed required by the Government. Moreover, two vessels were lost; the Arctic, which went down after a collision with a French steamer off Cape Race, in September, 1854, when two hundred and twenty-two of the two hundred and sixty-eight people on board were drowned; and the Pacific, which was never heard from after she left Liverpool on June 23, 1856.
Almost simultaneously with the inauguration of the Collins line another candidate for ocean business appeared, bringing with it two innovations of great importance to all travellers. This was the Liverpool, New York, & Philadelphia Steamship Company, better known, even in its own offices, as the Inman line. It was the original plan of this company to establish a line between Liverpool and Philadelphia, and for several years, beginning in 1850, no calls were made at New York. The Inman Company was successful in securing a contract from the British and Canadian Governments for carrying the mails via Halifax, and was the successor to the Cunard line on that route; the company then settled down, with a comfortable mail contract, to carrying passengers, freight, and mail between Liverpool and New York, calling at Queenstown on every trip.
More Comfortable on Deck.
During the Crimean War the transatlantic trade received a severe check, as more than half the steamships were withdrawn and placed in the service of the British and the French Governments as transports. During that time the Collins line and other American lines received quite an impetus by many of the vessels of both the Cunard and Inman lines being required for transport duty. At the close of the Crimean War, however, a reaction set in when these ships were again put in commission, with a decidedly disastrous effect on the American lines.
In 1855 Commodore Vanderbilt endeavored to get a subsidy from the American Government for a mail line to Europe, but, notwithstanding his failure to procure this contract, he placed three or four vessels on the route between New York, Southampton, and Havre, and later on the Bremen route. The venture was more or less profitable. Almost the last remnants of American enterprise in Atlantic passenger traffic disappeared with the steamships Fulton and Arago of the New York and Havre line, which were withdrawn in 1868. Mention should, however, be made of the American line, with four iron screw steamers, which began to run between Philadelphia and Liverpool in 1873, and ran regularly since its inception, without any Government subsidy.
Two innovations introduced by the Inman line became prominent features of ocean business, and it may be left an open question as to which was the more important. One was the use of the screw-propeller, and the other was the carrying of steerage, or third-class, passengers. Previous to 1850 all steamships built for transatlantic voyages had been side-wheelers, and even as late as 1870 there were steam-vessels that came into the port of New York with the walking-beam, familiar to patrons of modern ferry-boats and river steamers. The principle of the screw-propeller had been known and utilized for many years; but it was not believed that a steamship could cross the ocean in safety unless side-paddles were employed. The first iron transatlantic screw steamship was the City of Glasgow (except the Great Britain, which first arrived in New York on September 10, 1845, making but two transatlantic trips, and therefore not entering as a factor into this trade), built on the Clyde by Tod & McGregor. She made four successful voyages between Glasgow and New York before she was purchased by the corporation that afterward became known as the Inman line. This innovation, although it did not result at first in any marked increase of speed, soon found approbation in the policies of rival companies.
A Quiet Flirtation.
The other innovation was equally long in finding acceptance among oceanic steamship companies, but it eventually prevailed, even to the extermination of the clipper ship as a passenger carrier. It may be remarked just here that the introduction of the screw-propeller added to the discomforts of the cabin passengers; for in the first vessels of the Inman line the state-rooms and saloons were retained in the after-part of the ships, where the motion of the sea and the noise of the screw were most apparent.
Leaving this matter for the present, it is worth noting that the steady increase in passenger traffic between the two continents led to the organization of many other companies that tried to find a share in the carrying business. The Glasgow & New York Steamship Company was started in 1854 by Tod & McGregor, ship-builders; the service was fortnightly. In 1859 they decided to confine their business to ship-building, and the fleet and good-will were then sold out to the Inman line, who continued the service for a year or two, but finally withdrew the fleet from Glasgow and concentrated their entire business between Liverpool, Queenstown, and New York.
During the period from 1850 to 1860 many Atlantic lines were established, several of which are in successful operation to-day. The new-comers during that decade, as well as in the following decade, adopted generally the innovations ventured by the Inman line; but it was not until after 1870 that the side-wheeler disappeared from the ocean, and it was not until 1874 that clipper ships ceased to bring immigrants. It is said that the life of an iron steamship is unlimited; that time enough has not elapsed since the first iron ships were floated to determine how long they would naturally last under good usage. The importance, therefore, of the innovation introduced by the Inman line may be readily inferred when it is stated that the oldest steamship belonging to any of the regular lines now in the passenger service between New York and European ports was built in 1867. Within the last year or two steel has been almost entirely substituted for iron, it being lighter and more durable.
Although the transatlantic lines multiplied rapidly, and the business induced by foreign traffic increased steadily, there was no other marked improvement in the service until 1870, when the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company entered upon its career. In this case also the legal title of the corporation has been forgotten in the popular adoption of a short name to designate the line; and this new enterprise has been known almost from the beginning as the White Star line. Their first steamship was the Oceanic, and its model and appointments throughout became the pioneer of the great fleet that now plies regularly between this country and Europe. It was not so much that the proprietors of the White Star line endeavored to outdo their rivals in conveniences for passengers, table-fare, and the like, but that they heeded the complaints of the travellers who suffered from the noise and motion in their state-rooms in the after-part of the boat. In the old style of steamships the passenger who desired to sleep had to contend against the noise of the screw, the creaking of the steering apparatus, and the most extreme motion possible upon the vessel. The White Star line arranged its saloons and state-rooms so as to bring them as near as possible to the centre of gravity; placing them, therefore, amidships.
Smoking-room of a French Liner.
It is not essential now to state what mechanical improvements this change involved further than to say that previous to this date the cabin quarters in sailing-vessels and steamships, both naval and mercantile, were located in the after-part of the ship, and this for the reason that it enabled the passengers to fully occupy that part of the ship which was not invaded by the crew for working purposes. The year 1870, therefore, marks an epoch in steam navigation, and the vessels of all the principal lines, built since that date have been conformed to the model set by the Oceanic, and the best ships of to-day are so arranged that the passengers who pay the highest rates are located in all their necessary movements in the central part of the vessel.
From year to year the speed has been improved, until so many steamships are classed as racers that the rivalry has come to be centred in appointments and luxurious accommodation. The inauguration of the Oceanic Company marked the beginning of what may be called the second epoch in transatlantic travel, and with the first voyage of the City of New York a third epoch was begun. This last period, into which we have hardly entered, is distinguished by the twin-screw steamship. There are now nine great vessels of this class in the passenger service between European ports and New York: the City of New York and the City of Paris, of the Inman line; the Majestic and the Teutonic, of the White Star line; the Augusta Victoria, the Columbia, the Normannia, and the Fürst Bismarck, of the Hamburg-American line; and La Touraine of the French line. These new vessels are not remarkably superior to the best single-screw steamships in the matter of speed, and any advantage gained in this respect may be attributed to their having greater horse-power. As may be seen from the record of fast passages, the Etruria and the Umbria, of the Cunard line, are not only very close seconds to the best twin-screw ships, but are even ahead of several of the new type of vessel. The great merit of the twin-screw ship lies in the increased safety which its mechanism insures. It admits of avoiding obstacles that would surely wreck a single-screw vessel, of better handling in case of collision, and of surer progress in the event of the breaking of a shaft.
Such steamships as the City of New York and the City of Paris, of the Inman line (which is now controlled by American capital, and may in a sense be regarded as an American enterprise), are designed so as to carry about 500 first-cabin passengers each, and the Etruria and Umbria, of the Cunard line, about 600; but these vessels carry less steerage passengers than other ships, which adds greatly to the comfort of saloon passengers. It is not probable that the $700,000 expended for the construction of a vessel of the Collins line would much more than suffice to pay for the decorations and conveniences afforded to passengers on the Inman ships. In correspondence with modern ideas they are subdivided into twenty-four water-tight compartments, and this, with due allowance for the architect’s notions, has led to the supplying of bath-rooms about the ship, according to the number of passengers carried; several suites of rooms on the promenade and saloon decks are arranged with bath-rooms and toilet-rooms. The second-class passengers have also their own bath-rooms, smoking-room, and saloon dining-room. The steerage is so divided that the third-class passengers are not only away forward, but aft also; and they have the whole of one deck to themselves for promenading and getting glimpses of ocean view.
These are features that apply to so many of the best steamships now plying between New York and European ports, that it would be unjust to describe any one ship as against another; but as the City of New York in 1890 made the highest average speed of all the Atlantic “greyhounds,” and for that matter the highest average speed of any steamship in the world, it is but fair to mention her wonderful performance. During the year 1890 she made eight trips to the eastward, and the average of each trip from Sandy Hook lightship to Roche’s Point, Queenstown Harbor, was six days, four hours, and five minutes; the average of her eight trips to the westward from Roche’s Point to Sandy Hook lightship was six days, five hours, and forty-four minutes. On the four trips each way from August to November, inclusive, her average west-bound voyages were six days and forty-two minutes, and the east-bound voyages six days and fifty-three minutes. For the whole season on her trips to the eastward she averaged 19.12 knots per hour, and to the westward 18.91 knots per hour. She has made a slightly better average than her sister, the favorite City of Paris, and she beat her powerful rival, the Teutonic, seven times out of ten during the season of 1890.
The fastest westward trip on record is that of the Teutonic, her time of 5 days, 16 hours, and 30 minutes being made in August, 1891. Her best eastward trip was made in September, 1891, in 5 days, 21 hours, and 22 minutes, which is also the fastest trip on record to the eastward.
The following table gives the records of fourteen of the most important transatlantic steamships:
Best Records up to October 1, 1891.
| Name. | Fastest passage. | Direction. | Date. | Line. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D. | H. | M. | ||||||||
| Teutonic | 5 | 16 | 30 | Westward | August, 1891 | White Star. | ||||
| 5 | 21 | 22 | Eastward | September, 1891 | ||||||
| Majestic | 5 | 18 | 8 | Westward | August, 1891 | White Star. | ||||
| 5 | 23 | 13 | Eastward | September, 1890 | ||||||
| City of Paris | 5 | 19 | 18 | Westward | August, 1889 | Inman. | ||||
| 5 | 22 | 50 | Eastward | December, 1889 | ||||||
| City of New York | 5 | 21 | 19 | Westward | October, 1890 | Inman. | ||||
| 5 | 22 | 50 | Eastward | September, 1891 | ||||||
| Etruria | 6 | 1 | 50 | Westward | September, 1889 | Cunard. | ||||
| 6 | 4 | 40 | Eastward | April, 1888 | ||||||
| Umbria | 6 | 3 | 29 | Westward | August, 1890 | Cunard. | ||||
| 6 | 3 | 4 | Eastward | November, 1888 | ||||||
| 6 | 14 | 15 | Westward | May, 1891 | ||||||
| Fürst Bismarck | (Maiden trip) | Hamburg. | ||||||||
| 6 | 12 | 58 | Eastward | September, 1891 | ||||||
| Columbia | 6 | 16 | 2 | Westward | June, 1890 | Hamburg. | ||||
| 6 | 15 | 0 | Eastward | October, 1890 | ||||||
| Normannia | 6 | 17 | 2 | Westward | August, 1890 | Hamburg. | ||||
| 6 | 17 | 20 | Eastward | September, 1890 | ||||||
| Augusta Victoria | 6 | 22 | 40 | Westward | October, 1890 | Hamburg. | ||||
| 6 | 22 | 32 | Eastward | September, 1890 | ||||||
| Havel | 6 | 23 | 52 | Westward | May, 1891 | North | ||||
| 6 | 19 | 5 | Eastward | September, 1891 | German. | |||||
| Spree | 6 | 21 | 20 | Westward | August, 1891 | North | ||||
| 6 | 20 | 10 | Eastward | July, 1891 | German. | |||||
| Lahn | 6 | 22 | 42 | Westward | August, 1889 | North | ||||
| 6 | 23 | 18 | Eastward | October, 1889 | German. | |||||
| 6 | 23 | 58 | Westward | June, 1891 | ||||||
| La Touraine | (Maiden trip) | French. | ||||||||
| 7 | 4 | 16 | Eastward | July, 1891 | ||||||
Note.—For table of records in 1890, see page [45]; for a comparison of records from the Sirius to the Teutonic, see page [78].
The trips of the first six vessels in the above table are measured between Sandy Hook lightship and Roche’s Point, the entrance to Queenstown Harbor; the North German Lloyd and the Hamburg-American lines measure the trips between Sandy Hook lightship and the Needles, near Southampton; and the French line, between Sandy Hook lightship and Havre.
The fast ships of several lines now make a seven-days’ journey from port to port; these lines are the Cunard, Inman, White Star, North German Lloyd, Hamburg-American, French, Guion, and Anchor. Their vessels are well fitted, the passengers find every convenience at hand, and, barring extremely bad weather, the traveller may imagine that he is confined but a few days to a first rate hotel on land. Nevertheless, it may be worth while to mention one or two comparatively minor features that have been introduced lately to make the journey to Europe comfortable. The Midland Railway Company of England and the London & Northwestern Railway Company have both adopted the American system of checking baggage, and it is now possible to have your trunks checked at your house for delivery in London, although the steamship may terminate its journey at Liverpool. This service naturally calls for a small extra fee, but it is hardly more than would be charged by an expressman who would take your trunks to the dock where the steamship lies awaiting your departure. It is quite the custom now, also, for steamship companies to issue letters of credit to passengers, who, for one reason or another, may not care to deposit their moneys with the banking houses. On one line, at least, passengers can rent steamer-chairs previous to sailing at fifty cents each for the trip, and when they arrive on board they simply apply to the deck-steward for their chairs. At the offices of all the principal lines steamer-chairs may be engaged at the time tickets are procured, but the price charged for the trip is one dollar; the enterprise being managed by an independent concern who have obtained the privilege from the different lines.
Every traveller may have at least one interesting souvenir of the voyage across the Atlantic. The names of the passengers, and in some cases their home addresses, are neatly printed upon folios along with a blank chart for recording the progress of the voyage, and more or less information about the company, the vessel, and the fleet of which it is a member. A sufficient number of these passenger lists are printed to assure one at least for every cabin passenger, and the lists are usually distributed in the saloon soon after the vessel leaves her dock. They are not only prized as souvenirs, but they are invaluable in assisting one to make acquaintances—or avoid them, for that matter. It is the custom of the Inman and Guion lines to distribute passenger lists at the gang-plank just previous to the sailing of the vessel, so that friends of passengers may carry away a token of the great journey, and speculate as to how companionable this or another person will prove to the party in which they are especially interested. On nearly all the larger vessels there is a miniature newspaper printed by the ship’s printer, which gives the usual amount of “local” gossip and happenings peculiar to the surroundings; articles are contributed by the passengers, and sometimes there is a good deal of talent on board. Reports of concerts and domestic entertainments, etc., are given.
The Gang-plank—just before sailing.
Rivalry between the various lines has led to the establishment of agencies in various parts of this country and Europe.
Abroad the agents seek mainly, if not exclusively, to induce emigration. In this country the agents deal almost exclusively with those to whom travel has become a well-earned luxury. The central point of agencies is in Chicago. The agents there control the territory west of Chicago, and are in constant communication with the head-offices in New York, and they have their sub-agents scattered about everywhere, but especially in the Northwest. The New York offices are promptly informed by the Chicago agents concerning the number of people booked for certain steamships, and the chief stewards make provision accordingly.
Before showing how the steward has to provide for his passengers, it will be interesting to note, as well as may be, the increase in transatlantic voyaging. Exact records of cabin passengers have not been kept until within a few years; but it will be remembered that in the time of the clipper ships ten first-cabin passengers was the average on a ship. As it is now, the different steamship lines entering the port of New York employ several men to look after the landing of passengers. Their duties are mainly directed to steerage people; but recently they have also kept records of those who come over in either first or second class. From these records, kept in the Barge Office in New York City, it appears that ocean travel varies according to the business situation in this country. Following is an exhibit of the number of cabin passengers that arrived at this port during the years between 1881 and 1890, inclusive: 1881, 51,229; 1882, 57,947; 1883, 58,596; 1884, 59,503; 1885, 55,160; 1886, 68,742; 1887, 78,792; 1888, 86,302; 1889, 96,686; 1890, 99,189.
From one point of view, at least, these figures are very striking. In 1889 there was a great show in Paris that attracted world-wide attention and interest. In the spring of that year every steamship agent announced to prospective passengers that all vessels would be crowded, and that the volume of passenger traffic between the continents would swamp the capacity of every line. But the figures speak for themselves. Viewing the increase of oceanic travel, it appears that the financial depression of 1884 kept many people at home who otherwise might have crossed the ocean. After that distressing season had passed travel resumed its normal condition, and an increase may be noted with each year. When finances in this country had been somewhat adjusted we find that 86,302 cabin passengers landed at New York in 1888. Then came the Paris Exposition, and the record for 1889 is 96,686. That was the greatest year for ocean travel known theretofore. Yet 1890 came along, and the record of 1889 had been broken. The total number of arrivals of cabin passengers for that year being 99,189.
The Saloon of a Hamburg Steamer.
These figures mean that Americans are getting rich enough to travel: nothing more. An agent of an excursion company said to me during 1889:
“It doesn’t need an Exposition in Paris to induce travel. Europe is the loadstone! All we have to do is to show people that they can get to Europe at a moderate cost, and that fetches ’em.”
The same men who keep these records at the Barge Office say that at least eighty per cent. of the arrivals from Europe represent people who live in this country; that is, that not more than 20,000 people during 1890 arrived in New York who did not live here, or who were not returning to their homes. Furthermore, it should be noted here that New York has become to so great a degree the port to which transatlantic business tends, that not more than fifteen per cent. of either immigrants or cabin passengers land at any other port. A few go to Boston, or Philadelphia, or Baltimore; and a few come in via Quebec and the northern border; but the figures at New York really represent the volume of passenger traffic.
The Pilot Boarding.
It is not possible to give an exact comparison between the traffic now and when passenger steamships first began to run between this country and Europe; but it will be remembered that the Cunards, beginning in 1840, had only four regular vessels. Now there are twelve steamship lines who have regular sailing days each week, and some have sailings twice and three times a week; they all terminate or begin in New York, and on these lines there are eighty-five steamships which carry saloon and steerage passengers. These lines make landings at Queenstown, Liverpool, Southampton, Havre, Bremen, Hamburg, Moville (Londonderry), Glasgow, Antwerp, Boulogne, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. No line employs less than four boats, and the Hamburg-American line keeps nineteen in commission. The North German Lloyd Company has the largest fleet of express steamships; there are twelve in commission between New York, Southampton, and Bremen. This great fleet of eighty-five vessels is composed of the following lines, given in the order in which they were established: Cunard line, 1840; Inman line, 1850; Allan line, 1853; Hamburg-American line, 1856; Anchor line, 1856; North German Lloyd line, 1857; French line (Compagnie Générale Transatlantique), 1862; Guion line, 1864; White Star line, 1870; Netherlands line, 1872; Red Star line, 1873; Thingvalla line, 1879. Besides these lines there is also the Anchor line, Fabre line, and the Florio line to Mediterranean ports; Wilson line to London, and also to Hull; National line to London, and also to Liverpool; Hill line to London; Union line to Hamburg; and Baltic line to Stettin. All these lines carry passengers.
This record, of course, takes no account of the lines to the South American continent or to Pacific ports. Freight lines, of which there are several, are out of the question for the moment.
A great many passengers are more anxious about the table-fare upon an ocean steamship than about the state-rooms, saloons, smoking-rooms, and other matters of transient comfort. There is really no need for worry about the table. There is always enough, and on the best boats there is always a great variety.
On one of the recent departures of a great liner from this port her larder was stocked as follows:
20,000 pounds of fresh beef (a portion of this, although all was available, was intended for the return trip, beef being cheaper here than in Liverpool); fresh pork, 500 pounds; mutton, 3,500 pounds; lamb, 450 pounds; veal, 500 pounds; sausage, 200 pounds; liver, 230 pounds; corned beef, 2,900 pounds; salt pork, 2,200 pounds; bacon, 479 pounds; hams, 500 pounds; tongues, 8 dozen; sweetbreads, 200; fish, assorted, 2,100 pounds; oysters, 5,000; clams, 5,000; soft-shell crabs, 500; green turtle, 200 pounds; turkeys, 50; geese, 50; fowls, 248; chickens, 150; squabs, 300; snipe, 500; quail, 500; ducklings, 216; wild game, 108 pair. Butter, 1,500 pounds; eggs, 1,200; condensed milk, 400 quarts; fresh milk, 1,000 quarts; ice cream, 400 quarts. Apples, 12 barrels; pears, 10 boxes; musk-melons, 100; water melons, 60; oranges, 16 boxes; peaches, 10 crates; bananas, 10 bunches; huckleberries, 100 quarts; gooseberries, 100 quarts; cherries, 250 quarts; currants, 100 pounds; grapes, 75 pounds; lemons, 14 cases; pineapples, 100; plums, 150 quarts; strawberries, 250 quarts; raspberries, 250 quarts. Flour, 125 barrels; potatoes, 140 barrels; lettuce, 72 dozen; asparagus, 30 dozen; green peas, beans, tomatoes, 15 crates each; Brussels sprouts, 10 baskets. Crackers, cakes in large variety, and a quantity of pickles, sauces, spices, extracts, pâtés de foie gras, truffles, caviare, canned and dried and fresh vegetables, and general groceries in the most generous quantity. About 500 other items appeared on her list of stores, besides wines, spirits, beer, mineral waters, cigars, etc.
One of the bills of fare presented to first-cabin passengers from such a commissariat is here given.
Soups.
Turtle and Spring.
Fish.
Scotch Salmon and Sauce Hollandaise.
Entrées.
Blanquettes de Poulet aux Champignons.
Filets de Bœuf à la Bordelaise.
Cailles sur Canapés.
Joints.
Saddle of Mutton and Jelly.
Beef and Yorkshire Pudding.
York Ham and Champagne Sauce.
Poultry.
Roast Turkey and Truffles.
Spring Ducklings.
Vegetables.
Pommes de Terre Duchesse.
Asparagus. Potatoes. Parsnips.
Sweets.
International Pudding.
Rhubarb with Custard.
Strawberry Jam. Tartlets. Sandwich.
Pastry.
Genoese Pastry. Marlborough Pudding.
Gooseberry Soufflés.
Lemon Cream.
Dessert.
Seville Oranges. Black Hamburg Grapes.
English Walnuts. Madeira Nuts. Cantaloupes.
Café Noir.
Following is a literal copy of a bill of fare for a second-cabin dinner on a favorite steamship:
Soup.—Julienne.
Fish.—Boiled Rock Fish, butter sauce.
Meats.—Haricot of mutton; roast beef, baked potatoes; boiled mutton, caper sauce; mashed turnips; potatoes.
Rice pudding; apple tart; small pastry. Biscuits and cheese.
So the accommodations on board ship have kept pace with the growing traffic and the increasing demand for luxurious appointments. Vessels now are lighted by electricity in every quarter, including even the steerage; there is ample room for exercises and games on deck; there are well-stocked libraries and music-rooms, no well-ordered ship being without a piano or organ, and some have both; smoking-rooms are usually on the upper deck; electric annunciators are handy; bath-rooms are numerous; the thrashing of the screw is heard faintly at the worst; there is plenty and a variety of food; and in short, the majority of cabin passengers fare for a week better, and are surrounded by more appointments of wealth and luxury, than they are accustomed to in their own homes.
The End of the Voyage.
Some specialty interesting features have been introduced into the North German Lloyd service, and also on the express steamers of the Hamburg-American line to make a voyage attractive. Among these is the band that accompanies every vessel. The performers are the stewards of the second cabin, who must not only be good waiters but also musicians as well. They play through the long first-cabin dinner, which lasts from one to two hours, and again on deck in the evening. There are no Sunday services on these boats, but in the morning the band plays hymn tunes, and in the evening there is a “sacred” concert. All German and American holidays are observed on board, special attention being paid to the Fourth of July and Washington’s Birthday, and particularly so on an eastward trip if the holiday occurs when the vessel is only a day or so out from New York; when Christmas comes to the travellers at sea, they find themselves in the midst of a German festival, in which there is no lack of a brightly adorned and illuminated tree. The steerage passengers are not forgotten on these occasions; amusements and a special feast are provided for them.
The French line has some remarkable features of its own. Baggage may be checked by it to any point in France. The company provides a special train that waits on the steamship dock in Havre, and on the arrival of the vessel from New York takes the passengers and baggage to Paris at once, and puts them in close connection with trains for other parts of the continent. This system of transfer and checking baggage applies not only to cabin passengers, but to those in the steerage as well, and the French line is the only line that makes such arrangements. It is also the only line (except the Netherlands which touches at Boulogne for Paris) that supplies immigrants with all necessary utensils, including bedding; and, more than that, it provides a wholesome wine at all meals in the steerage, and cognac once a day.
For the last eight years the French Government have permitted some of their naval officers to command the steamships of the French line, and in case of war they would retain command of these ships, which are specially constructed armed cruisers. All the crew must have served a certain time on a French man-of-war.
French festivals and American holidays are celebrated on board by concerts, balls, dinner-parties, and extra luxuries at the regular meals. Entertainment is provided for the steerage passengers, and a special menu is furnished for the festal days. On such occasions, too, the ships are gayly decorated with bunting from stem to stern. Another unique and pleasant feature of the voyage on the French line is the “Captain’s Dinner.” This takes place just previous to the termination of the trip.
On the British lines Sunday is suitably observed; the captain, in full uniform, supported by his officers, reads the Church of England services, to which all on board are invited. American and British holidays are also observed in a fitting manner, the vessels being always “dressed” for the occasion. These lines also have a parting dinner, usually one or two evenings before arrival in port.
Revenue Officer Boarding, New York Bay.
All incoming steamers are signalled off Fire Island or Sandy Hook, their arrival is telegraphed to the Quarantine station and the ship-news office, and in about three hours the vessel reaches Quarantine from Fire Island, or about one hour from Sandy Hook. At Quarantine the health officer boards her, and if it is found that she has no case of contagious disease on board she is permitted to proceed to her dock, which she reaches in about one hour and a half, including the time of examination by the health officer; but if she has any serious case on board she is detained at Quarantine until she receives orders from the health officer to land her passengers. As soon as the vessel is reported inside Sandy Hook the revenue cutter starts down the bay to meet her, with the customs officers on board. The boarding officer places several staff officers on board, who go immediately to the saloon, where declarations are made and signed by the saloon passengers as to the contents of their trunks, etc., and all baggage is searched on arrival of the vessel at her dock, when those who attempt “monkeying” with the customs officials will find out that the little trick does not pay.
Meantime, how do the steerage folk get on?
Mention has been made of the British Government bill of fare. This was instituted when clipper ships were in vogue. It was ordered that a minimum weekly allowance of raw food should be provided for every adult third-class passenger as follows:
31⁄2 pounds bread, or biscuit, not inferior in quality to navy biscuit; 1 pound flour; 11⁄2 pound oatmeal; 11⁄2 pound rice; 11⁄2 pound peas; 11⁄4 pound beef; 1 pound pork; 2 pounds potatoes; 2 ounces tea; 1 pound sugar; 1⁄2 ounce mustard; 1⁄4 ounce ground black pepper; 2 ounces salt; 1 gill vinegar.
A government inspector saw to it that these items or their equivalents were provided upon the departure of every ship carrying third-class passengers, and that no ship went to sea without being provisioned for thirty days. The allowance, however, proved not to be altogether generous, and many passengers brought stores of their own along. In any event, each passenger had to prepare his own meals at the cook’s galley, for the number of cooks furnished was always insufficient. The kitchen is never commodious at the best, aboard ship, and it needs no imagination to picture the struggle of immigrants, one against another, for a turn at the fire. The government requisition is still in force, but it is substantially a dead letter, for not only the British but all European steamship companies now provide ample fare properly cooked and served, for all steerage passengers.
A young man who crossed in the steerage last year described his fare to the writer, thus: “At breakfast,” he said, “we usually had oatmeal porridge and molasses, with coffee in plenty, and rolls and butter. This was varied by hash instead of porridge on some days, or perhaps an Irish stew; but fresh baked rolls and butter were always in abundance. There was always soup at dinner, and some boiled beef, pork, or fish with potatoes and bread. Supper did not amount to much, but there was plenty of plain, good stuff to eat. Roast beef and plum duff were served at Sunday’s dinner.”
This food was served to the steerage passengers by stewards, but there was no placing of dishes opposite the passenger’s plate. The general meal was set down in the middle of the table, and “help yourself” was the order of the day. The steerage passengers do not cook their own food now, but they have to provide their own cups, plates, and other utensils, as well as their own bedding.
All captains of passenger steamships are scrupulously attentive to the needs of their steerage passengers. Not a day passes that they do not make a personal inspection of this department, and they are always approachable in the event of complaints arising on the part of the poorest travellers. It is related of one old-time commander—Captain John Mirehouse—that in order to assure himself of the proper quality and preparation of the steerage food, he invariably had his lunch served from the steerage galley at the dinner hour; and he used to declare that his lunches were as wholesome and palatable as he could desire.
It must not be supposed that steerage passengers are all immigrants. Odd as it may seem, there are many world wanderers who cross and recross in the steerage, who travel over great parts of the world, and who, in their class, are as independent as the more luxuriously accommodated cabin people. Besides these curious characters there are Scottish carpenters and other mechanics who come over here for a few months at a time to take advantage of higher wages, and who return as they came when Christmas draws nigh. It will doubtless cause astonishment to most readers to learn that when the Teutonic made her last voyage to Europe, in December, 1890, she carried 1,400 passengers, more than 1,000 of whom were in the steerage.
In the Steerage.
The immigrant business has come to be so important a feature in transatlantic passenger traffic, that it may not be uninteresting to conclude this article with a few figures that show somewhat of its growth and proportions, and also the method of handling the immigrants. At least eighty-five per cent. of all immigration to the United States comes through the port of New York. The Board of Immigration was not established until 1847, and previous to that time records were rather loosely kept. The official figures, however, have been obtained,[17] showing that between 1783 and 1847, 1,063,567 immigrants came to this country; between 1847 and 1873 there were 4,933,562; a marked falling off in the annual average occurring during the War of the Rebellion; between 1873 and 1890, inclusive, 4,910,864. Immigration was heaviest in the years 1881, 1882, and 1883, the figures being 441,064; 455,450; and 388,267, respectively. The greatest arrival of immigrants in any one day was on May 11, 1887, when nearly 10,000 were landed at this port. The greatest number ever brought by a single ship was 1,767, by the Egypt, National line, in 1873. This good ship was destroyed by fire, July, 1890, in midocean, on her way to the eastward, but fortunately not a life was lost.
On the arrival of each vessel at her dock she is boarded by the Immigration Department boarding officer, and the Customs inspector and his assistants; the latter examine the immigrants’ baggage, and sometimes add considerable to Uncle Samuel’s bank account in the way of duties or the confiscation of smuggled articles. Their baggage is then checked and placed on board the transfer boats and barges, which convey them to the Barge Office, where they are examined by a medical staff and then passed to the registration department in that building; here they give their name, age, occupation, nationality, and destination; if they appear as though they were liable to become a public charge, in compliance with an Act of Congress, they are returned, by the same vessel on which they arrived, to the place from which they came. But an opportunity is given to their friends, if any should call, to guarantee that they will not become a public charge, and they are then allowed to leave the department in the custody of their friends. Parties seeking friends call at the information bureau, and if they satisfy the clerk as to their identity they are allowed to take their friends away. On leaving the steamship checks are given to them for their baggage, and it is stored at the Barge Office free of charge, and kept till called for.
There is a railroad ticket office in the Barge Office, where all the trunk lines are represented by one general agent, a sort of pool, and here the immigrant can secure tickets to any point and have baggage checked to destination; and at no other place can tickets be procured at such low rates, nor can anyone but an immigrant get such a low rate. Each immigrant is allowed 150 pounds of baggage free, and the railroad companies transfer them and their baggage from the Barge Office to their respective depots free of charge.
A temporary hospital is located in the Barge Office, where immigrants not seriously ill are kept, and those who may have any serious illness are sent to hospitals under contract with the department for such patients.
Each steamship company was formerly required to pay to the United States Treasury a head tax of $2.50 for each alien steerage passenger; this fee was reduced to $1.00, and some years ago it was still further reduced to fifty cents, the present rate. This tax goes to what is known as the Immigrant Fund.
In conclusion I might truly say that the modern ocean steamship of the great lines I have mentioned is the embodiment of the latest achievements of science and art of this enlightened age. So recent are many of the inventions that such a ship as the City of Paris or the Majestic could not have been built ten years ago at any price. The practical effect of all this to the traveller is to bring him very much nearer to the Old World than his father was, and to make the time spent in crossing the once dreaded ocean a delightful series of summer holidays.
THE SHIP’s COMPANY.
By LIEUTENANT J. D. JERROLD KELLEY, U. S. NAVY.
Has Steam Ruined the Genuine Sailors of Story and Song?—Hauling a Liner out of the Liverpool Docks—The Traits of Master-mariners—Education of Junior Officers—A Fire Drill—Stowing the Cargo—Down the Channel in a Fog—The Routine Life at Sea—The Trials of Keeping Watch—A Bo’s’n’s Right to Bluster—Steering by Steam—Scrubbing the Decks in the Middle Watches—Formalities of Inspection—The Magic Domain of the Engine-room—Picturesqueness of the Stoke-hole—Messes of the Crew—The Noon Observation—Life among the Cabin Passengers—Boat Drill—Pleasures toward the End of the Voyage—The Concert—Scenes in the Smoking-room—Wagers on the Pilot-boat Number—Fire Island Light, and the End of the Voyage.
WHEN the breeze is piping free and the tide is running strong none but a master-seaman may be trusted to haul out of the Liverpool docks a great Atlantic liner. Should it be a leeward ebb, with the Mersey spinning under a flurry of squalls and snarling in angry eddies, a quick eye must mate a clear wit to make the trick a deft one. The manœuvre is always a delight to the mariner, let bo’s’ns, hopelessly spliced to such traditions as topsails reefed in stays bawl what they may about the dead days of seamanship. For here are unfolded the mysteries of the art, and here are exercised all the higher qualities of the sailor, and just as much, believe me, as in the old times when the gray piers and oozy quays were crowded to cheer our famous clippers warping in and out to the music of barbaric “chanties.”
Beach-combers, shore-huggers—mere Abraham’s men—will tell you the poetry is gone out of it all, and will, with much damning of their eyes, and shifting of their quids, and hitching of their tarry trousers, try to persuade you that steam has ruined the genuine sailors of story and of song. But this is mere transpontine nonsense, for above and beyond everything he who commands a ship, smoker or sailer, as it may chance, must first of all be a seaman. The demands of modern sea life have increased the responsibilities of the mariner, and in like measure the professional attainments required are deeper, broader, and higher than ever before.
What the task of hauling out is, you may best judge by noting the bulk to be moved, for you can never measure properly the enormous dimensions of these great steamers until you see them looming in their true proportions above the walls, and undwarfed, as they are in the open, by the frame of sea and sky. The bulwarks tower like the walls of a fortress; the enormous decks sweep with a sheer knowing no broken curve; the wheel-house lifts its windows above the life-boats, swarming sternward like a school of pilot-fish; still higher the bridges, often double-tiered, span and grip the sturdy stanchions; and dominating all, the elliptical funnels rake jauntily, and the yardless spars taper till they fine away at their shining trucks into graceful coach-whips.
Shipshape and Bristol fashion, point-device in paint and polish, the massive hull glides over the quiet waters of the basin; you catch the sheen of gleaming brasses, of glistening air-ports, of glazed white, and lacquered black. Obedient as a broken colt to the touch of the helm, quick in response as a high-bred dog in a leash to the guiding hawsers, she moves calmly—fit exemplar of strength rightly tempered by even will—toward the sharp turn where the gateway opens to the river. Winches chatter noisily; windlasses clink, clink musically; capstans rattle with slacking cables; jets of steam dart viciously; ripples stream sternward to the bubbles of the foamless wake; the tremulous minor, more a wail than a song, of the docking gangs working the warps, answer the cheery “Yo heave-ohs” of the people on shipboard; and the quick, sharp orders from the bridge are echoed by high-pitched answers from the mates, watching with wary eyes everywhere. One screw turns clumsily ahead, the other circles astern, and then the ship swings easily, rounding the jagged corner in the hedge of stone with a gentleness leaving feet to spare. The bow and stern enter fairly, straight as a mason’s level, the open gateway; a strain is taken on the line leading from the quarter to the pier end; a moment of rest, of expectation, succeeded by one of doubt, follows, and then the hail rings out blithely from the after-whaleback, “All clear, sir.”
The handle of the annunciator connected with the engine-room is jammed to “hard astern;” “ding! ding!” rings the signal from below; the water gushes in a turbulent torrent from the outboard deliveries, the engines throb fiercely, backing with all their strength, and as the lines are rendered, slacked, eased, let go, the steamer clears the pier-end with a rush, shoots far into midstream, and thus begins, wrong end foremost, her voyage westward. In the optimism of the moment the chief officer and the bo’s’n grow garrulous upon the recondite subject of anchor gear; the junior officers feel they quite deserve the good luck which makes them the hustling, bustling mates of a crack racer; and maritime Jack, still a little groggy and very much unwashed, blesses the stars that have let begin another “v’yage with an ’arf crown left of his hadvance,” and the prospects of “some bloomin’ American tobaccy” as soon as he’s clear of the tideway.
“Not a bad job, sir,” said the pilot, as the anchor takes the bottom and the ship straightens astern from her cable; “seemed ticklish a bit for a minute when they ’eld onto the spring so long, sir; but ’ere we are, bung up and bilge free, and with the looks of a good run, barrin’ the fog per’aps, for the morrer.”
The captain answers smilingly, for these two are old friends, and, what is more, the hauling out has been a joint enterprise, though the senior gets the credit, as he should. After a careful survey of the anchorage and a word with the chief officer, the captain enters his cabin and buckles down to the routine work, and there is always plenty of that awaiting him. He glows pleasurably over the handy, seamanlike way they have left the dock, for nautical critics are plenty and keen, and if he had not taken up his berth in the river so cleverly, the ill news would have grown apace, till, with unfair variations, it reached the ears of their high nobilities—the directors.
Clear-headed, brainy, driving men, are these master-mariners, and bearing patiently a responsibility that needs an iron will and a courage faltering at nothing. There is no royal road to their station, nor can willing hands make them what they must be. They cannot crawl through cabin windows, nor, for that matter, come flying in a pier-head jump through the gangway with one leg forward and the other aft. They have to fight their way over the bows, and struggle out of the ruck and smother in the fo’ks’le, by sturdy buffeting and hard knocks, by the persistent edging of stout shoulders backed by strong hearts and steady brains. If it is in them they will make their way in the end surely, and may set the course and stump to windward as they please, while others haul the weather-ear-rings, and drink their grog protestingly. No; master-mariners are made, not born, and, unlike many of their brothers in the government service, have to rise by energy, pluck, merit—why enumerate them?—by a hundred qualities the world is better for owning.
Old Pepys knew how this sea-kissing goes, and tells us of his favors in this wise: “That,” he writes, “which puts me in a good humor both at noon and night, is the fancy that I am this day (March 13, 1669) made a captain of one of the King’s ships, Mr. Wren having sent me the Duke of York’s commission to be captain of the Jerzy, … which doth give me the occasion of much mirth and may be of some use to me.” Think of that, you venturesome die-hards, who linger all your lives at the lower sheerpole, a post-captain by the scratch of a pen, and above all men given to a lubberly scrivener and an Admiralty clerk at that.
All these elder merchant-masters are sailor-men, some so deep and dyed in it that if you scratch them they ooze tar, and this briny saturation has been invariably acquired under sail. After they have had their ships and made many a voyage, deep water and home, round both Capes, east and west, wherever winds may blow and freight, the mother of wages, may linger, they shift into steam, but always in a subordinate place. Should they stick by one employ they are sent from ship to ship, working their way upward until they become chief officers of the choicest vessels in the line. Here they must wait for dead men’s shoes, or resignation, or forced retirement; but when the chance comes they are given the command of the smaller and less important steamers upon some subsidiary route. Then they enter a new line of promotion, and weary are the years of waiting, and bitter sometimes the disappointment, before they reach the high-water mark of their service. And, with this hardly earned promotion, do not come, as in other professions, ease, comfort, and proper recompense for duty well done, but heavier responsibilities, harder work, and greater self-sacrifice; what is worse, and this to the shame of the great steamship corporations, these gallant men, even at their prime, receive the most inadequate pecuniary recognition for the burden imposed, for the mental and physical qualities exercised, for the experience brought to bear; indeed, in no other trade or profession is equal ability so badly paid.
The junior officers belong to all sorts and conditions of men. Most of them have had to fight their way, though some have parents who could well afford to pay a handsome premium for their sea education in the training-ships stationed off the principal ports. Here they are given a strict man-of-war tuition, though the routine of studies and drills is, of course, modified to suit the results expected. After their apprenticeship is served they go to sea, usually in sailing ships; and when later they choose steam, they join as fourth or fifth officers, and enter upon a career where their future is a hard but an assured one. In the large employs they are encouraged to enter the Naval Reserve, and are given time for their drills and opportunities to qualify for the higher certificates of the merchant service; and so much are these privileges esteemed that you often find on the best steamers of the transatlantic liners one-half of the officers holding masters’ certificates and junior commissions in the auxiliary government service. Under the new regulations some of these officers have, besides the guard-ship drill, taken a regular tour of duty as lieutenants and sub-lieutenants on board sea-going men-of-war, and so far this has proved a capital plan for both services. The nationality of the officers is British, naturally, though English and Irish predominate, the Scotch, somehow, taking more kindly to the engineering part of the business, and the Welshmen staying at home.
There is a well-founded belief that the deck people are not sailor-men; nor, indeed, are they in the majority of ships, that is, not sailors in the true meaning of the word; but, on the other hand, neither are they the mere swabbers of decks, scrubbers of paint-work, handlers of the forward and after ends of trunks, or reefers of hat-boxes and travelling-rugs their critics would have us believe. They belong to a special class, not a very high one from the maritime point of view, and are reasonably well fitted for the work expected. This you may see at fire quarters, for example, a drill which, in these times, is always held before the passengers come on board. As the alarm is sounded by the rapid ringing of the ship’s bell, and the commands are hoarsely shouted along the decks, you may notice, as the men rush to their stations, the absence of the alertness, neatness, forehandedness which characterize the man-of-war’s men; but they are sturdy and strong and willing, and the echoes of the orders, “Fire forward! Main deck. Quick’s your play,” have scarcely ceased, before a dozen hose are coupled and run out, bucket and fire-extinguisher lines are formed, axemen and smotherers are gathered, and hand and steam pumps started with an energy promising a world of water. Grimy greasers and stokers rush from below; stewards hop about as none but a steward can; and butchers, bakers, and electric-light-makers rally in their appointed places, eager for work, but in the motley of Falstaff’s draft. The captain, watch in hand, receives the reports that all the departments have assembled and that abundant streams have been in operation (overboard, of course, but in the neighborhood of the fire) in blank minutes—let us say three, as a fair average—from the time the alarm was first given. Do you wonder if he smiles and says to his chief officer, “Very creditable, sir; very well done. You may secure, sir?” Very well done it is, and when you remember this is the first drill and many of the hands are new, you may feel reasonably assured, should any ordinary fire break out, that it is all Lombard Street to a Tahiti orange it will be subdued most promptly.
The pumps stop, the hose are uncoupled, under-run, and reeled, and, everything being secured, the ship returns to its normal condition. But not to rest, for there is no rest fore and aft when a voyage is begun. Cargo and stores have to be hoisted out of the lighters, holds have to be stowed, gear secured. All day long the cargo winches rattle, and the tackles rise and fall complainingly. Alongside a double bank of lighters cling, and through cargo-ports and over the rails the freight pours ceaselessly. The twilight deepens with stars; ashore the roar and traffic of the busy town are hushed; the river banks are deserted. But under the dazzling arc-lights on shipboard, and far into the night, toiling men and swaying bales and boxes cast fantastic shadows on the breezy water, and about the decks, and in the cavernous holds gaping unsatisfied for the fruits of trade and barter.
The next day the passengers come on board, and the company’s servants in the tenders and lighters gleefully escape, after banging about and muddling the baggage so mercilessly that state-room trunks yawn bruisedly in the holds, and huge chests, bursting with useless trophies of travel, lumber up your narrow quarters below—this, to the despair and tears of forlorn women who pursue the hapless purser with unrelenting fury when they learn that nothing can be unearthed until after the ship has left Queenstown, and that until then they must hopelessly shift for themselves. Steam is spluttering and flickering in little curls at the escape-pipes, the officers—every button of their best coats on duty—are at their stations, the pilot is looking wiser than ever pilot could be, and on the bridge with the impatient captain lingers a representative of the company. By and by, after the final instructions are given, this person departs, and as he goes over the side the captain waves his hand in salute and then gives a quiet order to the chief officer.
The wheel is shifted, the capstan reels noisily, and link by link the chain comes home. At last, after a vicious tug or two on the cable, the ground is broken, and, smothered and sputtering with cleansing water from the hose, the anchor, ring and stock, appears above the foam-streams rippling at the bow. When the cat-fall is hooked the ship’s head swings around with graceful sheer, the engines slightly increase their speed, the wake straightens its curves, the ensign dips in answer to salutes, and a long blast from the whistle sonorously claims the right of channel. Slowly, carefully, the gallant ship threads her way among the fleet of inward and outward bound shipping; the shores darken with moist shadows and gleam in broad bands of fading sundrift; the lights of Birkenhead and Liverpool glisten, blaze, twinkle, fade; the breeze blows with spice of salt and briny coolness; the stars blink from silvery steel into points of golden fire; and in the west, where the splendor and warmth deepen seaward, the rolling mists, as yet resplendent in borrowed radiance, close, broodingly, as a pall. Sails burn in the heart of the sunset, and long trails of smoke show where other ships have sunk below the verge. Finally the bar is crossed, the lanterns on board the Northwest Light-ship flame in the star-gemmed dusk, and with a swinging grip of the wheel the ship is headed, at half speed, just as night is falling, to clear the lights of Holyhead.
Down the Channel in a Fog—A Narrow Escape.
Upon the bridge the pilot and the officer of the watch peer “ahead and astern, look to windward and to lee;” the ship slips and slides, now to port and now to starboard, dodging the fleet inter-shooting this marvellous waterway with a wealth of craft no other waters know; and the lookouts glue their eyes to their quadrants of observation, reporting lights and sails till the confusion would be inextricable, save to these steady nerves finding the pathway safely. Down the coast the vessel runs in the darkness, fearing naught while the stars shine and the horizon circles clean cut above the foam-capped waters. But as the night grows the air loses its briskness, a light haze shrouds the sea, and the Channel fog rolls, ghostlike, landward. Soon only the upper stars glimmer, the moisture drips from the rigging, the iron rails and deck-houses are damp and clammy, and the lights are aureoled with a dull cloud of gray and yellowish mist.
The Skipper.
The captain takes his place upon the bridge, the engines are eased until, to the worried landsman’s ears, their labored throbbing seems a devil’s tattoo answering the grumbling and rumbling of the fog-whistle. Below, brawny, silent men stand at the levers, ready at an instant to stop and back, or go ahead, just as the emergency may direct. Outside the pilot-house the quarter-master strains his ears and peers nervously into the gloom, yet alert to pass any command given to the junior officer and to his messmate at the wheel. Signals from fog-whistles drift into them from other groping ships, and, at times, spectral hulls and ghostly sails loom close aboard, creeping out of the curtained night or slipping landward or seaward in search of hidden port or roadway. At regular intervals the lead is cast and the depth of water read from the scale by the unhooded glare of a lantern, and on the chart the positions given by the soundings are pricked, to guard against the tricks of treacherous currents.
And so the cheerless night drifts sadly into a wan morning, and the ship creeps warily down Channel, the weary vigil taxing the brains and bodies of those who must seek no rest because of the lives entrusted to their care.
After the pilot has been discharged and the mails received at Queenstown, and the ship has taken her departure from the Roche Point Light-ship everybody settles into the routine of life at sea. From the beginning watches have been kept rigorously, and the interior discipline and rules are so well-jointed that the ship seems to run herself. You hear no jarring of the cogs, feel on rough edges in the mosaic, though the government is, as it must always be, the hand of steel in the glove of velvet. The care of the ship is unremitting, even in details which if set down here would seem trivial and finicky, and every hour of the day has duties which are performed heartily and thoroughly to the foot of the letter by the officers. The number of these may vary on each line, even in different ships of the same employ, but in the largest steamers there are, besides the captain, three seniors and two juniors. The three seniors keep the watches, and each during his tour of duty has, as the captain’s representative, the direct charge of the ship. The two juniors stand watch and watch, that is, four hours on duty and four hours off, with a swing at the dog-watches, and carry on, under the direction of the senior officers, the routine of the ship. Normally the officer of the watch takes his station on the forward bridge, and the junior officer sticks by the wheel-house, where, after collecting the data he writes the log-slate hourly, and sees that the quartermaster steers the given course to a nicety. The first night at sea the starboard watch (the captain’s in marine law) has the eight hours out, that is, from 8 P.M. to midnight and from 4 to 8 A.M.; and on the home voyage the mate’s watch (the port) enjoys the same sweet privilege, thus sanctifying the ancient saw, which insists, under penalties dire, that the captain must take her out and the mate must take her home again.
The officers vary in their methods of keeping watch, new ships having new rules, as Simple Simon is supposed to have said when he was hustled aft to stow the jib. But to my mind, those favored in the larger steamers of the White Star Company are the best. Here the chief officer stands the watches from six to eight and from twelve to two o’clock, night and day respectively; the second officer keeps the watches from eight to ten and two to four o’clock; and the third officer those from ten to twelve and from four to six o’clock. This watch-keeping seems easy enough, even interesting and exciting, at least so I have heard not only from the casual gentleman who worries about critically in fine weather, but from that uneasy-minded shuttler who skips across the Western Ocean half a dozen times a year for no reason any sane man has yet discovered. But, dearly beloved idlers, do not deceive yourselves, getting out of bed and walking on a roof is anything but gay, even in fine weather. In stormy seasons it is such wretched work that then be mine rather to woo my bucolics, my farms and gardens, my forest glades.
The Deck Lookout—“Danger Ahead.”
On the Bridge in a Gale.
Leaving out of question the responsibility, try and measure the physical misery when gales are howling, and spray is flying, and icy seas are shooting over the weather bulwarks, and the ship is slamming along, wallowing in the hollows or wriggling on zenith-seeking billows. It may be at night, when you cannot see a ship’s length ahead, and around you, threatening disaster and death, are a dozen vessels; it may be when the ice is moving and the towering bergs lie in your pathway. Then those dreadful middle watches, when, after a hard tour of duty, you are roused out of a comfortable bed, and jumped, half awakened, into the chill and misery of the gale-blown night with every nerve and muscle strained to the breaking-point. No, it is, believe me, the hardest kind of hard work, and it so saps the body, and warps the temper, and makes the best old before their day, that no self-respecting mother will let her daughter marry a man who knows an oar from a fence-rail, if he has learned their differences—watch-keeping.
The fourth and fifth officers, being young and hardy, and presumably with much to learn and suffer—for suffering somehow is considered an essential in sea-training—are not supposed to need adequate rest or sleep, and if that is not wearing on shipboard, go find me a ballad-monger to weave a rhyme for their comfort. The crew stand watch and watch; but as they can always steal a comforting nap, and have no responsibility, they know little of the mental wear and tear. The bo’s’n and his mate look out for the pulling and hauling, and for the dreary singing which the “chanty” man weds to them. Their tempers are always on edge, and it is their part to buffet and bluster. These are the gentlemen you usually hear, in season and out, bellowing about decks a highly garnished sea argot which no one attempts to translate or deems of serious meaning. Occasionally, too, you may detect them to leeward of the houses, skylarking gloomily, in moments of forced gayety, with skulkers and sea-lawyers, “fetching them,” as they describe the pastime, “a belt under the jaw,” or airily promising to “knock” their “blooming ’eds off.” These, of course, are the vagaries of delegated authority, and should not lessen your regard for them, as they are generally good sailor-men after the heavy insular fashion. You must remember, also, they enjoy a prescriptive privilege of being most noisy, of wearing tremendous boots and very shabby clothes, and of trilling, like sea-larks, upon little silvery whistles, which are known indiscriminately as “pipes” or “calls.”
The Boatswain’s Whistle.
In each watch there are three quartermasters, generally fine specimens of the British tar, a joy to the eye and a comfort to the soul, notably in bad weather, when they cheer you with a smile that soothes as the words they may not utter; for by a maritime fiction they are always supposed to be at the wheel, and you must not, under fear of keelhauling, talk to them. How patronizing and sympathetic they look, what a lot they seem to know, what beautiful guernseys they wear, and with what ease they guide the mighty vessel! Before the introduction of steam steering-gear two men were always required at the wheel, and in bad weather there were four, and sometimes six, with frequent reliefs; and yet, with all this beef, many a poor fellow has been maimed for life by being tossed over the wheel-barrel or jammed by the spokes when the ship swung off with sudden lurch or broached to before the fury of the gale. To-day it requires hardly the strength of a boy to “restrain the rudder’s ardent thrill,” even in the heaviest blows, for the wheel in evidence is merely the purchasing end of a mechanical system that opens and shuts the valve governing the steam admitted to the steering cylinders. But be it lever or not, the sailor grasps it still with the old familiar pose, swaying it, “for the good ship’s woe and the good ship’s weal,” with curved arm and gripping fingers as he pores over his compass and keeps its lubber’s point, in fair weather or in foul, plumb on a course marked to a degree of the circle. He stands a two-hours’ trick and then changes places with his relief, whose station has been outside the wheel-house door. The third quartermaster keeps his watch under the after-whaleback, ready to throw into action the hand steering-wheel when the signal is given, and as this happens seldom, his watch is apt to be a dreary one. The pump-wells are sounded regularly by a carpenter, so that possible leaks are sure of rapid detection; and hourly every light and every corner of the ship is inspected by one of the two masters-at-arms, who constitute the police force of the ship. They have under their special care the steerages, and a part of their duty is—as their phrase goes—“to chase” the steerage female passengers off the upper deck at dusk, and to see that they remain in their own apartments until sunrise.
The Cook.
First-class ships muster from twelve to fifteen men in each watch, and all of these are shipped as seamen. Of course the majority are such only in name, though there is always a definite number of sailors among them. Indeed, to fly the blue flag at least ten of the crew, in addition to the captain, must be enrolled in the Naval Reserve, and to be an A B there, one must hand, reef, and steer deftly. These are the people who in port stand by the ship; that is, those who take, as required by law, their discharges in Liverpool on the return voyage and continue to work on board at fixed wages per day while the ship refits and loads. All hands, from the skipper to the scullion’s mate, must ship at the beginning of each run—must “sign articles” as it is called—before a Board of Trade shipping-master. As the law has always regarded Jack as “particularly in need of its protection, because he is particularly exposed to the wiles of sharpers,” great stress is laid in these articles upon his treatment, and therefore they exhibit in detail the character of the voyage, the wages, the quantity and quality of the food, and a dozen other particulars which evidence the safeguards thrown about these “wards of the Admiralty” by a quasi-paternal government. Jack knows all this, and be sure he stands up most boldly and assertively, at times with a great deal of unnecessary swagger and bounce, for all the articles—“his articles”—allow him.
The boatswain selects the ship’s company, and the sea-birds flutter on board usually a few hours before the vessel hauls into the stream. They fly light, these Western Ocean sailors, and their kits are such as beggars would laugh at even in Ratcliffe Highway. Generally they are in debt to the Sailor’s Home—they pay seventeen bob a week for their grub and lodging—and many of them just touch their advance money, as a guarantee of receipt, and then see most of it disappear, for goods fairly furnished, into the superintendent’s monk-bag. But they are philosophers in their sad way, and are apt, if they find themselves safely on board with a couple of shillings in their ’baccy pouches, with a pan, an extra shirt, a pannikin, a box of matches, and a bar of soap, to feel that the anchor cannot be tripped too soon, as they are equipped for an adventure anywhere, even to the “Hinjies, heast or west,” as their doleful ditty announces.
Under way or at anchor they do not have many idle moments. In the middle watches the decks are scrubbed with sand and brooms and brushes, for the old, heroic days of holy-stones are over, and a hundred pounds of effort are no longer expended for an ounce of result.
“Muster, all hands.”
Washing Down the Decks.
It might interest the passengers—especially those who look upon a sailor as so much unthinking brawn—to hear the archaic vocabulary and the emphatic dialects in which many of them are sworn at by these same mariners. Indeed, passengers are a careless, slovenly, and untidy lot, and there is scarcely a sin in the maritime decalogue of cleanliness they do not commit unthinkingly. The particularly offensive ones are soon singled out and labelled with briny, offensive names; and though they know it not, the forecastle is at times lurid with the blood-curdling anathemas launched upon them. In the morning watch the paint-work is scrubbed, and a deft cleaner is Jackie; and finally, when the weather permits, the brass work—bane of every true sailor—is polished till it blinks like the rising sun in the tropics. This scrubbing and burnishing and cleansing runs in appointed grooves through every department, and in no perfunctory way, for each day the ship is inspected thoroughly, and upon the result depend the reputation and the advancement of the subordinates.
Very formal indeed is the inspection, when, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, the captain, accompanied by the doctor, begins his royal progress. At the borders of each province he is received by its governor, who conducts him through its highways and its byways, through its lanes and shaded groves. The purser and the chief steward are answerable for all concerning the passengers, and scrupulous and minute is the examination given to the saloons, store-rooms, pantries, kitchens, bakeries, closets, bath-rooms, and to such cabins and state-rooms as may be visited. Then follow the steerages and the “glory hole”—this last a den sacred to the discomfort of the perennially nimble, of the tip-extracting, uncannily cheerful, and sorely tried stewards. The chief officer is responsible for the boatswain’s locker, the forecastles, the upper decks, the boats, the whalebacks; in short, above and below, wherever dirt might breed disease, no nook nor corner is omitted, not even that seething cauldron where the lungs of the ship breathe steam and her ponderous muscles drive the mighty screws.
The engine-rooms and stoke-holes of a great steamer are forbidden ground, are lands taboo, save to those specially asked to visit them. Here no interruptions may enter, for speed is the price of ceaseless vigilance, and horse-power spells fame and dividends. When you come to measure the region fairly, it broadens into a wonder-land; it shapes itself into a twilight island of mysteries, into a laboratory where grimy alchemists practise black magic and white. At first all seems confusion, but when the brain has co-ordinated certain factors, harmony is wooed from discord and order emerges from chaos. It is in the beginning all noise and tangled motion, and shining steel and oily smells; then succeeds a vague sense of bars moving up and down, and down and up, with pitiless regularity; of jiggering levers, keeping time rhythmically to any stray patter you may fit to their chanting; and, at last, the interdependence of rod grasping rod, of shooting straight lines seizing curved arms, of links limping backward and wriggling forward upon queer pivots, dawns upon you; and in the end you marvel at the nicety with which lever, weight, and fulcrum work, opening and closing hidden mechanisms, and functioning with an exactness that dignifies the fraction of a second into an appreciable quantity. Cranks whirl and whirl and whirl incessantly, holding in moveless grip the long shafting turning the churning screws; pumps pulsate and throb with muffled beat; gauge-arms vibrate jerkingly about narrow arcs, setting their standards of performance; and everywhere, if your ear be trained to this mechanical music, to this symphony in steam and steel, you see the officers and greasers conducting harmoniously the smoothly moving parts, as soothed with oil and caressed with waste they work without jar or friction, and despite the gales tossing the ship like a jolly-boat, on the angry ocean. It is a magic domain, and one may well wonder at the genius which, piling precedent upon precedent, chains these forces and makes them labor, even on an unstable platform, as their masters will.
In the stoke-hole, however, one leaves behind the formal and mathematical, and sees the picturesque with all its dirt unvarnished, with all its din and clangor unsubdued. Under the splintering silver of the electric lamps cones of light illuminate great spaces garishly and leave others in unbroken masses of shadow. Through bulkhead doors the red and gold of the furnaces chequer the reeking floor, and the tremulous roar of the caged fires dominates the sibilant splutter of the stream. Figures nearly naked, gritty and black with coal, and pasty with ashes, and soaked with sweat, come and go in the blazing light and in the half gloom, and seem like nightmares from fantastic tales of demonology.
The Stoke Hole.
When the furnace-doors are opened, thirsty tongues of fire gush out, blue spirals of gas spin and reel over the bubbling mass of fuel, and great sheets of flame suck half-burnt carbon over the quivering fire-wall into the flues. With averted heads and smoking bodies the stokers shoot their slice-bars through the melting hillocks, and twist and turn them until they undulate like serpents. The iron tools blister their hands, the roaring furnaces sear their bodies; their chests heave like those of spent swimmers, their eyes tingle in parched sockets—but work they must, there is no escape, no holiday in this maddening limbo. Steam must be kept up, or perhaps a cruel record must be lowered. Facing the furnaces, the hollow up-scooping of the stoker’s shovel echoes stridently on the iron floor, and these speed-makers pile coal on coal until the fire fairly riots, and, half blinded, they stagger backward for a cooling respite. But it is only a moment at the best, for their taskmasters watch and drive them, and the tale of furnaces must do its stint. The noise and uproar are deafening; coal-trimmers trundle their barrows unceasingly from bunker to stoke-hole, or, if the ship’s motion be too great for the wheels, carry it in baskets, and during the four long hours there is no rest for those who labor here.
In the largest ships the engineer force numbers one hundred and seventy men, and in vessels with double engines these are divided into two crews with a double allowance of officers for duty. One engineer keeps a watch in each fire-room, and two are stationed on each engine-room platform. Watches depend upon the weather, but, as a rule, the force, officers and men, serves four out of every twelve hours. Should, however, the weather be foggy or the navigation hazardous, the service may be more onerous; for then officers stand at the throttles with peremptory orders to do no other work. In relieving each other great care is taken; those going on the platforms feeling the warmth of the bearings, examining the condition of the pins and shafting, testing the valves, locating the position of the throttles, counting the revolutions, and by every technical trial satisfying themselves before assuming charge that all is right. In the stoke-hole the same precautions are taken, the sufficiency and saturation of the water, the temperature of the feed, injection, and discharge, and the steam-pressure being verified independently by both officers.
The pay of the chief engineer is said to be about £30 per month, in addition to a commission upon the saving made in a fixed allowance of coal for a given horse-power and an assumed speed. As some ships are economical, this reaches at times a handsome bonus. And it is well this pay should be large, for many of these officers have given their best days to one employ and deserve much of it in every way. It is said that some of the old chiefs are the greatest travellers in the world, so far as miles covered may count. Here, for example, is one who has made in one line 132 round trips, or traversed 841,000 shore miles—a distance four times that between the earth and the moon; and still higher is the record of another, who completed before his retirement 154 round trips, or made in distance over one million of statute miles.
In the Fo’castle.
The messes of the crew are divided into three classes: First, that of the seamen, quartermaster, carpenter, etc.; secondly, that of lamp-trimmers and servants and miscellaneous people; and thirdly, that of the stokers, greasers, and trimmers. The seamen sleep and mess in the forecastle, the stewards in the glory hole, and the engineer force in the port forecastle, or, on board the new ships, in an apartment just forward of the stoke-hole. In all these quarters the mess-tables trice up to the under side of the upper deck, and the bunks are two or three tiers deep. As a rule the men provide their own bedding and table-gear, the company agreeing to give good food in plenty, but nothing more. This seems shabby, even if in these degenerate days we need not hope to find a ship’s husband like Sir Francis Drake, who not only “procured a complete set of silver for the table, and furnished the cook-room with many vessels of the same metal, but engaged several musicians to accompany them.” I am afraid the only music you will hear in these dreary quarters is the shout when the “snipes,” as my lieges the stokers call the coal-trimmers, rush in at eight in the evening with the high feast known as the black pan. This olla podrida consists of the remains of the saloon dinner, and is always saved for the watch by the cooks and bakers in payment for the coal hoisted for the kitchens and galleys. It is a grewsome feast, as one may well imagine, but it is the supreme luxury in the sea life of the stoker and his pals, and is enjoyed point, blade, and hilt.
Thrown together as the people are for a run only, you find little of the messmate kinship which is so strong in longer voyages among seafaring men. Should any one of them become unfit for work through sickness (and very ill he must be when the doctor excuses him from duty), his mates, the one he should have relieved and the other who would have relieved him, each stand two hours of his watch. But as the attendant abuse is great, and the curses are loud and deep and bitterly personal, no one, save a very hard case, will leave his work as long as he can stand up to it. As for kindness and usefulness, or any other saving grace, they are unknown; are, in the grim pessimism of this iron trade, never expected. It is a hard, hard life, measured by decent standards, and messieurs, when you stray below, and, as tradition demands, they “chalk you”—ring you about with the mystic circle which means drink-money—be sure the ransom is not niggard, be certain that with it you lend them from your brighter world the sunshine of a cheery greeting, the tonic of a friendly smile.
For, God help them, they need it always.
The inspection is finished a little after seven bells, and one by one the officers straggle on deck with their sextants. Should it be a fine day, with moderate weather, the noon observation for latitude is a simple one and is always sought; though, in the open, these people running in regular lanes can place great dependence on their engine revolutions, their well-tried compasses, and, if the speed is not excessive, upon their taffrail logs. When the sun crosses the meridian twelve o’clock is reported, and “eight bells are made” by the captain, for no lesser personage dare trifle with the astronomical proprieties hedging about this occult ceremony. The ship’s time, however, remains unaltered, until the clocks are corrected at midnight from calculations based upon the chronometer ticking stolidly in the chart-room. In the sweep of modern progress the sacred rite of heaving the log is no longer celebrated. The speed is now too great for that rough-and-ready hit-and-miss at distance run: and with its disuse, worse luck, a fund of old-time pleasant raillery has been eclipsed. “How fast are you going, my man?” was an invariable question of the inevitable, curious passenger to the Jackie walking away with the dripping log-line. “Fourteen and a Dutchman, sir,” would be his answer, or, if again pressed, “Thirteen and a marine,” he would reply, gravely, to the joy of his grinning shipmates and to the mystification of the questioner. But now no longer does the reel turn swift, no longer does the sand run dry, no more the chip dances on the waves or tugging line strain brawny muscles. To-day the speed is read off from a little cylinder which twists its dials on the weather rail.
Watching for the Sun on a Cloudy Day.
Night Signalling.
The observations are worked out independently by the chief and second officers, and the former submits his results to the captain. Of course these calculations cannot have the exactness of astronomical work ashore, and luckily on the high sea this is not needed. On the contrary, over-precision often multiplies the error, and it is good navigation if you can say with assurance that the ship is anywhere within an enclosing circle five miles in diameter. Of course it is widely different when a vessel is running in for the land or coasting, for then the soundings, the cross-bearings of well-known marks, and the contour lines, enable the position to be marked with very great accuracy.
The noon position of the ship is—next to dinner—the great event of the day, and many are the pools and bets made on the figures of the run; not only as to the distance, but as to the probable time of arrival. For if the voyage be now half over, the novelty of sea life is at low ebb, and the passengers, save a few irrepressible spirits, have lapsed into a gentle melancholy induced by the monotony of water, water, water everywhere. They are tired of the sea, of the ship, of the cooking, of each other, in short, of everything, and are anxious only to arrive. They have divided and subdivided, and differentiated into cliques, and have nursed dislikes, usually founded on feminine fancies, until these have become mortal antipathies. In a perfunctory way they follow a routine which finally drags a lengthening chain. They get up and pitchfork on their clothes, and eat, lounge about, doze, muffled to the eyes, in lashed steamer chairs, read languidly, gossip spitefully, and eat, and eat, and eat, and then, wearied to bitter boredom, go to bed again. The men drink more than is good for them, indeed some of them have an eager and a nipping air all day long; and as for smoking, why, those who can are blowing moist and soggy weeds and fondling explosive pipes from morn till dewy eve. The noisy ones—and what nuisances they are with their aggressively robust health and unfailing cheerfulness—play all manner of stupid sea-games, horse-billiards, quoits, and shuffle-board, and sometimes venture upon such silly practical joking that you wish a sea would wash them overboard.
No one sees much of the ship’s officers except perhaps the ubiquitous purser and the amiable doctor, and how these two, harried and beset as they are by a hundred cares, by the little miseries of other people, can present an unfailing front of courtesy, can go smilingly and cheerily about their duties, is one of the sea mysteries yet unsolved. Blow high or low, and in fair weather or foul, they are ever the same, bright, beaming, optimistic, encouraging—“fresh as a garden rose, soothing as an upland wind”—and knowing the strain put upon you by silly men and fretful women, gentlemen, I salute you, chapeau bas.
The Deck Steward.
In the beginning there was a struggle for seats at the captain’s table, and heartburnings are not unknown to those who sit a little lower at the feast. But these are not the wise or wary ones, not the tough and devilish sly travellers who know their bread will be best buttered by rallying around the purser or forming in hollow squares about the shrine where the doctor sits enthroned. The captain’s duties permit him to go below rarely save at dinner-time, and as for the other officers, they live and mess alone and are as cloistered, so far as the passengers count, as the preaching friars of Saint Dominic.
Captain’s Breakfast.
Once in every voyage boat drill is held, and sadly insufficient for the people on board is this same boat equipment. But the drill is usually a passably fair one, and, given time, adequate perhaps for any demands made upon the ship by outside distress. And let it be added that never yet, when the word has been given, have those gallant men who walk their watches so quietly and so uncomplainingly, been known to fail if succor were needed by helpless mariners. It may be that death stares them in the face, that their mission may be another tragedy, but they never question. Honor to them and to all the unrecorded heroes, the uncrowned martyrs of that western passage. Who may number them? who tell their gallant deeds? True descendants are they of those “who first went out across the unknown seas, fighting, discovering, colonizing, and graving out channels through which the commerce and enterprise of England have flowed out over all the world.”
You may count, as a rule, upon disagreeable weather in the Western Ocean, and this tries the temper of people who might be saints ashore; and, say what you will, even under the most promising environments, women are out of place on shipboard. However, if the days are reasonably pleasant as the voyage shortens, the monotony becomes so much a habit as to be no longer a burden. The little animosities which seemed eternal disappear, and friendships are made, and toward the end all but the hardened cases, the mental dyspeptics, or those to whom sea-sickness is a serious matter, really enjoy the voyage.
The tonic of the sea-air courses like an elixir in the blood: young women begin to take notice, and you hear rippling laughter, and see, in place of gloom, the sunshine of happy smiles. This is usually the season when the concert is given, and the uneasy spirits of the ship exploit the talent they have discovered. Usually there are a dozen mild rows over this performance, and invariably a great dispute as to the distribution of the money. This is apt to divide the ship temporarily into two warring camps, but in the end the ship’s officers have their way, and the American dollars jingle musically in English contribution boxes. More or less jollity is always afloat in the smoking-room, for here eddy the flotsam and jetsam of the ship. Here, too, the speculative gentlemen, their friends and lambs, usually play cards from early forenoon till the lights are turned out. There is not much growling among these industrious workmen, though at times when jack-pots go one way, and the kitty or widow is large enough to make the losers boisterously assertive, you may hear sharp words over the reckoning. As for those who enjoy a quiet rubber, they must find another retreat; the smoking-room is ruled by the gods of clamor.
The Night Signal of a Disabled Steamer.
And so the last days are apt to rush along pleasantly enough; the solitude cheered by passing vessels and the lazy routine of the ship enlivened by congenial companionships newly found. The edge of the Grand Banks is skirted happily without injury to the daring fishermen; the Georges are rounded, and then, oh, happy hour for many homesick hearts! the cry “Sail ho” rings out with newer meaning, and a graceful pilot-boat wings toward them like the fabled sea-bird. How they greet the bluff pilot, coming as he does to their seeming helplessness out of the known and the enduring. The speculative passengers find an especial interest in the incident, for no pools are more favored than those made on the number of the boat, no bets more frequent than whether the figures are odd or even. After the assurance that the “pilot is really on board” over-sanguine and inexperienced females madly rush below and pack their trunks and get ready for an immediate shore-flitting, afraid, perhaps, they will be late; but there is many and many a tossing mile yet to steam ere the services of the adventurous pilot will be needed.
Still, a new delight possesses everybody, and it grows as the hours fly, until at last, it may be at night, perhaps, some one bursts breathlessly into the crowded smoking-room or bar, and cries exultingly: “There she is, Fire Island Light, right over the starboard bow.” Joyous faces gather near the crowded bulwarks, and eager eyes hail with gladness the shining petals of that rose of flame which blossoms unfailingly above the shoaling waters; for the voyage is nearly over, and the morrow means to some the marvels of an unknown land, to others, luckiest and happiest of all, home and dear ones.
SAFETY ON THE ATLANTIC.
By WILLIAM H. RIDEING.
The Dangers of the Sea—Precautions in a Fog—Anxieties of the Captain—Creeping up the Channel—“Ashore at South Stack”—Narrow Escape of the Baltic—Some Notable Shipwrecks—Statistics since 1838—The Region of Icebergs—When They Are most Frequent—Calamities from Ice—Safety Promoted by Speed—Modern Protection from Incoming Seas—Bulkheads and Double Bottoms—Water tight Compartments—The Special Advantage of the Longitudinal Bulkhead—The Value of Twin Screws—Dangers from a Broken Shaft—Improvements in the Mariner’s Compass, the Patent Log, and Sounding Machine—Manganese Bronze for Propellers—Lights, Buoys, and Fog Signals—The Remarkable Record of 1890.
IT is not when the seas come pounding over the bows that the captain’s face lengthens. Even when it is necessary to keep the passengers below, and the spray is carried as high as the foretop, his confidence in his ship is unabated. His spirits do not fall with the barometer, and though the clouds hang low, and the air is filled with stinging moisture flying like sleet from the hissing sea—even when boats are torn out of the davits, and iron bitts and ventilators are snapped from their fastenings like pipe-stems, he has no misgiving as to the ability of the ship to weather the gale, or the fiercest hurricane that can blow.
Give him an open sea, without haze, or fog, or snow, and neither wind nor wave can alarm him. He knows very well, as all who are experienced in such matters do, that the modern steamers of the great Atlantic lines are so carefully constructed, and of such strength, that the foundering of one of them through stress of weather alone is well-nigh inconceivable.
But when a fog descends, then it is that his face and manner change, and he who has been the most sociable and gayest of men suddenly becomes the most anxious and taciturn. His seat at the head of the table is vacant; look for him and you will not find him, as in fair weather, diverting groups of girls tucked up in steamer-chairs on the promenade-deck, but pacing the bridge and puffing a cigar which apparently has not been allowed to go out since it was lighted as the big ship backed from her wharf into the North River.
Wherever and whenever it occurs, fog is a source of danger from which neither prudence nor skill can guarantee immunity: and whether the ship is slowed down or going at full speed, there is cause for fear while this gray blindness baffles the eyes. With plenty of sea-room the danger is least, and it increases near land, especially where the coast is wild and broken, like that of Ireland and Wales, and where there are many vessels as well as rocks to be passed.
Probably the captain dreads but one thing more than a fog which comes down when he is making land. When he can see the familiar lights and promontories, he can verify the position of the ship and check his daily observations of the sun. Then it is plain sailing into port. But when the strongest light is quenched and every well-known landmark is hidden, and he has to feel his way with only the compass and the sounding machine to guide him, the consciousness that a slight divergence from the proper course may lead to disaster, keeps him on the pins and needles of anxiety, and sears his brain to constant wakefulness, as with a branding-iron.
Out of Reckoning.—A Narrow Escape.
A startling experience may be recalled:
The ship had swept down from the “nor’ard” like an arrow following the curve of its own bow, and it was promised that we should see land early in the afternoon and reach Queenstown soon after sundown. The weather could not have been better; it was clear and mild, and the air, the water, and the sky were tinged with the silvery pinks and grays which often appear, like mother-of-pearl, in the atmospheric effects of that southern coast. Flocks of birds were resting on the surface of the calm sea and wheeling around the ship, the gulls swinging within arm’s length of the passengers leaning against the rail. We steamed in among a fleet of fishing-boats with red sails—close enough to hear the greetings of the men, and these voices made the assurance of land doubly sure.
Then it was whispered that land could be seen, and the searchers swept the eastern horizon with their glasses to find it. They made many mistakes about it, and explored the clouds, deluding themselves with the idea that forms of rosy vapor were the Kerry Mountains. They insisted upon it, but presently the coast defined itself to a certainty, coming out of the distance in bold masses of peak and precipice, fringed with a line of surf.
The captain was in his gayest mood. The baggage of the passengers for Queenstown was whipped out of the hold by the steam winch and piled up on the main deck, and they themselves were smartly dressed to go ashore. Already farewells were spoken and reunions planned. We could see the black-fanged pyramids of the Blaskets, and the mountain-bound sweep of Bantry Bay. Fastnet would soon be visible over the starboard bow—perhaps the men in the foretop could already see it—and a little to the northward of that lay Brow Head, whence in an hour or so our safe arrival would be flashed in an instant under the capricious sea which we had just crossed.
These were our anticipations, but they were not fulfilled. The strong, piercing light of Fastnet did not reach us that night, nor any glimpse of the splendid beacons which blaze, each in its own distinctive way, for the guidance of the mariner along that Channel. We were not seen from Brow Head, and the passengers for Queenstown did not go ashore.
The captain’s manner changed again from its wonted gayety to severe silence. Before it was noticed on deck, those on the bridge discovered, rolling down the Channel, a reddish-brown fog, like a cloud from a battle-field, which swallowed everything in its path—fishing-boats and all vessels in sight; mountains, cliffs, and surf: every light and every landmark. In half an hour it had enveloped us and washed out with its sepia all the pearly iridescence which had filmed the sea. Nothing definite remained; all became vague, spectral, curtailed. The heart of the ship seemed to cease beating, and then could be heard only in faint throbs as the engine was slowed down.
Landing Stages at Liverpool.
For the rest of the night everything was dubious. The passengers gathered in knots on the wet decks, talking in undertones. You could hear the swash of the becalmed sea along the sides of the ship in the intervals of the blasts of the fog-horn, which pierced the ear like a knife; it was only when that demon was raging that the other sounds which had become familiar on board the ship were not more acute—the hum of the forced draft, the asthma of escaping steam, the voices on the bridge, and the whirr of the bell in the engine-room. The bell had been silent since it rang out, “Turn ahead, full speed!” when the pilot was picked up by the station boat of Sandy Hook, but now the hand which recorded its messages was constantly going from side to side of the clock-faced dial. At every stroke a fresh apprehension thrilled along the deck and imaginary shapes loomed up in the fog, the rumors were wild and contradictory, no sooner spoken than discredited. See that blur of yellow ahead! That must be a light—Queenstown, perhaps, and the tender coming alongside. Yes, the bell has rung “Stop her!” Half of the passengers can see the blur of yellow, half are not quite certain—all are mistaken: the light burns only in their imaginations. Then they see the sails of a ship blotted on the fog; they hear bells and whistles; they listen for confirmation from the bridge. Little wonder that they are confused: the engine-room bell tells a different story every few minutes—now “Ahead!” then “Astern!” now “Full speed!” then “Dead slow!” Again the engine stops altogether; in a minute or two the churnings of the screw, sweeping toward the bow instead of in the wake, show that the ship is backing, and the fear of reefs, of collision, of running ashore, deepens the silence of the anxious groups along the rail.
The escaping steam roars out of the copper-pipes riveted to the funnel; louder and shriller the whistle drives its warning through the obscurity which surrounds us. Then we move “Ahead!” once more, and at midnight all hope of seeing Queenstown is abandoned. The passengers retreat to their cabins, and the decks are left to the sailors and the officers, who come in and out of the ghostly atmosphere—their oil-skins dripping with moisture and shining momentarily in the lamp-light. Never for an instant does the captain leave the bridge; his cigar feeds its bluish wreaths to the fog; he watches the glowing face of the compass, and listens to the cry of the men who are working the sounding machine.
So the great ship creeps up the Channel. Once in a while an answering blast is borne over the water, a bell is heard tolling afar, but never a thing is in sight. It is a weary night for the captain, but in the morning all is clear; we are off Holyhead; the pulse of the engine has recovered its regularity; the faces of the passengers are beaming, and Snowdon is visible over the starboard bow, piled up in white vapor.
The navigation of the Channel in foggy weather can never be free from danger, and more fine steamers of the great transatlantic lines have been lost between Fastnet and Liverpool through fogs than through any other cause. It was only last summer that the City of Rome ran in a dense fog against Fastnet itself—that perilous, shore-less, horn-shaped rock which stands in the direct pathway of all ingoing and outgoing ships—and barely escaped destruction. A few years earlier, when the Cunarder Aurania was approaching land in a fog, the passengers who were smoking their after-dinner cigars suddenly saw looming above them, and above the topmasts, the cliffs which were supposed to be many miles away. The captain was far out of his reckoning, but was going so slowly that he was able to back into the Channel with slight damage. A similar accident to this happened to the White Star steamer Baltic when she was proceeding up the Channel to Liverpool.
One of the most brilliant lights in the Channel is that of the South Stack, which lies under the flank of the mountainous precipice of Holyhead. The Stack is an egg of rock, much higher and much bolder than Fastnet, which has become detached from the main-land, and its apex is crowned with the white tower and crouching buildings of the lighthouse keepers. The sea is eating it away, and has already scooped out a vast cavern which they call the Parliament Hall. It is wider and loftier than any chamber at Westminster, and there is more justification for its name in the babble of the sea-birds flitting in and out of it than in its dimensions. From the foot of it to the low, white wall which encircles the light, it is a sheer precipice of dark, exfoliating rock, forbidding and hopeless, without a resting-place for any living thing less secure than the birds, which cluster like beads on a string upon the edges of the shale. The sea frets itself around it and gurgles in the cavern; ledges and reefs abut on it. All vessels aim to give it a wide berth, and usually keep at such a distance that a glass has to be used to discover its destructive points. To say “ashore at South Stack” is as good as to say a “total wreck.” There is hardly one chance in a hundred that the luckless ship which strikes here will live.
Eddystone Lighthouse, English Channel.
(Tower about one hundred feet high.)
The Baltic was feeling her way up the Channel, and was supposed to be two or three miles off-shore. The creaming of the breakers, flowing and dissolving over the ledges like puffs of steam, gave the first hint of danger, and before the warning was of avail, the dark shape, darker than the fog, sprang upon the dimmed vision of those on deck—a precipice that seemed to be toppling over them. “Good God! It is the South Stack!” a voice cried out, and there was no thought but of doom. The bells in the engine-room and wheel-house pealed, and the reversal of the screw sent the latherings surging toward the bow. A moment of panic among the passengers; a scurrying of figures on the bridge; the resonant, pistol-like snap of bending iron plates; a sudden resistance to progress suddenly withdrawn—a confusion of ideas, a murmur of relief, comparative tranquillity again. The hundredth chance was in favor of the Baltic, and backing into deep water, she proceeded on her way to Liverpool.
A Whistling Buoy.
The three accidents described were without serious consequences, but in most cases the same difficulty of fog and mistaken reckoning ends in disaster. No less than five large steamers of the Guion line have been wrecked between Fastnet and Liverpool—the Chicago, the Colorado, the Montana, the Dakota, and the Idaho—representing a value of fully two and a half million dollars, without cargo. The Cunard line lost the Tripoli on the Irish coast, north of Queenstown, and the City of New York (the first Inman ship of that name) came to grief on Daunt’s Rock, near Roche’s Point. The City of Brussels, of the same line, had nearly completed her voyage and was lying off the Liverpool bar, waiting for the weather to clear, the captain acting with the utmost prudence, when an insufficiently manned and badly managed steamer, the Kirby Hall, ran her down and sank her. Account is taken here only of the passenger steamers of the well-known lines; the record would be much expanded if it included the disasters to freight lines, and to those uncared-for ocean tramps which when they go down often yield a better profit to their unscrupulous owners, through insurance money, than they do by carrying cargo while afloat.
From 1838, when the Sirius crossed the ocean, till 1879, one hundred and forty-four steamers, counting all classes, were lost in the transatlantic trade. The first was the President, which disappeared mysteriously in 1841. During the thirteen years following only one life was lost by the wreck of an Atlantic steamer, that steamer being the Cunarder Columbia, which went ashore in 1843. In 1854, however, the City of Glasgow sailed with about four hundred and eighty souls on board, and was never seen or heard from again; and in the same year the Collins line steamer Arctic, one of the fastest and finest vessels then afloat, was sunk in collision with the steamer Vesta during a dense fog, off Cape Race, and five hundred and sixty-two persons perished. Two years later the Pacific, of the same line, went to sea with one hundred and eighty-six persons on board, and was never heard from again. Between 1857 and 1864 the Allan line lost no fewer than nine steamers. In 1858 the Hamburg-American steamer Austria was burned at sea, with a loss of four hundred and seventy-one lives; in 1870 the City of Boston left port with over two hundred persons on board, never more to be heard from. On a dark night in April, 1873, the White Star steamer Atlantic ran ashore near Sambro, and five hundred and sixty lives were lost—some by drowning and some by freezing in the rigging into which they had scrambled, or upon the ice-bound shore upon which they were cast. Note must be made also of the wreck of the German steamer Schiller on the Scilly Rocks, by which two hundred lives were lost; of the running ashore in the North Sea of the North German Lloyd steamer Deutschland, by which one hundred and fifty-seven lives were lost; of the sinking through collision of the Hamburg-American steamer Pomerania, by which over fifty lives were lost; of a similar disaster to the Cimbria, of the same line, by which eighty-four were lost; and of yet another collision, which sent the beautiful Ville du Havre, of the French line, to the bottom of the English Channel, with two hundred and thirty of her passengers and crew.
Lighthouse, Atlantic City, N. J.
Of the one hundred and forty-four vessels lost up to 1879, more than one-half were wrecked. Twenty-four never reached the ports for which they sailed, their fate still being unknown; ten were burned at sea; eight were sunk in collisions, and three were sunk by ice.
Since 1879, the most memorable disasters, besides those already referred to, have been the burning at sea of the Egypt, of the National line, and the City of Montreal, of the Inman line, both without loss of life; the stranding of the State of Virginia, of the State line, on the quicksands of Sable Island, which quickly entombed her; the sinking of the State of Florida, of the same line, by collision with a sailing ship; the disappearance of the National line steamer Erin, which is supposed to have foundered at sea; and the sinking of the magnificent Cunarder Oregon in collision with a coal schooner, off Fire Island.
No line in existence has been wholly free from calamity; no line in existence has not at least one page in its history to tell of anxious crowds besieging its wharves and offices for news of a ship that has never come in.
One speculates in vain as to the end of those ships which, sailing from port in a seaworthy condition, have disappeared without leaving a survivor to record their fate. Was it fire that consumed, or ice that crushed, or seas that swallowed them? It may have been collision in a fog, or an explosion of the boilers, or the collapse of the engine, or the bursting on board of some tremendous wave from which recovery has been impossible. Possibly boats and rafts have been lowered, and when the ship herself has sunk, there has still been hope of reaching land; days of suffering; glimpses of passing ships that have failed to see; agony spun out, and death at the end. For all the patient waiting and listening of those ashore no whisper of the secret has come, and no fuller account can be written than the word “missing.”
The region of fogs on the Atlantic is also the region of ice; fog and ice together are a greater source of peril than fog alone is, even when a ship is making land. Under the latter condition there is the chance of hearing the warning voice of the “syren,” the reverberation of the signal gun, or the tolling of the fog-bell; steam “syrens,” guns, or explosives of some kind, and bells, are all used as auxiliaries to the lighthouses in overcoming, through the medium of sound, the difficulties which fog opposes against the transmission of light. The sounding machine comes into play, and by registering the depth of water, and bearing testimony to the character of the bottom, affords further protection to the navigator. But the shoals and islands of ice, which, with their outreaching, submerged spurs, come drifting down from the Arctic into the track of the transatlantic steamers, are unprovided with anything which might tell the ship bearing upon them in thick weather of their proximity. Sometimes they may be detected by the echo from the whistle or fog-horn, and by the rapid lowering of the temperature of the water in their vicinity. These signs cannot be always counted on, however. The whistle may be going every twenty or thirty seconds, and the quartermaster posted to the leeward with the little canvas bag and the thermometer with which the sea is tested for temperature; all due precaution may be taken, and yet no warning come of the ice that is ahead. On a clear night a berg rising above the horizon will have the effulgence of a star; on a clear day it will notch the horizon with its dazzling whiteness; in a fog it looms up in the gray like a shadow upon a shadow, and is invisible till the ship is close upon it.
A Bell Buoy.
The Hydrographic Bureau at Washington, which is in many ways useful in transatlantic navigation, issues a series of charts of an area of ocean reaching eastward from Newfoundland. There are twelve of them, one for each month of the year, and they differ only in certain pencillings which vary from month to month. Let us examine the set issued for a recent year. In the chart for January five little pyramids are clustered together in the sea, with a sixth to the north of them; in February the pyramidal little figures can be counted by the score, surrounded by zig-zag lines—they look like an encampment; in March the zig-zag lines have disappeared, and the tents, so to speak, are more scattered; in April they are much the same as in March, but in May they have increased enormously and can be counted by the hundred, reaching from the far north to over a hundred miles southward of the Grand Banks. In June they are fewer, and in July fewer still. In August only about twenty are visible; in September not more than ten; in October two, in November one, and in December two. The zig-zag lines disappear earlier than the pyramids; the former represent field-ice, the latter ice-bergs; and thus it is seen that during one year there was not a single month in which the transatlantic route was entirely free from danger from those sources. In 1882 the bergs appeared in February and disappeared in August; February, March, and April are the months for their appearance, and they often linger till October or November.
At Close Quarters, Among the Icebergs.
Field-ice has its source in the Arctic basin and along the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland, and is carried south either by the current from the Arctic or that from East Greenland. Fully eighty per cent. of the bergs have their origin in West Greenland, and most of them are fragments of glaciers, broken off in a process known as “calving,” as the glaciers slide into the deep water along-shore. Thousands are thus set adrift each year, and once adrift they begin their journey southward. Only a small proportion of the whole number ever reach the track of the steamers; some ground in the Arctic basin and break up in the frigid zone, to which they properly belong; they are very fragile, and the concussion of a gunshot is occasionally sufficient to shatter them; some are borne across from Greenland to Labrador, and lodge there until they dissolve, or crumble to pieces with the noise of thunder. The journey of those that escape disintegration in the north is slow. If they drifted directly south and met with no obstructions, they would be four or five months in reaching the transatlantic routes; and being liberated in July and August they would consequently beset the path of the steamers in December and January. Few of them, however, are not delayed, and most of them have been adrift at least a year from the time of “calving” before they arrive south enough to trouble the steamers. Some are several years in making the journey; they are held for a season in a shallow; locked up during the Arctic winter; released with the return of summer; caught again for another winter, and when once again liberated, retarded in their southward course by the necessity of ploughing through the field-ice before them. Not only are there wide variations in the date of the appearance and disappearance of the bergs in the transatlantic routes from year to year, but in different years they reach a different southern limit. It is this variability which causes mischief. If their movements were always the same, it would be easy for the captain to choose a course which would avoid them, but a course which may be entirely safe one year is often beset the next season by large quantities of ice, both in the forms of bergs and of field-ice.
The list of calamities from ice is a long one. It was only a few years ago that the Arizona, when going full speed, crashed into a berg and stove in her bows. From her stem to a point about thirty feet aft nothing remained of her but a tangle of shapeless iron, and that she did not sink immediately was due to the smoothness of the sea and the strength of her forward bulkhead, which withstood the pressure of the water and enabled her to reach St. Johns, Newfoundland. In the records of the Hydrographic Office it appears that, from 1882 to 1890, thirty-six steamers were more or less injured by ice in the North Atlantic, though some of these were freighting and coastwise vessels, and not of the class to which this article particularly refers; and the commonest explanation offered of the fate of the missing ships is collision with ice in fog or in the darkness of night.
Having come to this point, the reader is probably of the opinion that the heading of this chapter is a mistake, but the reverse of the picture has yet to be shown. Notwithstanding all the peril from fog and ice, and from the fury of cyclones and hurricanes, the steamers of the transatlantic lines are so staunchly built and so capably handled, that a man is less likely to meet with accidents on board one of them than he would be in walking the streets of a crowded city. Never before have so many passengers been carried as are carried now. The ships that were regarded as leviathans fifteen or sixteen years ago are as yachts compared with more recent additions to the various fleets. Scarcely more than ten years have elapsed since sixteen knots was the maximum speed; now it is twenty knots, with the certainty of an almost immediate increase to twenty-one or twenty-two knots. The tonnage has been increased within the same period from a maximum of five thousand to ten thousand five hundred, and while ten years ago two hundred cabin passengers were as many as any steamer could accommodate with a reasonable degree of comfort on one voyage, it is not uncommon now to find over five hundred as the complement of one steamer. When steamers of sixteen and seventeen knots were built, it was said that they were too large and too fast, and that they would surely come to grief, but experience has proved them to be as safe as any. In fact, those who are best qualified to know, declare that the augmentation of speed promotes safety.
This point was fully discussed by the captains of the principal lines not long ago, and the opinions expressed were almost unanimously in favor of the faster ships. They not only diminish the period of exposure to such dangers as there may be in the transatlantic voyage, but from the superior power of their engines and boilers they are better fitted for overcoming those dangers. They are able to escape from areas of fog and storm sooner than slower vessels, and are more easily handled in thick and in heavy weather. From the rapidity with which they can be manœuvred, they can avoid collisions which would be inevitable under some conditions with slower ships; if a collision becomes unavoidable their impetus enables them to cut the obstructing vessel in two with comparatively little injury to themselves.
It is not conceivable that the element of danger can ever be wholly eliminated from the navigation of the Atlantic, but notwithstanding the extent and difficulty of the traffic, and the size and speed of the ships, which, flying to and fro in all kinds of weather, arrive in port at all seasons with a promptness and regularity quite equal to that of express trains on land, the number of accidents in proportion to the number of passengers is constantly diminishing. More cabin passengers are carried from New York to European ports in one summer now than were carried in the whole of the first quarter of a century of steam navigation on this ocean; but while the latter period was full of disasters, such as the loss of the Arctic with four hundred and sixty-two lives, and the loss of the Austria, with four hundred and seventy-one lives, we now see hundreds of thousands of passengers crossing, with a sense of security which a remarkable record of immunity from accident fully justifies.
Lighthouse, Sanibel Island, Fla.
The improvements in the character of the accommodations have not been greater than the improvements designed to reduce the dangers of the transatlantic trip to a minimum; they are found in the structure of the hulls, the engines, and the boilers; in the apparatus of navigation; in the numbers and discipline of the crews, and in the appliances for life-saving, such as rafts and life-boats. The old ships of twenty years and more ago were built on the lines of sailing vessels, and a poop extended with scarcely a break from the fo’c’s’le to the quarter-deck. When a sea came on board it was held as in a sluice between the high bulwarks and the poop, swashing fore and aft with the pitch of the ship, until it drained off through the scuppers. Most of the state-rooms were then situated below the main deck, and after such a sea they were likely to be flooded; many old passengers will remember how frequent an occurrence it was to find their cabins inundated. This was the least mischief it did, and when several seas were shipped in rapid succession, the vessel was in danger of foundering. The modern steamer is much better protected from incoming seas, and the main deck is completely covered in, instead of the bulwarks there is a simple rail and netting, and any water shipped flows overboard as quickly as it comes on board.
But the greatest improvement of all in the direction of safety is the system of bulkheads and double bottoms introduced by the builders of the City of New York and the City of Paris. For many years past it has been the custom to divide all steamers by transverse bulkheads into so-called water-tight compartments, the purpose of which is to increase their buoyancy and stability in case of collision. The Etruria, the Umbria, the Britannic, the Germanic, and the Arizona have nine compartments each. Excellent as the theory is, the feeling of everybody acquainted with the subject has been distrustful of the manner of its application, the chief objection being the inadequacy of the number of subdivisions. Sometimes, as when the Arizona ran into the iceberg, the bulkheads have saved the ship, but in other cases they have been of little or no use, as in the case of the Oregon. The Oregon was divided into ten compartments, but she sank in a few hours after her collision with a coal schooner off Fire Island light. The compartments have invariably proved useless when the ship has been struck amidships with sufficient force to open her engine and boilers to the sea, though when the weather has been calm and the injury forward or astern, they have kept her afloat.
The insufficiency of their number in proportion to the size of the ships has not been their only defect, moreover. In order to give an unobstructed passage along the decks it has been the custom to cut doors in the bulkheads, and it has frequently happened that in the confusion following a collision these have been left open, allowing the sea to rush from compartment to compartment, either because they were forgotten or because they refused to work.
The Deep-sea Sounding Machine at Work.
In the newest type of ship, as represented by the City of Paris and the City of New York, there are no fewer than twenty water-tight compartments separated by solid transverse bulkheads, which rise from the keel to the saloon deck, eighteen feet above the waterline, and which have no doors or openings of any kind whatever. A few feet from the stem there is a collision bulkhead of extraordinary strength to protect the ship, should she run “bow-on” against any obstacle—a reef, a derelict, or a vessel attempting to cross her path; next, aft of this come three compartments for steerage passengers or cargo; then two compartments for saloon passengers; then four compartments for boilers, coal bunkers, kitchens, and machinery; two more for saloon passengers; one for second-cabin passengers, and two, those farthest aft of all, for steerage passengers or cargo. Each compartment is thus isolated, and only by a blow in the line of the dividing bulkhead could two compartments be flooded at once; the bulkheads also serve in case of fire to prevent the flames from spreading.
Still another safeguard becomes possible through the adoption of the twin screw. The propellers are worked by two complete and entirely independent sets of boilers and engines, and these are separated by a longitudinal bulkhead in addition to the transverse bulkheads already described. In a single-screw ship this longitudinal bulkhead is impossible, and the space in which her engine and boilers are situated is her most vulnerable point; if she is struck there with sufficient force to make a fissure large enough to admit any considerable quantity of water, nothing will save her from sinking. In the case of the twin-screw ship, however, we have had the best of evidence, within the past two years, that with one of her engine-rooms flooded and open to the sea, she will still float and be navigable.
For many years past the value of the twin screw has been debated by the builders, the managers, the captains, and the engineers of the great transatlantic lines, to whom it did not commend itself so readily as to the Admiralty. It was adopted for war-ships several years before any of the well-known passenger lines ventured to use it, and its first appearance in this service was in the City of New York, four years ago. Since then it has been adopted by the White Star and the Hamburg-American lines, and though the North German Lloyd has not yet applied it to the recent accessions to its fleet, its advantages over the single screw for passenger vessels, as well as for war-ships, are more generally conceded now than ever before. The Admiralty adopted it for the security it afforded, and for its superior capacity for rapid manœuvring. Another feature which recommends it is that, should one of the two sets of engines become disabled from the breaking of the shaft, or any other cause, the opposite engine would be equal to taking the ship into port; while a similar accident on a single-screw ship would compel her to make port under sail (a very difficult feat with the modern type of ocean steamers), or to wait for another steamer to take her in tow.
Off Fire Island, New York.
Gedney’s Channel, outside New York Harbor, at Night.
(Lighted by electric buoys.)
Until quite recently, the breaking of the shaft was more frequent than any other kind of accident to the transatlantic steamers. When, perhaps, the ship was sailing along at full-speed, a jar would come and shake her from end to end, as though a rock or a submerged wreck had been struck. The engine would rattle and the sails flap loosely in the wind, and the familiar tremor of propulsion change to a softer heaving motion, like that of a sailing vessel. When the accident occurred in darkness and a gale, it was more alarming than in daylight and a calm sea. After a few minutes of uncertainty the news would fly that the shaft was broken, and that the captain and the chief engineer were consulting in the engine-room. Then would come days, and sometimes weeks, of drifting, with a corresponding and ever-increasing alarm on shore as the ship became overdue. Under favorable circumstances some headway could be made with sails, and occasionally the disabled vessel reached port without assistance. Oftener, however, she would drift helplessly in the vacant sea until she was sighted by another steamer powerful enough to tow her. Left to herself, she was in danger of falling into the trough of the sea and foundering, and near land she was exposed to the perils of a strong current and a lee-shore. Arriving in port, a claim for salvage was sure to be presented against her, and in some instances the amount awarded was as much as thirty thousand pounds.
A broken shaft is still a disagreeable possibility, but if one of the two shafts in a twin-screw ship breaks, the other, as with the engines, remains to avert complete disablement.
An ingenious device has lately been patented to prevent a repetition of one of the most serious of recent disasters, which was caused by the wearing away of the bracket upon which rests the final bearing of the shaft. As this bracket is, in the largest ships, fully sixty feet from the stuffing-box, a new danger is created from the fact that it is far outside the hull and out of sight of the engineers. The invention referred to consists simply of a couple of completely insulated wires, positive and negative, connected by a battery, an indicator, and an alarm-bell in the engine-room. The wires run under the shaft out through the stuffing-box, and through the casing which protects the shaft from the sea; then they enter the bracket, where they turn from the horizontal to the perpendicular, and terminate about three-quarters of an inch from the surface of the bearing. Should the surface wear away so as to imperil the shaft, the latter would instantly come in contact with the ends of the wires, the insulation would be broken, the current closed, and the alarm-bell rung. Then, of course, the engine would be stopped until an examination could be made.
Though it promotes safety and is winning favor, the twin screw has been applied so far only to the City of Paris, the City of New York, the Teutonic, the Majestic, the Columbia, the Normannia, the Fürst Bismarck, and the Augusta-Victoria. Credit for the infrequency of broken shafts does not belong wholly to this device, therefore, but in a much larger measure to the substitution of steel for iron and other improvements in the form and materials of the marine engine.
The Lightship, off Sandy Hook.
The City of New York and the City of Paris are also provided with double bottoms, so that, should the outer skin be torn, the inner one would still exclude the sea; and the efficacy of oil in calming the troubled waters has been so well established that apparatus for its distribution is placed in the bows. The number of officers and seamen has been augmented, so that the staff of navigating officers now comprises the captain, the chief officer, two second officers, two third officers, and two fourth officers. Great improvements have also been made in the mariner’s compass and in the patent log and sounding machine. The latter can be used when the ship is going at a high rate of speed, and it records not only the depth of water but the character of the bottom, which is nearly always a clue to the position of the ship when other signs fail. Had these instruments been less perfect, we could not have made our way, with so little delay, past Fastnet and up the Channel to Holyhead, when the fog descended as we were making land.
Broken Bow of La Champagne, after her Collision outside New York Harbor, December, 1890.
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Still another improvement is in the material of which the propellers are cast. In the new ships it is manganese bronze, which has nearly double the strength of steel and is practically unbreakable.
Sixteen or seventeen years ago the principal lines began to adopt the system of “steam lanes” originally suggested by Professor M. F. Maury, as long ago as 1855—that is, to prescribe definite courses for their steamers, based on calculations as to probable areas of fog and ice. In following these fixed courses the steamers pass each other at an hour and a point on the ocean which can be foretold almost to a certainty, and should one of them meet with an accident, there is every probability that succor will reach her through one of her companion ships.
A Sunken Schooner.
So keen is the rivalry between the various lines, and so much does their success depend on a reputation for safety, that self-interest, in the absence of a higher motive, is sufficient to stimulate them to leave nothing undone, in the construction and manning of their vessels, which may in any way be the means of averting disaster. In furtherance of their efforts, the British and American governments unite in giving them the most perfect system of lights, buoys, and fog-signals in the world. When twenty or more miles at sea, the captain may discern the rays of the first light, and as he nears port and enters the Channel, there are nearly as many beacons as lamp-posts in a city street.
No testimony to the efficiency of the transatlantic service is more convincing than the record of 1890. The steamers were exposed, as they must be every year, to dangers from collision, from ice, from hurricanes, from drifting derelicts, on their way up and down the crowded Channel and through the shifting sands at the estuary of the Mersey; they were constantly embarrassed by fogs. Nearly two thousand trips were made from New York alone to various European ports: about two hundred thousand cabin passengers were carried to and fro, in addition to nearly three hundred and seventy-two thousand immigrants who were landed at Castle Garden. This enormous traffic was conducted without accident, and no more comforting assurance can be given than this of safety on the Atlantic.
THE OCEAN STEAMSHIP AS A FREIGHT CARRIER.
By JOHN H. GOULD.
Revenue of the Ship’s Cargo—Amount of Freight Carried by Express Steamships—Gross Tonnage of Important Lines Running from New York—The Merchant Marine of the United States—The “Atlantic Limited”—The Sea Post-office—In the Specie Room—Enormous Refrigerators—The New Class of “Freighters”—Large Cargoes and Small Coal Consumption—The Ocean “Tramp”—Advantages of the “Whaleback”—Vessels for Carrying Grain—Floating Elevators—The Fruit Steamship—Tank Steamships for Carrying Oil—Peculiarities of their Construction—The Molasses Ship—Scenes on the Piers when Steamships Are Loading—Steam Hoisting Apparatus—How The Freight is Stowed—Coaling—The Loading of Cattle Ships—“Cowboys of the Sea”—Ocean Traffic the Index of a Nation’s Prosperity.
INTERESTING as the ocean fleet is from the point of view of the passenger who crosses the seas on business or pleasure bent, the part that steamships play in the commerce of the world is even more worthy of consideration. There is a vast region between decks and down in the lower hold of which the ordinary traveller knows little. And yet the ship’s cargo brings to the owners a large portion of their revenue, and makes possible the magnificent steamships of to-day.
There are $500,000,000 invested in ocean-going steamships sailing from the port of New York alone! The figures are appalling, yet they are a conservative estimate of the wealth intrusted to the mercies of the ocean. There are twenty-nine regular lines of steamships running between New York and European ports. Of these, eight lines run express steamships, and twenty-three lines carry passengers and freight. The other six lines transport freight only, and there are still other lines running to the West Indies, Central and South America, and our own Atlantic coast and Gulf ports.
Seven steamship companies—the White Star, Inman, Cunard, North German Lloyd, Hamburg-American, Guion, and the French line—have the record-breakers.
The Teutonic and the Majestic of the White Star line, and the new French liner La Touraine, are said to have cost $2,000,000 each. The City of Paris and the City of New York, of the Inman line, and the new Hamburg-American steamship First Bismarck are supposed to have cost considerably over $1,500,000 each.
The White Star line steamships Majestic and Teutonic each carry, in addition to their 1,500 passengers, some 2,500 tons of freight. This line has in all ten steamships—six devoted to passengers and freight, and four to freight exclusively.
The Inman line steamships City of Paris and City of New York carry 1,200 passengers each, and still have room for 2,700 tons of freight.
The Cunarders Etruria and Umbria have each accommodations for about 1,600 passengers, and also take about 800 tons of freight.
The North German Lloyd line has twelve express steamships in the service, with an average passenger capacity of 1,150 for all classes. The freight capacity varies from 2,000 to 2,500 tons: the line has three sailing days each week. There are nine other steamships of the line sailing between this port, Baltimore, and Europe, making the total number of their vessels twenty-one. In October, 1891, the line inaugurated a Mediterranean service. At all times there are eight of the express steamships belonging to this line at sea, and two are in port at New York and two in the European port.
The Hamburg-American Packet Company has four express steamships, forming a weekly service from New York, and which is almost entirely devoted to the passenger business. These vessels each accommodate about 1,250 passengers of all classes. They have a small freight capacity—from about 600 to 700 tons of light cargo being the limit. No perishable goods are taken.
The Guion line steamships Alaska and Arizona have passenger accommodations for 1,300 and 1,100, respectively, and their freight capacity is about 2,000 tons.
The Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, or, as it is more frequently called, the French line, has six express steamships, with a freight capacity of 2,500 tons each, as well as accommodations for about 1,000 passengers.
The Wilson line, with its thirty steamships, is one of the greatest freight carriers in the world. There are four distinct lines from New York, one running to Hull, one to Antwerp, one to Newcastle, and one to London. The latter is known as the Wilson-Hill line. The Atlantic fleet, flying the Wilson flag, has 114,000 gross tonnage. Some of the steamships of this line have passenger accommodations, but the company confines itself almost exclusively to the carrying of freight.
The number and gross tonnage of steamships of the different lines are shown in the following table, the tonnage being from “Lloyd’s Register:”
Transatlantic Lines.
| Lines. | Number of Steam- ships. | Total Gross Tonnage. |
|---|---|---|
| Wilson | 30 | 114,000 |
| North German Lloyd (12 direct and 9 calling at Baltimore) | 21 | 111,585 |
| Hamburg-American (including Baltic line) | 19 | 82,589 |
| Anchor (including Mediterranean service) | 15 | 63,083 |
| Netherlands (9 direct and 4 calling at Baltimore) | 13 | 43,314 |
| National | 12 | 54,062 |
| Sumner | 12 | 42,800 |
| White Star | 10 | 58,162 |
| Florio | 9 | 22,500 |
| Red Star | 7 | 33,959 |
| Fabre | 7 | 23,600 |
| Mediterranean & New York S. S. Co. | 7 | 15,000 |
| Inman | 6 | 41,276 |
| Cunard | 6 | 40,253 |
| French | 6 | 46,927 |
| Allan | 6 | 23,738 |
| Liverpool, Brazil & River Plate (Atlantic service) | 6 | 12,000 |
| Guion | 5 | 22,651 |
| Bristol City | 5 | 24,000 |
| Beaver, during winter months | 5 | 17,500 |
| Arrow | 5 | 13,000 |
| Thingvalla | 4 | 11,985 |
| Union (Sloman’s) | 4 | 11,750 |
| Marseilles | 4 | 12,000 |
| Great Western S. S. Co. | 4 | 10,000 |
| Bordeaux | 3 | 6,000 |
| White Cross | 2 | 5,169 |
| Linha de Vapores Portuguezes | 2 | 3,777 |
| Insular Navigation Co. | 1 | 2,893 |
This list gives only the regular lines engaged in the freight and passenger business, besides which there are the tank steamships, the tramp steamships, and a large number of vessels which call for orders from other ports, as well as steamships which are chartered for special freights.
Central and South American, West Indian, and other Lines from New York.
| Lines. | Number of Steam- ships. | Total Gross Tonnage. |
|---|---|---|
| Atlas | 12 | 22,000 |
| Booth’s | 10 | 14,000 |
| Red Cross | 10 | 16,225 |
| New York & Cuba S. S. Co. | 9 | 25,300 |
| Red “D” | 6 | 11,020 |
| Quebec S. S. Co. | 6 | 9,094 |
| Royal Dutch West Indian Mail | 6 | 10,156 |
| United States & Brazil S. S. Co. | 5 | 16,400 |
| Compañia Trasatlantica | 5 | 10,866 |
| Earn | 5 | 12,500 |
| Union (Sloman’s) | 4 | 8,000 |
| Clyde (West Indian) | 4 | 6,600 |
| Waydell’s | 4 | 4,500 |
| Trinidad | 4 | 4,000 |
| Atlantic & Pacific S. S. Co. | 4 | 9,904 |
| Pacific Mail | 3 | 8,800 |
| Wessell’s | 3 | 4,500 |
| Liverpool, Brazil & River Plate[18] | 3 | 7,500 |
| Honduras & Central American | 2 | 3,000 |
| Anchor (West Indian Service) | 2 | 2,077 |
| Maryland | 2 | 6,000 |
| New York & Porto Rico S. S. Co. | 2 | 2,000 |
Loading Grain from a Floating Elevator.
Besides the regular lines there is a big fleet of tramp steamships. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1891, 136 of these steamships, with 102,856 net registered tonnage, entered at the port of New York. This did not include the tramps who found their way here from West Indian and South American ports, or our own domestic ports, or those who may have drifted in from provincial ports. Many foreign tramps find their way to this port in ballast, seeking cargo, or for orders.
Aside from all these lines to foreign ports, there are our coastwise steamships, operated by a dozen or more lines, prominent among them being the Old Dominion, the Savannah, the Clyde, the Mallory, the Cromwell, the Morgan, the New York Steamship Company, and the Red Cross lines.
The ocean steamship lines require an auxiliary fleet of harbor vessels as tenders to them. Of these, the most numerous are the tow-boats, or tugs, as they are popularly called. There are 375 tow-boats registered at New York, but fully 400 float on the waters in the vicinity of the city. About 50 tow-boats have a gross tonnage of over 100 tons. Among the largest are the Amboy, of 272 tons, and the Luckenback, an ocean tug, of 255 tons. Still larger than these are the Vanderbilt and Oswego, the side-wheelers which pull the long strings of canal-boats up and down the Hudson. The tow-boats are fitted with powerful engines, and the facility with which one little tug will pull a ship many times her size, or a dozen canal-boats, is a marvel to the visitor from inland districts. The most powerful of these tugs have engines of 900 indicated horse-power, and of the type known as the fore-and-aft, or tandem. Two of these harbor tugs, the Amboy and the Raritan, both belonging to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, have been operated with twin screws for twenty years at least.
Less than twenty-five per cent. of the freight trade of the country is carried on by ships flying the Stars and Stripes. During the calendar year of 1890, 33,359 vessels engaged in foreign trade entered at the ports of the United States. Their total tonnage was 18,510,374. American vessels, to the number of 11,033, carried 4,334,774 tons of the total amount, and foreign ships handled 14,175,600 tons. The merchant marine of the United States has a total tonnage of 4,424,497. The coastwise fleet has an aggregate tonnage of 3,409,435; the foreign trade, 928,062; and vessels registering 87,000 tons are engaged in the cod and whale fisheries. The vessels belonging to the port of New York in 1890 were 1,976 sailing vessels, of 409,468 tons; 1,032 steam vessels, of 374,673 tons; 230 canal boats, of 23,709 tons; and 671 barges, of 143,540 tons.
The volume of the ocean freight is enormous. Some idea of it can be gathered from the statistics of imports and exports issued by the United States Government. Of cotton alone, the vast quantity of 2,907,308,000 pounds was shipped from American ports during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1891. This is the largest quantity of cotton sent out of the country in any one year. The value of the cotton exported was $290,708,898, which is nearly half the value of the sum total of the four leading agricultural products. This amounted to $588,251,912. Next to cotton, the most important agricultural products exported were breadstuffs, including grain, which were valued at $127,668,092. Provisions, including meats and dairy products, amounted to $31,696,234. It is worth noting that the total value of the exports of these five leading products was $15,263,951 in excess of the same products in the previous year. The total value of exports and imports of merchandise, during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1891, was $1,729,330,896, an increase of $82,191,803 over the previous year, and of $241,797,869 since 1889. The foreign commerce of the United States for the year 1890 was the largest in the history of the country. The movement of the vast quantities of agricultural products and manufactured goods kept the ocean fleet busy. Forty per cent. of the total export trade of the United States goes from the port of New York. During 1890 the export business from the five principal ports was as follows: New York, $370,322,430; New Orleans, $107,300,637; Baltimore, $73,967,796; Boston, $70,364,955; and Philadelphia, $37,241,645. The total from all ports was $881,076,017. The imports in 1890 amounted to a total of $823,286,735, out of which New York received $527,497,196, considerably over one-half. It might be noted in passing, that of the total amount of customs duties collected by the Government in 1890, 67.17 per cent. came from New York.
Time is a great factor in ocean freight transportation, as well as in the passenger business. In the old days when the clipper ship was considered a perfect type of ocean travel, twenty days was a quick passage between New York and Liverpool, and when the Red Jacket made her famous trip in 13 days, 1 hour, and 25 minutes, the feat created as much excitement as the breaking of a record by an ocean greyhound does in these days of marine triumphs. The trip was made in 1854, and was an eastward one, the sailer logging 3,017 miles from Sandy Hook to Liverpool. In the following year the clipper ship Mary Whitredge ran from Baltimore to Liverpool in 13 days and 7 hours; she travelled 3,400 miles. Another remarkable trip was made by the Dreadnaught in 1860. She sighted the Irish coast in 9 days and 17 hours after leaving New York; but it took her three days longer to reach Liverpool. An instance showing the sailing quality of the old clipper ships occurred in 1864. The Adelaide, of the Williams & Guion line, while on her way down New York Bay, was passed by the steamship Sidon, of the Cunard line; but the Adelaide arrived in the Mersey before the Sidon, having made the passage in 12 days and 8 hours.
The clipper ship was the ocean greyhound of the Fifties. Her lines were those of a racer, her towering masts and broad expanse of canvas gave her the benefit of every breeze. She carried only the better class of freight in addition to her passengers, and it was not until some time after steamships had become an established fact that the passengers abandoned the clippers to the freight traffic.
For a time the sailing vessels held their own as freight carriers, but the improvements in steamships of recent years have robbed them of the bulk of their trade. They still hold their own for long sea voyages. There is a limit to the use of steam, and it is reached when the distance to be travelled makes the cost of coal and the space it occupies greater than the value of the cargo will warrant. Until some new motive power replaces steam, or steam is produced by the use of petroleum or other concentrated fuel, the clipper ship still has an occupation, and the hearts of all old-time skippers will be gladdened by the sight of her white wings upon the seas.
In 1850 a 1,400-ton sailing vessel was considered a big ship, but some of the new British four-masted steel ships sailing between Europe and America carry from 5,000 to 6,000 tons of cargo.
Great as have been the changes in ocean transportation, still greater changes are pending. The transatlantic business shows the most marked changes. From the old time packetship to the early type of steamship was but the first step. Faster vessels were built, and the space devoted to cargo was encroached upon by enormous engines and boilers, by big coal bunkers, and by large saloons and an increased number of state-rooms. The hulls changed from the bulging sides of the first types to the narrow, racing pattern of to-day. Speed and the arrangements for the comfort of a large list of passengers robbed the vessels of their freight capacity, and now the freight of an ocean greyhound is a secondary consideration. This necessitated the creation of a distinct class, known as the freighter.
The first railway cars having compartments for passengers, baggage, and freight were changed to express trains, where speed and comfort are the first considerations, and freight trains, where carrying capacity is the main object. In just the same manner, and for the same reasons, the ocean traffic is undergoing changes. The day cannot be far distant when the passenger ships will take only passengers, mails, specie, and express packages. The best-informed nautical men to-day declare that the progress of the last five years, remarkable as it has been, is but a circumstance compared with the possibilities of the future.
Unloading and Loading a Coastwise Steamer by Electric Light.
The ocean greyhound is simply an exponent of the times. What the limited express trains are on land, the racer is upon the sea—the “Atlantic Limited.” Expense is no object. The faster the ship, the greater the rush for passage in her. She is, of course, a floating palace of magnificence, but speed is the main object, and speed is at times as important for certain classes of freight as it is for passengers. The hue and cry that steamship companies are endangering the lives of their passengers by ocean racing is pointed in the wrong direction. It is the public who are to blame, if blame it is to annihilate time and space by the genius of man. The owners of these vessels spend millions to build ships, and then risk both their capital invested, and the reputation of their line for safety, in order to satisfy their patrons. People of the nineteenth century—Americans in particular—are in a hurry, and never stop to consider the enormous expense, the immense consumption of coal, the fearful and terrible strain on the firemen and coal-passers down in the bowels of the great vessel. Everything is done with a rush. Lightning express trains across continents and racers upon the oceans are necessities of the day.
The love of record-breaking is universal. The performance of the Majestic on August 5, 1891, thrilled the people of every nation. Her triumph of crossing the Atlantic in 5 days, 18 hours, and 8 minutes was echoed round the world. Hardly had the echoes died out when her sister-ship—twin in size and type—the Teutonic, came into New York Harbor with a better record still. It was 5 days, 16 hours, and 30 minutes, and the Teutonic was crowned “Queen of the Seas.”
But for how long?
The City of Paris held her record for upward of two years; the Etruria and the Umbria each was the crack racer for a year; but the Majestic only held the coveted place at the head of the Atlantic fleet for just two weeks.
At the rate of increase of speed since 1880, when the Arizona was champion, with a record of 7 days, 8 hours, and 8 minutes, we should have a five-day ship before many years, and perhaps eventually a four-day ship. At a 25-knot gait a steamship would cross from Daunt’s Rock to Sandy Hook in 4 days and 15 hours. The Teutonic averaged 20.349 knots for the entire trip, and on a 24-hour run she averaged over 21 knots.
The success of the White Star ships is bound to have a marked effect upon the future of ocean navigation. The Cunard Company has already contracted for the construction of two steamships which are promised to outdo any of the present greyhounds; and rumor has it that the Inman line is about to add two new vessels to its fleet, the plans of which are now prepared, and it is expected that these new ships will go “one better.” Should this promise be fulfilled, there is little doubt but that Europeans who visit Chicago’s Columbian Fair in 1893 may cross the Atlantic in five days, or even less.
The freight capacity of the ocean greyhound, however, is small compared with her gross tonnage. The engines, boiler, and coal bunkers, and the space devoted to passengers, leave but little room for general cargo. Thus the gross tonnage of the Teutonic is 9,686, and her net tonnage 4,244, considerably less than half; while the Cufic, a freight boat of the same line, with a gross tonnage of 4,639, has a net tonnage of 3,055. The fast steamships therefore constitute the ocean express. They carry the mails, specie, and freights of a perishable nature, like meats and provisions, or of a character that requires speedy delivery.
The mail is placed in a capacious compartment about 50 feet long, 15 feet wide, and 7 feet high. It is located on the lower orlop deck, forward of the forehatch, and is capable of holding about 1,000 bags of mail. The bags for the different countries are separated in transit, and on arrival at Queenstown the mails are landed, provided there is time to catch the 12.30 A.M. special train, which is made up to connect with the mail-boat leaving Kingstown early the same morning for Holyhead. Should this connection be missed, only the Irish and Scotch mails are landed at Queenstown. The other mails are landed at Liverpool.
To the steamship Trave belongs the honor of having carried the largest European mail ever shipped from the port of New York, being 1,002 bags, in December, 1889. The largest European mail ever received at the port of New York was 1,062 bags, brought by the Servia in December, 1890.
The system of sorting the mails on board ship, which was recently inaugurated by the United States and German governments, is a success. It is in operation on eight vessels of the North German Lloyd line and the four express ships of the Hamburg-American line. This system is termed the “sea post-office,” and is similar to a post-office on land. The space required on board ship for the manipulation of the mails is equal to about three or four state-rooms. For each vessel the United States provides one official, and Germany supplies another. The latter has an assistant.
All disbursements are made at present by the German Government, but at the end of the year the two governments divide the expenses. On the eastern trip all mails, except the newspaper mail, are landed at Southampton. Only the German mail, and that for countries beyond Germany, is sorted. The British mail is put ashore unsorted, in the same manner that it is on the British steamship lines. The sorting of the mail during the passage enables the packages for each country to be forwarded direct from the nearest landing-point to their ultimate destination without delay. The saving of time at New York City alone is from 4 to 6 hours, and for Pittsburg and for points west and south of that place, where an immediate reply is required, a saving of from 24 to 48 hours is effected. The day cannot be far distant when all foreign mails will be sorted at sea; the system indeed has been in operation for many years on the P. & O. ships sailing to India and Australia.
In these days of heavy gold shipments, the specie-room on the steamship is a very important institution. It is located in an out-of-the-way place amidships, under the saloon. Few of the passengers know of its existence, or of the valuable treasure that is carried across the ocean with them. The room varies slightly on different ships, but is usually about 16 feet long, by 10 feet wide, and 8 feet high. It is constructed of steel plates one-quarter of an inch thick, and strongly riveted together. The floor, the ceiling, and the walls are all of steel plates. There is a heavy door, also made of steel. It is provided with two English “Chubb” locks, a variety of combination lock that is said to be burglar-proof. The gold and silver is usually in bars, but occasionally a quantity of coin in bags is shipped. This was the case when the heavy shipments of gold were made last spring. The Majestic is credited with carrying the largest quantity, her strong box having $4,500,000 intrusted to it for safe keeping.
The Specie-room of a Passenger Steamship.
The fast steamships are provided with enormous refrigerators for carrying dressed beef and mutton. The temperature is kept at about 30 degrees. Fruits, vegetables, butter, cheese, and bacon are shipped in large quantities in summer, and apples, oranges, oysters, and hops are sent over in the winter. Space is always reserved for the various European express companies.
Next to the ocean greyhound comes a class of steamships requiring from 7 to 8 days to cross the Atlantic, and having accommodation for from 800 to 1,000 passengers of all classes, and from 2,000 to 5,000 tons of freight. Both passenger and freight rates are slightly less than on the greyhounds, a preference being given to the latter at certain times, according to the condition of the market. The slower ships are patronized by people to whom the saving of a few dollars is an object, and by some who enjoy the ocean trip too much to be in a hurry about landing, and by others who imagine all sorts of dreadful things are going to happen to the racers. The class of freight carried varies but little from the faster ships, except that the mails, specie, and express goods are usually lacking. Cotton, tobacco, and merchandise, including manufactured goods and machinery, form the bulk of the general cargo.
The next grade of steamship is the new type, called the freighter. It is the result of the tendency to build express ships, and its object is to accommodate the freight which is crowded out by the speed requirements. These ships combine enormous freight capacity with a high rate of speed and minimum coal consumption. They have reduced the time of freighters between New York and Liverpool from 16 to 10 days without materially increasing the rate of freight. They carry heavy goods of all kinds to the amount of 5,000 tons, and from 600 to 800 head of cattle. To this class belong the four new White Star ships, the Tauric, the Nomadic—both of which have twin screws—the Runic, and the Cufic; also the Europe and America, of the National line.
The Nomadic has the record of carrying the largest amount of freight in one trip. In August, 1891, she carried 9,591 tons, including coal necessary for the voyage. The America, of the National line, left the port of New York, March 17, 1891, with 8,577 tons, including her coal, which was the largest cargo on record at that time, and until surpassed by the Nomadic. The England, also of the National line, carried 1,022 head of cattle from this port on September 18, 1889. This is the largest cargo of cattle ever carried by any ship.
Just previous to the heavy duty on tin-plate going into effect on July 1, 1891, the Cufic brought the largest cargo of tin-plate on record, being 76,529 boxes.
A type of ship which was at one time considered a first-class passenger vessel has been gradually forced from the trade by faster ships more luxuriously fitted, and is now engaged in carrying general freight. To this class belong the entire fleet of the National line, some of which, like the Spain, were at one time favorite passenger boats.
Another class of freight steamship is that wanderer of the seas, the “tramp.” Belonging to no regular line, identified with no particular class of cargo, having no regularity as to time of departure or ports of destination, and with a hold that takes anything from cotton to guano, from guano to bananas, and from bananas to petroleum, this nomad of the deep is a peculiar institution.
What more appropriate name than “tramp” can you suggest?
She is often a ship of considerable size, and is usually chartered for cargoes of a heavy character, but will take anything that offers. She usually has engines of low power, and her coal consumption is small. She requires from 15 to 20 days to cross the Atlantic.
In the summer of 1891 men who go down to the sea in ships were startled by seeing something new. A type of vessel of which much is promised, even to a revolution of the entire ocean freight business of the world, successfully made the trip from the head of Lake Superior to Liverpool, and returned to this country. This is the “whaleback” Charles W. Wetmore.
Built at West Superior, Mich., this original craft, having more the appearance of a large barge than an ocean steamship, has taken 87,000 bushels of grain, from the heart of the grain-producing region, through the lakes and the rapids of the St. Lawrence River, to the ocean and across to Liverpool.
The vessel is shaped like a huge cigar, pointed at both ends; her deck is arched and without any obstructions, save for a small turret forward, and a deck-house aft. The latter contains the cabin, wheel-house, and quarters for the captain, officers, and engineers.
When loaded, the hatches, which are huge iron plates, are bolted down and form a smooth deck surface, over which the waves have full play, saving Jack Tar the trouble of using the holy-stone or swab. The crew is quartered in the turret forward. The machinery, which is located directly aft, consists of a compound engine of 800 horse-power, with a 26-inch high-pressure cylinder.
The “Whaleback” Steamship for Grain and other Freight.
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The hull is made of steel, and is 265 feet in length, 38 feet in breadth, and the depth of hold is 24 feet. Four feet above the keel is an inner skin for additional safety, and between this skin and the hull are nine compartments, which are buoyant air-chambers when the ship is loaded, and serve to hold water ballast when she has a light cargo. A railing made of wire rope extends the length of the hull on each side, and is intended as a protection for the men when they have occasion to visit their shipmates in the after part of the vessel.
The hold is one large compartment, with a bulkhead forward, where the men’s quarters are, and one aft, where the machinery is located, and also the firemen’s quarters.
The Wetmore draws 17 feet of water, and her capacity is said to be 100,000 bushels of grain, or 3,000 tons of other cargo.
The advantages claimed for the whaleback are her low cost of construction, which is one-third less than that of an English tramp steamship of the same capacity; her elongated, elliptical form, which offers less resistance to the wind and waves, so that she can be propelled with less power than the ordinary steamship; her small consumption of coal, but from twelve to thirteen tons a day, or about half that of an ordinary steamship, being used; and a crew of twenty men navigating the Wetmore, as against a crew of thirty men required to man another ship.
It is also stated that the Wetmore can be discharged more quickly of grain or other cargo, and that there is less rolling and tossing at sea than in the ordinary type of steamships. But it must be remembered that as yet the Wetmore is only an experiment. Her transatlantic trip was taken in August, when the sea was most tranquil. How she will behave in midwinter, when her arched back will be coated with ice, and her deck-works perhaps washed away, is not quite clear. Her lack of life-boats and other life-saving appliances is also noticeable.
This type of vessel in some modified form will no doubt be a great success as a carrier of grain, coal, oil, molasses, and other bulky freights; but the Wetmore must be furnished with hoisting machinery or other devices in order to facilitate the quick loading of heavy materials, before she becomes what may be regarded as a complete success.
To the three classes of steamships last mentioned, the carrying of grain is a large item. But there are at all seasons of the year vessels engaged almost exclusively in carrying grain.
About 2,000 vessels loaded with grain sailed from the port of New York during 1890. The number was even greater in 1891, owing to the abundance and quality of the grain crop of the United States, the small crops abroad, and the action of the Russian Government in prohibiting the export of rye from its territory.
The sailing vessel is rapidly disappearing from the grain-carrying trade. Ten years ago there were 1,782 sailing ships engaged in the grain trade, now there are only about thirty cargoes in a year from New York. The total amount of grain and breadstuffs exported from the United States in 1890 was valued at $141,602,847. Of this New York shipped 321⁄4 per cent., and yet fears are entertained that New York will lose her grain business, owing to the heavy port and storage charges compared with those of other seaports. In 1890, New York handled $45,649,765 worth of grain. Corn led in the amount shipped, there being a total of 24,374,745 bushels. Wheat came next with 12,607,484 bushels, and there were 9,192,203 bushels of oats and 1,389,419 bushels of rye. There were 3,693,598 barrels of wheat flour shipped from New York out of a total for the United States of 11,319,456 barrels. Barley, buckwheat, and rice were exported in smaller quantities, and cornmeal, oatmeal, and other preparations, not included in the above figures, were sent to foreign ports.
Ships are specially fitted up for carrying grain. The hold is divided into compartments by a longitudinal bulkhead in addition to the ordinary bulkheads. This is done to prevent the cargo from shifting. The hold is ceiled in order to prevent any waste of grain which is shipped in bulk in the lower hold; shifting planks are placed on each side of the keelson and fitted to side stanchions between the beams, and care is taken to secure the planks so that they will hold their places even in a rough sea. The British Board of Trade requires that the hatches of the lower hold shall be supplied with a feeder or hopper capable of holding a sufficient quantity of grain to fill the hold completely as the grain settles; these feeders extend above the lower deck. The space between decks is filled with grain in bags. Care is taken in loading to stow these bags so that the space between decks will be entirely filled. These requirements have been adopted by ship-owners and shippers generally.
With the exception of the American line from Philadelphia, United States vessels cut but a small figure in grain traffic. Their four vessels are the only American steamships engaged in the business. In one year Great Britain carried 616 shiploads of grain, or an aggregate of nearly 25,000,000 bushels; Germany carried 167 shiploads, or nearly 4,000,000 bushels; Belgium carried 70 shiploads; France, 33; Denmark, 21; Italy, 15; Spain, 8; Austria, 10; Portugal, 9; and Norway, 6.
The handling of all this grain, by the time it arrives by canal-boat or by railway from the West, to the time that the ship sails from the harbor, requires a large number of elevators and many men.
There are 31 floating elevators in the port of New York, which are towed alongside of grain ships in order to fill in bulk. The grain is simply pumped from the capacious bins of the elevator to the hold of the ship.
The large stationary grain elevators are used as much for storage as for loading vessels. The number of stationary elevators in the port of New York is 22, and the total storage capacity of this port is 26,000,000 bushels.
Some idea of the quantity of grain stored in one of these elevators may be gained from the fact that when the elevators of the New York Central Railroad Company, at Sixtieth Street and the North River, were burned, the loss on the grain alone amounted to at least $75,000. The elevators had a total capacity of 2,300,000 bushels, and contained only 100,000 bushels at the time of the fire. Only one elevator was rebuilt.
The transfer capacity at the port of New York, or the rate at which grain ships can be loaded, is 458,000 bushels per hour.
Another type of vessel is the fruit steamship. There are about 90 in the tropical fruit trade between the United States, West Indies, and Central America. Bananas form the great bulk of the trade; cocoa-nuts, oranges, pineapples, and other fruits make up the balance of the cargoes. The principal fruit ports in the United States, besides New York, are Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Orleans. The steamships are built expressly for the fruit trade, and are all, or nearly so, under the Norwegian and English flags, the Norwegian ships predominating. The hull is of steel lined with wood; the space between the steel plates (or outer skin of the vessel) and the wood is filled in with charcoal, which makes the ship a huge floating refrigerator. The vessels are provided with all the latest improvements in motive power, including triple-expansion engines and steam steering-gear. Some of the best ships devoted exclusively to the fruit trade have twin screws, and have accommodation for from 10 to 12 saloon passengers. Their average speed is from 11 to 13 knots. Many of the ships have their engines and boilers further aft than is the case in ordinary freighters.
Unloading a Banana Steamship.
Fruit steamships have three decks, all open, with a space of about two inches between each of the deck planks. This arrangement assures a free circulation of air at all times, and thus the fruit is preserved from heating and decay. These ships carry from 15,000 to 25,000 bunches of bananas, each bunch averaging in weight from 60 to 80 pounds, but some bunches have been found to weigh over 200 pounds. The fruit is “stowed” by an experienced stevedore, who devotes himself exclusively to the fruit trade. The bunches are placed on end along the decks, until all the space is filled; then a second and a third tier of bunches are laid flat, one over the other, in a manner that allows plenty of ventilation. Great care is taken to prevent the fruit from contact with salt-water, which causes the black spots frequently seen on bananas. After the vessels discharge the fruit they return in ballast for another cargo. The bulk of the crop is shipped during the five months from February to August. At the expiration of the season about one-third of the fruit vessels return to tropical ports and continue in the trade between there and the United States fruit ports during the winter. The other ships return to Europe with a grain cargo, and are chartered for general freight until the next fruit season.
Besides these vessels already mentioned, there are also three or four regular steamship lines which are largely engaged in the tropical fruit trade. The principal lines are the Atlas line, the Pacific Mail, the Anchor line, and the Honduras & Central American line. The vessels of the Atlas line are fitted with the most modern appliances for the preservation of the fruit. All these lines have excellent passenger accommodation, and carry a general cargo as well.
The total receipts of bananas at all United States ports in 1890 was 13,284,756 bunches, New York alone receiving 5,433,295 bunches of the fruit. The principal ports of shipments were Jamaica, 2,108,975 bunches; Baracoa, 1,478,596 bunches; Port Limon, 547,976 bunches; Honduras, 205,290 bunches; and other ports, 125,000 bunches.
The Mediterranean fruit trade requires a large fleet of steamships during the autumn and winter months. Oranges, lemons, limes, Malaga grapes, raisins, currants, and nuts form the bulk of the cargoes. Sicily alone sends us 1,000,000 boxes of oranges a year, and half as many boxes of lemons. Spanish grapes, to the amount of 600,000 barrels annually, and dried fruits in vast quantities from the various Mediterranean ports, make up an enormous import trade. There are no steamships specially devoted to this business, as the season lasts only a portion of the year. The vessels employed are steamships which are well ventilated, and having a good rate of speed, as they all, or nearly so, carry passengers and a general cargo.
The Florio line, the Mediterranean fleet of the Anchor line, and the Mediterranean and New York Steamship Company, handle nearly all of this class of trade.
The tank steamship, for carrying oil in bulk, is an American invention. Ship-builders declared for years that no vessel with a shifting cargo, like oil in bulk, would live through a gale, but an enterprising Yankee demonstrated the fact that petroleum could be pumped from the pipe line directly into the hold of a steamship and transported across the ocean in safety. The cost of barrelling the oil is saved, and there is also considerable economy in loading.
Cross-section of a Tank Steamship, showing the Expansion Tank.
The tank steamship can always be distinguished by her odd appearance, the funnel being placed a little forward of the mizzen-mast. She has two decks; the hold is divided into from 7 to 9 compartments or tanks for oil; each tank has a capacity of about 4,000 barrels. An empty space of about two feet, called a safety well, is forward of the boilers and engines, separating them from the cargo hold. This empty space, which has a bulkhead on each side, is sometimes filled with water. The depth of the tanks or hold is about 24 feet. On the top of these tanks are expansion tanks, about 5 feet square, reaching to the upper deck, and provided with hatches. The tanks are filled quite full, but sufficient space is left unfilled in the expansion tanks to allow for the expansion of the oil, which is one per cent. in volume for every 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
The tanks are filled by means of a very powerful pump, situated at varying distances, from a few yards to one-eighth of a mile from the ship. The greatest care is taken in loading the vessel. A man with a flag is stationed on the ship’s deck, and another man with a flag is placed at the tank. The signal to start and to stop pumping is passed from one to the other. The largest vessel can be filled in about twelve hours. The balance of space between decks is used for storing coal, the ship’s fuel. When the cargo is discharged in Europe the tanks are filled with water ballast for the return trip.
Loading a Tank Steamship with Oil, by Force Pumps.
Some of these steamships have been very lucky in picking up disabled passenger steamships, which, of course, means a substantial salvage. There are now about 70 of these tank steamships in the trade, the majority of which are employed by the Standard Oil Company and their connections, and new ones are being constantly added to meet the increasing trade. They are all under foreign flag—English, German, and Dutch—but the Standard Oil Company owns a large interest in them.
These steamships are all supplied with triple expansion engines, and are capable of maintaining a speed of from 8 to 11 knots per hour on the small coal consumption of about 25 tons for each 24 hours. The Bayonne is the fastest; she made the trip from England to New York in 11 days, averaging 11.10 knots per hour. They average from 2,000 to 3,000 tons gross, and carry from 3,000 to 4,000 tons of cargo. Aft of the engine-room is the cabin and officers’ quarters, which are comfortable in every particular. The crew is located in the forecastle, as is usual on all vessels. The crew number about 30, all told.
Another type of steamship, which is an outcome of the tank idea, is the molasses ship. These have been used with success in carrying molasses in bulk between Havana and New York. The Circassian Prince is a notable instance of this type. The traffic in molasses is not very great at present, but when the trade increases tank steamships will, no doubt, be largely employed.
The loading of an ocean steamship is a sight well worth a visit to one of the city piers to witness. With the exception of the North German Lloyd, the Hamburg-American, the Netherlands, and the Thingvalla lines, whose piers are in Hoboken, and the Red Star Line, and some of the Inman vessels, in Jersey City, the great transatlantic steamships dock along the North River, from Canal Street up to Twenty-fourth Street. The length of the steamships, some of them being nearly 600 feet, make very long piers necessary. These piers on a sailing day present an animated scene. A long line of trucks, loaded with all sorts of merchandise, moves slowly down the pier, each truck delivering its packages opposite the particular hatchway down which they are to be lowered. The big ships load at four different hatchways at the same time. Steam-hoisting apparatus at each, and separate gangs of men, all, however, under the direction of one stevedore, load and stow the immense cargo in an incredibly short space of time.
All prominent lines handle their own freight, but some of the smaller lines give it out by contract to a stevedore, who employs his own men. About six gangs of twenty-five men each, and about twelve foremen and dock-clerks are employed. As many men are employed as can work to advantage. The day men are relieved by other gangs of men who work at night. In rush times a few men are added to each gang. From 10,000 to 100,000 packages constitute an ocean steamship’s cargo. The largest number of packages are carried at the season of the year when the Bordeaux fruit canning trade is on, and the proportion of small packages is increased. Some big packages, such as a street-car completely boxed, or a steam-launch enclosed in a case, require considerable power and much skill to load. Heavy machinery and enormous cases are lifted from the dock, swung over the open hatchway, and lowered to the cavernous depths as quickly and easily as though they weighed but a hundred pounds instead of several tons.
The stowing of the freight requires experience and judgment. The weight must be arranged so that the vessel stands upon an even keel, and she must not be down at the bow, or too low at the stern. Then the cargo must be stowed so that it will not shift. The importance of this is seen when the rolling and plunging of the ship in a heavy sea is considered. The cargo would not only be seriously injured if it tumbled about, but the vessel would be unmanageable. The stevedores and the ’longshoremen who attend to this work are experienced men, and the difficulty of loading ships with inexperienced men caused the owners of many steamships to permit them to remain idle at the time of the great London dock strikes.
Particular attention is paid to stowing the cargo of an ocean racer. Every package is fitted into place, so that the cargo will be a solid part of the vessel, and serve to ballast and trim her to the best advantage.[19]
The North German Lloyd line holds the record for rapid loading and unloading of cargo. The Eider arrived at 10 A.M., one day in January, 1890, and in twenty-nine hours her freight was discharged, and a full cargo, the mails, and her complement of passengers were on board, and the lines cast off for a return trip to Europe.
The ocean steamships are coaled at their docks. The barges containing the coal are towed alongside, on both sides of the vessel, and the work of coaling commences immediately after her arrival in port. It is hoisted up by iron buckets, coaling on both sides going on at the same time. It requires about four and a half days to coal one of the big greyhounds. There are eight coal barges employed in the work; each of these barges contains from 250 to 300 tons of coal. Some of the lines get their coal from Baltimore, and others from Norfolk. The coaling, as now conducted, is a tedious as well as a dirty process, and it is difficult to understand why lines have not adopted the elevator method which was tried on some of the naval and coastwise vessels some two years ago, and proved a success, both as to economy, rapidity, and cleanliness. The experiment showed that 500 tons of coal could be stowed away in the bunkers by chutes in one hour.
A Cattle Steamship at Sea.
The loading of cattle-ships is interesting. The vessels are tied up to the docks in Jersey City and Weehawken, where the stock-yards are located, and the cattle are driven up a narrow gang-plank. When steamships take grain or other cargo in the hold and cattle on deck, the latter are usually loaded from barges at the wharf, or while the vessel is at anchor in the bay. Occasionally a fractious steer breaks away from the drivers, and, plunging over the side of the gang-plank, takes a bath in the water. A sailor jumps in and passes a rope around the animal, which is then hoisted on board by means of a block and tackle. The cattle are placed in strongly constructed pens between decks, as well as on the upper deck. The space for each head of cattle is fixed by law at 2 feet 6 inches by 8 feet. The pens hold half a dozen cattle each. Experience has shown that there was greater loss when more room than this was allowed for the cattle. A steer with plenty of room in his pen would roll from side to side and become bruised or crippled when a heavy sea was encountered. By packing the cattle tightly, they serve as buffers for each other, and the loss is diminished. Within the last two or three years the methods of shipping cattle have been improved, so that the loss is now less than two per cent.
The cost of shipping cattle from New York to Liverpool is about half a cent per pound, live weight. This includes the care and the feed during the voyage. From ten to a dozen men are employed to look after the cattle on the trip. Very low wages are paid these men, as there are always a number of applications on hand from impecunious men who are desirous of working their passage to Europe by taking care of the cattle. A few men are regularly engaged in the business of taking care of cattle at sea. They are known as “cowboys of the sea,” and are big burly fellows who are used to rough living and to facing danger. The work of feeding and watering the cattle is not an easy task in fair weather, and with a rough sea on it is dangerous. When severe storms are met, the cattle become panic-stricken, and the men are obliged to go among them and quiet them. Sometimes the pens are broken down in a gale, and there is pandemonium aboard. Cattle-ships have arrived in port with only a small portion of the number of cattle taken on board, but as the losses fall upon the shippers and the reputation of the steamship line is to some extent at stake, they are, therefore, more interested in the safety of cattle at sea than anyone else. The efforts of Samuel Plimsoll, M.P., and the cattle inspectors of Great Britain and the United States, have materially improved the methods of this traffic.
Ocean freights are lower than those by rail. They fluctuate from day to day, and are affected by the supply, and by the available tonnage in port. Grain was carried from New York to Liverpool in 1890 for three shillings a quarter; the increased shipments in 1891 advanced the price to from four shillings to four shillings and ninepence a quarter, an advance of fifty per cent. The increased rate on grain affects all other rates, as the steamships vary their cargo according to the demands of the trade.
Just previous to the time the McKinley Bill went into effect, space on the fast steamships commanded seven times the usual rate, and hundreds of thousands of dollars depended upon the arrival of big consignments of dutiable goods within the time limit. The demand for space on the North German Lloyd line was so great that on one of the ships due to arrive in New York just before the new law went into effect, when shippers could not obtain room in the hold, several state-rooms were hired, and filled full of cutlery and other goods on which there was a considerable advance of duty. It will be remembered that in some instances tugs were sent out beyond Sandy Hook to meet steamships and sailing vessels which had been delayed, and hasten their arrival. The Etruria reached Quarantine at 11 P.M. on October 4, 1890. Captain Haines was taken off on a tug, which ploughed her way up the Bay. At the Battery a team of fast horses was waiting, and the captain rushed breathless into the Custom House, with barely one minute to spare, before midnight, when the new law went into effect. Thousands of dollars were saved by the timely arrival of the Etruria. The Zaandam, which had been chartered to bring over a large cargo of Sumatra tobacco, on which the duty was advanced $1.25 per pound, arrived a few hours late, although she sailed three days ahead of the Werkendam, of the same line, with a similar cargo, which arrived in time to save the increased duty.
Every nation is interested in the extension of its ocean freight-carrying business. The welfare of the farmer, the artisan, and the merchant is interwoven with that of men who live on the sea. Commerce and the industries go hand in hand, and the magnificent showing that the former makes is only an indication of the prosperity of the latter. No more apt illustration of the growth of the American nation in the last quarter of a century can be pointed out than the development of her ocean traffic.
STEAMSHIP LINES OF THE WORLD.
By LIEUTENANT RIDGELY HUNT, U. S. NAVY.
Important Part Taken by the United States in Establishing Ocean Routes—Rivalry in Sailing Vessels with England—Effect of the Discovery of Gold in California—The Cape Horn Route—Australian Packet Lines—The Problem of a Short Route to India—Four Main Routes of Steamship Traffic—Characteristics of the Regular Service between Europe and the East—Port Said and the Suez Canal—Scenes at Aden and at Bombay—The Run to Colombo, Ceylon—Some of the By-ways of Travel from Singapore—The Pacific Mail—From Yokohama to San Francisco—Two Routes from Panama to New York—South American Ports—Magnificent Scenery of the Magellan Straits—Beauties of the Port of Rio—The Great Ocean Route from London to Australia.
WRITERS of maritime history give to the United States the credit of establishing long lines of communication by sea with far-distant countries. As early as 1789 the merchants of Boston despatched their ships direct to China and the East Indies, some time before England entered on this trade; for the American vessels not only brought their cargoes to the home markets, but also trans-shipped spices, silks, teas, sugar, coffee, and cotton to Europe. In those times a skipper felt satisfied if he made the outward voyage of 15,000 miles, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, in 150 days, and came back via Cape Horn, some 17,000 miles, in the same time.
The development of the resources of the East by the East India Company, and the richness of the freights carried by the United States vessels—the proceeds of a single voyage often defraying the first cost of the ship—induced England to enter into competition; thus starting that rivalry between the sailing fleets of the two nations that was long the admiration of the world. In 1845 the American clippers, long, low, of good beam, very fine lines, and with yards so square and spars so lofty as to set a greater spread of canvas in proportion to their tonnage than any ship hitherto sailed, entered the race and left all rivals far astern. Then followed the days of which the old “sad sea-dogs” still love to tell, when every stitch of sail was carried until the fierce wind blew it from the bolt-ropes; when for weeks the lee scuppers lay buried in the seething waters and the flying jibboom plunged deep into the white-capped waves; when the good ship Sovereign of the Seas came into port 90 days from Hong-Kong, and the town gathered on the wharf to welcome the daring navigators; while the cargo of teas and coffees was sold at fabulous prices. And these old salts still discuss the dinner given to the bold captain that night, when the log of the voyage would be read and men would sit amazed at hearing that in 22 days the ship had sailed over 5,391 miles, that for four days her daily run had been 341.8 miles, and that in one day she had done 375 miles, at the rate of 15.6 knots.
The discovery of gold in California started a line of travel 14,000 miles long from Europe and the Eastern seaboard of the United States via Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. Ships on this line took out merchandise of every description to be used in building and maintaining the city of San Francisco, and after landing this freight, for which they received $25 a ton, they sailed for China, whence, after loading with teas and sugars at $25 and $30 a ton for freight, they returned direct to the United States or England.
In the meantime Australia had been opened up, and the Australian packet lines, leaving London for Melbourne 12,000 miles away, were making 100-days voyages by way of the Cape, “with a chance of being drowned.” This line carried many passengers, but it was not until 1850 that this traffic began to assume such importance that vessels were run on regular schedules for its accommodation. During the time of the Crimean war this trade was enormous, and the Liverpool packet lines between England and New York reaped a rich remuneration in spite of serious accidents. It is reported that in the year 1854 no less than nine emigrant ships foundered at sea.
The day of the sailing ship on short routes was now closing, for the steamship entering into competition, gradually absorbed the lucrative passenger traffic and much of the more valuable freight.
In looking over the history of the lines of the world, none is found to have exerted more influence upon subsequent progress than the old route between India and England. This route at first doubled the Cape of Good Hope—a distance of 14,000 miles, so long and uncertain that the East India Company frequently sent their despatches by way of the Persian Gulf and then overland between Bagdad and Constantinople. The successful crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by the steamship Savannah suggested the possibility of a like means of communication with India. Accordingly, the English side-wheel steamship Enterprise, of 470 tons, 122 feet long, bark-rigged, left Falmouth in the year 1825 and reached Calcutta, after a voyage of 13,700 miles, in 113 days, of which 64 were steaming days. This result, though unsatisfactory, stimulated efforts looking toward remunerative steam navigation in the East. The first steamship arrived at Macao, China, in 1830. As an inducement to people to choose this novel mode of travelling, a Canton paper contained the following notice of a steamer: “She carries a crew, a surgeon, a band of music, and has rooms elegantly fitted up for cards and opium smoking.”
The problem of a short route to Europe from India was practically solved in 1830, by sending a steamer from Bombay to Suez, a distance of 3,000 miles, in 25 days. In a few years a regular line was established between the two places, connecting with steamers at Alexandria by means of a camel service across the desert. The camel post was succeeded by four-horse vans, and later these were followed by the Suez Canal and the railway.
With the progress of time sailing-ships have given way to steamships, and the routes of communication which they, after years of navigation, did so much to establish, have become the highways of an enormous trade, along which large and swift steamships are constantly going to and fro with the certainty and regularity of railway trains. A steamer to-day leaves her wharf at the moment of time set forth in her schedule, and arrives at the terminus of her voyage—it may be many thousand miles away—with almost equal promptitude.
Like railway traffic, steamer traffic follows certain main routes or grand trunk lines, having numerous feeders or subsidiary lines. The great ocean thoroughfares of the world are:
1. The route across the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean Sea, Suez Canal, and Red Sea, to India, China, Australia, and eastern Africa.
2. The route by the Pacific Ocean to Japan, China, and Australia.
3. The route by the Atlantic Ocean down the east coast of South America, and around Cape Horn, to western America and Australasia; and
4. The route down the Atlantic and the west coast of Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope, to East Africa, Australasia, and the East. The number of steamers traversing these grand routes, and those tributary to them, is estimated to be more than 11,000. In order to emphasize the importance of ocean navigation, the appended table[20] of the number of steam vessels, their money value, and the value of the merchandise they carry, is given for the five greatest nations of the globe:
| Number of Steam Vessels. | Gross Tons. | Value of Vessels. | Value of Trade carried in Vessels. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great Britain | 6,403 | 8,235,854 | $550,000,000 | $3,476,500,000 |
| Germany | 741 | 928,911 | 63,500,000 | 1,624,000,000 |
| France | 526 | 809,598 | 48,500,000 | 1,471,000,000 |
| United States | 416 | 517,394 | 42,000,000 | 1,462,500,000 |
| Italy | 212 | 300,625 | 22,000,000 | 415,000,000 |
| Russia | 236 | 106,155 | 12,500,000 | 60,000,000 |
CHART OF THE WORLD
SHOWING THE
Principal Steamship Routes.
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Owing to the various lines of communication which have been opened up, the traveller is now offered the choice of a number of routes, each vying with the other in attractiveness and interest. For instance, the whole journey from London to Constantinople can be performed with no more than 17 hours of sea-passage; or, if a more leisurely way be preferred, the whole journey can be made by water. Therefore the first thing to be done is to determine the route to be followed, and the time to be given the trip. Then the dates of sailing should be settled. These preliminaries concluded, there comes the question of the selection of steamers. If England is to be visited, passage must be booked on some line bound to that country. If, however, the objective point be on the Continent, a room should be engaged on some line bound for Germany, France, Spain, or the Mediterranean.
The number of steamers engaged in the regular passenger service between the Eastern seaboard of the United States and the Old World is probably greater than most travellers imagine. At the present time there are upward of thirty-five distinct lines, each with a larger or smaller fleet of steamers regularly engaged in Atlantic transport. Six of these, the Cunard, the White Star, the Anchor, the Guion, the National, and the Inman, sail between New York and Liverpool. Four others, the Norddeutscher Lloyd, the Hamburg-American Packet Company, the Union line, and the Baltic line, trade between New York and German ports. The National line, the Hill line, and the Wilson line go to London; two others, the Allan-State and the Anchor, to Glasgow. Two French lines, the General Transatlantic and the French Commercial Steamship Company sail for Havre and Marseilles. Two lines communicate with Dutch ports, the Netherlands-American Steam Navigation Company, and the Royal Netherlands Steamship Company; two more, the Red Star and the White Cross lines, leave for Antwerp; one line, the Thingvalla, steams to Copenhagen, and the General Italian Navigation Company, and the Anchor line, make Italian ports.
The regular service by steam between Europe and the rich and varied East, by way of the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, and India, is carried on by several different companies, the best known of which are the Peninsular & Oriental Company of England, the Messageries Maritimes of France, the Norddeutscher Lloyd of Germany, and the Austrian Lloyd of Austria. Each of these mail lines offers to travellers all that can be desired in the way of food, quarters, comforts, and facilities for seeing strange lands and peoples; so the selection of any particular one must be decided by personal considerations.
The P. & O. (as the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company is commonly called) is one of the most extensive steamship organizations in the world, the yearly distance run on all its lines, main and subsidiary, exceeding 2,500,000 miles. In 1840 the company began the carrying of English mails in steamers between Alexandria and London, receiving for this service a subsidy of $160,000 a year. To-day the fleet numbers 50 vessels, which touch at ports of importance in the Mediterranean, Egypt, the Indian Ocean, China, Japan, and Australia, and the subsidy received for the transportation of mails to and from all these parts is $1,750,000 per annum.
If the traveller wishes to go by this line, he may commence his journey from either London or Plymouth, cross the Bay of Biscay, where the chances of getting an ugly sea and perhaps a gale of wind are about even, and entering the Mediterranean, make Gibraltar his first port, 5 days and 1,300 miles distant from London. A stay of 4 hours will allow a short run on shore. A drive around the superb Rock is worth the taking, also a visit to the battery, where the 16-inch 100-ton guns keep watch over the threshold of the blue sea. Loquacious guides tell of an under-the-sea tunnel between the fortress and Apes Hill, Africa, through which monkeys have passed, and that once upon a time five venturesome sailors started down this subway; three of them soon turned back, those remaining—but “that is another story.”
Deck Quoits on a P. and O. Liner.
From Gibraltar the P. & O. steamers steer for Malta, 980 miles away, generally through a smooth sea, though in winter northwesters blow at times with great violence off the Sicilian coast, raising a heavy sea in the channel. In summer the winds are from the southward, hot, humid, and prostrating, but they are not of frequent occurrence nor of long duration. On the fourth day the traveller is landed in Valetta, with 8 or 10 hours at his disposal. He should see the interior of the Church of St. John, where the floor is made of mosaic tablets in memory of the old knights, each tablet bearing a coat of arms formed by the most skilful inlaying of marble tiles.
From Malta to Port Said is 935 miles, made in 4 days. In winter there may be a norther. The traveller has now, after having gone 3,200 miles in 13 days, reached the port to which all ships bound southward make their way. Here will be found P. & O. steamers that have come from Brindisi with the Indian mails, having stopped at Alexandria to ship them by rail to Suez. This route, known as the Indian Mail, is the quickest of all between Europe and India. The train service runs from London to Brindisi in less than 50 hours. From Brindisi, where the steamer is waiting, and where the mails and passengers are hurried aboard, the run is made to Alexandria, 825 miles away, in 31⁄2 days. At Alexandria mails and through passengers are transported by rail to Suez in 16 hours, and from Suez a steamer leaves for Bombay via Aden, arriving 12 days later; the whole journey from London to Bombay, 4,020 miles, having taken 18 days.
A second great English line that makes for Port Said is the British India Steam Navigation Company, incorporated in 1856 to open up the coasting trade of India. This organization, upon the opening of the Suez Canal, despatched the first steamer through to London that carried an Indian cargo. Shortly afterward regular routes were inaugurated between London, Aden, and the Persian Gulf; and between Aden and the African coast to Zanzibar. Also a trunk route was established for the various coasting lines of India, extending from London to Calcutta. A further extension was begun about ten years ago, when Batavia, Thursday Island, Brisbane, and Sydney in Australia were added to its itinerary. The British India Steam Navigation Company employs on its main and auxiliary routes a fleet of over 100 vessels, large and small, that traverse about 3,000,000 miles a year.
If the traveller has reached Port Said from Marseilles, he has doubtless come in the Messageries Maritimes steamer. This great French undertaking began its first over-sea contract in 1851, carrying mails as far as Egypt. The next extension of operations was a line to Brazil and the Rio de la Plata. Finally a mail contract established the route to India, China, and Australia. To-day the Messageries fleet comprises 65 superb vessels that have cost about $27,000,000; and the aggregate distance they steam amounts to 2,520,000 miles every year. The ships bound for China leave Marseilles and Naples, and make the ports of Aden, Colombo, Singapore, Saigon, Hong-Kong, and Shanghai. A second main line stretches from Aden down to the Seychelles Islands, Mauritius, Melbourne, Sydney, and New Caledonia. The Messageries Company also operates lines to the West Indies and South America.
To Port Said comes also the Norddeutscher Lloyd Imperial Steamship Company, better known as the German Mail. The East Asian mail line of this company was established only in 1886, and is rapidly growing in importance and favor. The steamers leave Bremen, call at Antwerp, Southampton, and Genoa, thence through the canal to Aden, Colombo, Singapore, and Hong-Kong, to Shanghai. The mail route to Australasia reaches the ports of Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney, whence a branch line leads to the Samoan Islands and Tongatabu. The German Lloyd also operate a line from Trieste via Brindisi to Alexandria. For carrying the mails on the above three lines, in accordance with government stipulations, the German Lloyd receives a subsidy of $1,047,619 per annum.
Some of the other long lines operated by this efficient organization, which owns more than 75 ocean steamers, are those between Bremen and the United States, between Bremen and Brazil, and between Bremen and Montevideo and Buenos Ayres.
Table of Distances, Days, and Approximate Prices from London Eastward by Sea to San Francisco.
From New York to London is 3,000 miles, 7-8 days, and $100.
From San Francisco to New York by rail is 3,000 miles, 6 days, and $200.
| London. | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miles. | Days. | Price. | ||||||||
| 1,299 | 5 | $45 | Gibraltar. | |||||||
| Miles. | D. | Price. | ||||||||
| 2,280 | 9 | 75 | 981 | 4 | $30 | Malta. | ||||
| Miles. | D. | Price. | ||||||||
| 3,215 | 13 | 100 | 1,916 | 8 | 60 | 935 | 4 | $35 | Port Said. | |
| 4,610 | 20 | 125 | 3,311 | 15 | 125 | 2,330 | 11 | 120 | Aden. | |
| 6,274 | 27 | 250 | 4,975 | 22 | 240 | 3,994 | 18 | 220 | Bombay. | |
| 6,703 | 31 | 250 | 5,404 | 26 | 250 | 4,423 | 22 | 240 | Colombo. | |
| 8,362 | 38 | 290 | 7,063 | 33 | 270 | 6,082 | 29 | 250 | Singapore. | |
| 9,799 | 45 | 340 | 8,500 | 40 | 340 | 7,519 | 36 | 340 | Hong-Kong. | |
| 11,601 | 53 | 390 | 10,302 | 48 | 390 | 9,321 | 44 | 390 | Yokohama. | |
| 16,600 | 71 | 590 | 15,780 | 66 | 590 | 14,800 | 62 | 580 | San Francisco. | |
| Port Said. | ||||||||||
| Miles. | Days. | Price. | ||||||||
| 1,395 | 7 | $120 | Aden. | |||||||
| Miles. | D. | Price. | ||||||||
| 3,059 | 14 | 200 | 1,664 | 7 | $90 | Bombay. | ||||
| Miles. | D. | Price. | ||||||||
| 3,488 | 18 | 230 | 2,093 | 11 | 100 | 875 | 4 | $40 | Colombo. | |
| 5,147 | 25 | 300 | 3,752 | 18 | 220 | 2,534 | 11 | 130 | Singapore. | |
| 6,584 | 32 | 340 | 5,189 | 25 | 250 | 3,971 | 18 | 190 | Hong-Kong. | |
| 8,386 | 40 | 370 | 6,991 | 33 | 300 | 5,773 | 26 | 240 | Yokohama. | |
| 13,860 | 58 | 550 | 12,460 | 51 | 450 | 10,775 | 44 | 360 | San Francisco. | |
| Colombo. | ||||||||||
| Miles. | Days. | Price. | ||||||||
| 1,659 | 7 | $90 | Singapore. | |||||||
| Miles. | D. | Price. | ||||||||
| 3,096 | 14 | 150 | 1,437 | 7 | $60 | Hong-Kong. | ||||
| Miles. | D. | Price. | ||||||||
| 4,898 | 22 | 200 | 3,239 | 15 | 100 | 1,802 | 8 | $70 | Yokohama. | |
| 9,900 | 40 | 335 | 8,240 | 33 | 250 | 6,800 | 26 | 200 | San Francisco. | |
| Yokohama. | ||||||||||
| Miles. | Days. | Price. | ||||||||
| 5,000 | 18 | $200 | San Francisco. | |||||||
The Austro-Hungarian Lloyd’s Steam Navigation Company, the fourth great main line passing through the Suez Canal, was organized about the year 1840, with 7 steamers for Mediterranean trade. In time, the company prolonged its lines, until, under a liberal government bounty, routes were established between Trieste and Hong-Kong, and between Trieste and Brazil. For the proper performance of all these services the Austrian Lloyds are paid an annuity by the Government amounting to $800,000. The fleet, all told, numbers 75 ships, valued at about $10,000,000, and steams over 1,300,000 miles every year.
Of the different steamship corporations that despatch their vessels by way of the Suez Canal to Australia, the Orient Steam Navigation Company of London deserves special mention. In 1878 it founded a first-class line to Australia, which to-day is a formidable rival of the Peninsular & Oriental Company, receiving a like subsidy of $425,000 for transporting the mails between Naples and Adelaide in 32 days, a distance of 9,000 miles. There are many other companies sending vessels, via the Canal, to India, to China, and to Australasia; on nearly all of them the traveller can find comfort and good cheer, should he desire to be longer at sea and longer in port. The names of a few of the most important of these companies are as follows:
Under the English flag: the Ducal, the Hall, the Harrison, the Clan, the Star, the City, the Direct, the MacIver, and the Anchor lines; the National Navigation Company of France; the Navigatione Generale Italiana (Italian mail) of Genoa; the Compañia Trasatlantica, from Barcelona, Spain; the Nederland India line from Amsterdam; a Russian line; and a Turkish line.
Some of these steamers make the east coast of Africa for cargoes; some go to Australia; some to the Spice Islands, Java and the Philippines; some go no farther than India; and, finally, some reach Japan, Corea, and Vladivostock.
Entrance to the Suez Canal at Port Said.
Port Said, the product of the canal, is built on the flat sands at the entrance of the Suez Canal. Its harbor, formed by two long breakwaters, contains one of the largest coaling depots in the world, where vessels are supplied at the rate of 200 tons an hour. The place is noted for its wickedness; it abounds in French cafés and dance-halls where wine, women, and music continue the night long. The traveller should purchase a white helmet at Port Said; these hats are cheap, and add considerably to personal comfort.
The steam traffic of the place is enormous; last year 3,389 vessels traversed the canal. The average time of transit by day is 24 hours; by night with electric lights it is 19 hours, and has been done in 15 hours. In order to navigate by night, a vessel must light the way by carrying an electric projector at her bow as close to the water as possible, and pay the closest attention to the orders from the passing stations or gares. Three white lights shown vertically indicate “slow down;” then the display of two white lights is the order to stop and haul in to the gare. The steamer presently hauls in, makes fast, puts out all lights, and lies snug in her berth alongside the desert, while the oncoming vessel, looking like a locomotive at night, passes by. One white light from the gare and lines are let go, and the journey continued until Suez is reached.
Suez is an uninteresting collection of shipping-houses and squalid native huts, with a few tumble-down mosques. Donkeys and donkey-boys swarm along the docks, and if the vessel stop an hour or two the novelty of such a ride may be enjoyed. The heat of the day is intense, but the nights, especially in the canal, have a “soft, warm witchery” about them that is delicious.
After leaving Suez the way lies through the Gulf of the same name, into the Red Sea, where the water is blue, the background light brown, the hazy atmosphere pink, and the temperature red-hot. Vessels spread double awnings and hang up side curtains, but there is no escaping the intolerable heat experienced day and night going down this sea with the wind aft. Far away to the left, in the dim distance, is the fast-receding brown peak of Mount Sinai; other well-remembered biblical places stretch along the indistinct coast line; the ship speeds southward; the constellations in the blue heavens of night begin to change; the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb are passed; and as the four points of the Southern Cross arise bright and sparkling, the anchor is let go off Aden, in Arabia.
Aden, on its rocky and bare volcanic peninsula, is the Gibraltar of the Red Sea. It interests the traveller because of the big black Somalis, the oily, avaricious Jews, and the thin, ungainly camels moving up and down the streets. The town is too hot for enjoyment; it is better to stay on board ship, buy an imitation ostrich feather from a cheating Jew, and throw coppers into the water for little shave-headed naked negro boys to dive after.
The Port of Aden, Arabia.
During a stay of a few hours vessels fill up with coal and fresh provisions, land a small cargo of naval stores, cotton, and cotton-twist, and after taking on board coffee (nearly all Mocha is shipped here), dye-stuffs, feathers, dates, etc., depart for Bombay, for Colombo, for Australia, and for Africa.
The weather along the highways of the Indian Ocean is generally fair and warm, with a smooth sea, though, during the southwest monsoon, from May to September, there is a perceptible swell, and when this trade-wind sets in, in May, it is sure to bring gales, rain, lightning and thunder. August is the best summer month for cruising in the Indian Ocean. The northeast monsoon, the winter trade-wind, is less violent than the southwest, and has clear skies and a milder temperature. However, in going round the world, passengers, like ships, should take their chances with the weather, for having it fair at Bombay may bring it foul at Calcutta.
A Deck-bath in the Tropics.
Vessels make Bombay, 1,670 miles eastward of Aden, in 7 days, and go alongside the docks when the tide permits. The traveller should at once hurry ashore to gaze with wonder at the infinite variety before him. For here are congregated Indian princes dressed in flowing robes of richest colors; Brahmins and Buddhists with turbans of softest texture bound about their brows; Parsees in long, white, full-skirted coats and odd-shaped-high hats; Turks in fezzes; Chinamen in silks; Persians in white trousers, loose alpaca coats, and shako astrakhan hats; effeminate Cinghalese, Jews, Mohammedans, and Europeans from England, France, Germany, and Russia. Along the water front pass unceasingly women, straight as javelins, tall, lithe, and graceful, their breasts covered by tight sleeveless tunics, their waists and hips wound in light flowing gauze. Silver bangles adorn their arms and legs, and rings glisten in their noses and ears, and on their toes and fingers. Bare-legged, bare-footed, their black hair tucked loosely up upon their shapely heads, on which are poised high brass water-jugs burnished like gold, these graceful creatures walk the streets like the queens of an Oriental fable.
Many lines of vessels converge at Bombay: the P. & O., the British India, and three or four others of less importance; two French lines, a German line, the Austrian Lloyd, the Italian Mail, and a Dutch line, are some of those to be seen during a stay of a fortnight. The British India offers the largest number of routes to the sight-seeing traveller. One of its lines leads to Kurrachee, the northern port of India; another goes to Calcutta, stopping at way ports; a third extends to Zanzibar and Mozambique, and a fourth reaches places on the Persian Gulf. This fourth route the tourist should certainly take if he has the time, though it carry him into the most trying climate imaginable. Before starting he should get Moore’s “Lalla Rookh,” it can be bought at an excellent English bookstore in Bombay, and read it on the way, as some of the scenes are laid in these waters.
The passengers on these Gulf steamers are of as many types as those seen on Change in Bombay. It is not unlikely that of the twenty or more who sit down to dinner, no two will be of the same color, costume, nationality, or religion. Even the crew ceases to be European; Chinamen usually cook and wait, and Indians handle cargo and work the ship.
About 600 miles and 4 days from, Kurrachee, Ormuz is made, dirty, dilapidated, with absolutely no remains of its historic wealth. The first place of importance is Bushire, 300 miles farther up. It is the principal seaport of Persia, and does considerable trade, long caravans of camels transporting merchandise to and from the interior. Persian cats can be got here; a pair offered for $25 was sold finally for $5; with more time they could have been bought for $2.
From Bushire to Bassorah, on the Euphrates, is 180 miles. A narrow canal-like stream leads from the river to the native village where Sindbad the Sailor is said to have roamed. Connection can be made at Bassorah with a steamboat going up the river past the Garden of Eden, a disappointing, flat, uncared-for plain, to Bagdad; and thence, by camel to points in the interior. Steamers in the Persian Gulf trade take in dates, grain, and wool, leaving cotton fabrics, rice, opium, etc.
On returning to Kurrachee, the traveller would do well to take the railway to Agra, and the Taj, Benares, and other places, and so back again to Bombay and the ocean highways.
Henceforth, the character of the passengers on board ship changes somewhat; many of the Europeans leave for extended tours by rail to Calcutta and other Indian cities, their places being taken by Parsee merchants, rich Indians, and enterprising Chinamen, bound away on business.
The run to Colombo, Ceylon, 875 miles to the southward, is made over a warm, smooth sea, and on the evening of the fifth day the harbor is entered. Colombo is a steamship centre where all the vessels of the long trunk lines rendezvous to coal, provision, exchange passengers and frequently freight. They come from the four quarters of the globe, from Calcutta and Bombay in the north, from China and Singapore in the east, from Australia, Mauritius, and Africa in the south, and from Aden and the Suez Canal in the west. Colombo has much to attract a traveller during the 24 or 48 hours the steamer stays, but usually the Oriental Hotel claims his time and attention, for this is the place of meeting of all who go upon the waters, and high wassail is apt to be the order of the night.
The dining-room of the Oriental is the refreshment-room at the intersection of the chief steam lines of the world. It is, as it were, the restaurant of a Union depot where everyone must go for a meal; at its tables travellers from opposite points of the world meet, Chinese bound for Europe, Englishmen to report for Indian duty, French soldiers en route for Saigon, and Australians making the grand tour.
If the traveller has stayed in the same ship all the way from London, he has, by the time he arrives at Colombo, been 30 days en voyage and navigated a distance of 6,700 miles. By whatever line he has come, he should have enjoyed his life on board ship, for after the first day or two out from port acquaintances are made that rapidly ripen into good fellowship. Deck cricket, quoits, and cock-fighting enliven the forenoons; a novel and a nap wear away the afternoons; an innocent rubber with the ladies brightens the evenings; a good chorus begins the nights merrily, and a small game of draw shortens the dying hours.
Promenade Deck of an Orient Liner.
At Colombo often the best of friends must part, some to stay in the country, others to go to a different ship; for the choice of routes is varied, there being some 15 steamship lines radiating hence toward the attractive countries of Australia, Africa, the Dutch East Indies, China, Japan, India, and Europe.
The run up the coast from Ceylon past the French settlement of Pondicherry, where the French steamers touch, to Madras, 614 miles to the northward, is smooth sailing if the monsoon months of April, June, November, and December be avoided. A day in port is sufficient for landing the cargo, brought off in lighters manned by stalwart lascars, naked except for the narrowest of breech-clouts and the most enormous of turbans. The traveller, while at Madras, should see the Indian jugglers, and to do this comfortably, should make arrangements to have the exhibition held on board ship. Two or three natives, sitting on the open deck at his feet, place a mango-stone with a handful of dirt under an old cotton sheet, which, after talking gibberish, they remove, disclosing a small green sprout about 8 inches high. “Big mango?” is then inquired by the head juggler; “big mango?” Receiving assent, the twig is carefully recovered and incantations follow, while the jugglers slowly raise the centre of the sheet higher and higher, until finally, on removing it, there stands a mango-bush 5 feet high, bearing fruit which the juggler will pick and distribute. The trick is worth the $10 it has cost.
From Madras to Calcutta the distance is 770 miles. The most interesting feature of the journey is the difficult navigation of the Hoogly, or Calcutta River, under the direction of the skilful pilots; each of whom brings his own leadsman on board, sometimes two of them, and his own native servant, so as to be quite independent of the ship and her crew.
The river front of Calcutta is one long wharf with vessels moored in columns of twos, threes, and fours for a couple of miles. The steamer traffic is large, nearly 1,000 foreign ships coming and going within a year, and as many coasting steamers. The import trade is principally in cotton goods, metals, and malt liquors; the exports are borax, rice, opium, gums, gunny-cloth, etc.
From Calcutta several short sea routes may be taken to strange countries: the British India ships go to Rangoon, in Burmah, and then down the Malay Peninsula to Penang, one of the Strait Settlements. Penang is on the road from Ceylon to Singapore, and some of the great liners stop for a couple of hours to take in a mail, some tin, and a few spices. The harbor is one of singular beauty, but not otherwise of much interest to the traveller, hurrying on through the picturesque Straits of Malacca to Singapore.
Singapore is the half-way house on the great highway between India and China, where all ships, large and small, stop. Its position is a most important one, not only as a large coaling and docking station, but to a greater extent as an immense entrepôt for goods, the trade being largely one of transit. The shipping business done is enormous; the docks and streets are full of bustle and activity, of hurrying, running, hard-working Chinese, Javanese, Moluccans, and Europeans, unmindful of a temperature averaging 86° Fahrenheit.
This town of such activity and go lies almost under the equator, in latitude 1° 17´ north; its longitude is nearly 104° east; just 12 hours and 9 minutes ahead of New York, from which city it is separated by 12,000 miles of water, requiring about 43 days of ocean navigation.
Singapore has steam communication with 152 different ports, far and near. During the year, 3,600 foreign ships enter the harbor, and nearly the same number clear, representing a shipping movement of over 5,500,000 tons. The regular liners make connection at Singapore with the Netherland-India Steamship Company—“De Nederlandsch-Indische Stoomvaart Maatschappij”—an efficient organization with headquarters at Batavia, Java. Some of the by-ways of travel over which the tourist can agreeably saunter by means of the 30 or more good steamers of this company lead to all the ports on the coasts of the islands of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, to the Moluccas, Philippines, Celebes, and so back to Singapore, where the traveller boards the steamer bound for Hong-Kong.
The mail, and other full-powered steamships, leaving Singapore for the northward, head straight up the China Sea for Hong-Kong, 1,435 miles away. During this run of 6 days the most learned discussions are held concerning the weather. Typhoons are most prevalent from July to December; from December to May they seldom happen, still they have been known to occur in every month of the year. The September equinox is a very precarious period; therefore, if the tourist is anxious to make sure of smooth weather, he should time his voyaging so as to be in these waters in early June, when the southwest monsoon is lightest. But this brings the ship to Hong-Kong at the beginning of the warm weather and rainy season, whereas the months of December and January are the most delightful, the mean temperature being 65° F.
In the wet or damp season the traveller must keep watch of his clothes, books, shoes, etc., or they will get injured by mildew. This supervision of one’s effects is necessary throughout the entire voyage around India, the dew at night being penetrating and saturating. Two serviceable suits of flannel should be taken to be worn alternately, so that one suit can be drying. Leather shoes, particularly blacked boots, are damaged by the mould that forms on them when exposed; the proper foot-gear is the canvas shoe with rubber sole.
Hong-Kong is attractive because of the high peak, 2,000 feet above the water, the forts half-way down the mountain’s side, and the city built on the long easy slope running into the capacious bay, where the wharfs, docks, mooring-buoys, and the like give unmistakable evidences of the maritime importance of the place. The men at the clubs on shore, both English and German, will tell the traveller that Hong-Kong ranks as the fourth port in the world in the amount of shipping that annually passes through its waters: a few years ago this was estimated to be above 12,000,000 tons, which, if correct, would give Hong-Kong nearly as much as New York.
Should the traveller desire to visit China and Japan, he must disembark at Hong-Kong. This he will do regretfully, for he has become attached to his ship, her officers, and his messmates. He has been well and courteously treated throughout a long and at times tedious voyage, during which everything has been done to make him comfortable and contented. Really, the main differences existing between the steamers of the different companies are those of route and time. For instance, the P. & O. lands the passenger at Hong-Kong, 44 days from London, via Gibraltar, Malta, the Canal, Bombay, Colombo, and Singapore, a total distance of 9,800 miles. At every main port touched en route, no matter by what line, at least 6 hours, oftener 12 or 24 hours, can be had on shore in which to see the place, and there are no annoyances or vexations as to custom-house duties or inspections. The M. M. line, which departs from Marseilles, touches at Naples, and reaches Hong-Kong via the Canal, Aden, Colombo, Singapore, and Saigon, goes over 8,160 miles of water in 36 days. The German mail, leaving Bremen and Antwerp and going by way of the Canal via Colombo and Singapore, traverses 10,223 miles in 43 days. The Austrian Lloyd, from Trieste via Bombay, makes port in 50 days, after a journey of 8,345 miles.
To visit Canton the steamboat should be taken that leaves Hong-Kong daily. The trip of 7 hours’ duration will be enlivened by the noisy Chinese passengers on board, and by the numerous Chinese junks constantly passed as they are going up and down the river under sails and oars. The traveller will also encounter some Europeans, who will gladly tell him good stories and put him up at their snug little club-house on the Shameen, the island connected with Canton, where the white population resides. Canton should be seen; it is a typical Chinese city into which modern civilization has made no visible headway.
Returning to Hong-Kong, the water-front offers much that is attractive. Thousands of junks lie in rows, anchored off the harbor, and thousands more are moored along the sea-wall; the noise made by the crews of these boats, beating gongs, firing crackers, singing, shouting, and burning papers and joss-sticks to their favorite Buddhas, is pandemonium. On shore coolies trot about in couples, with long bamboo-poles on their shoulders, transporting chests of tea, silk, matting, etc., from the junks to the big storehouses and from the storehouses to the lighters to be towed alongside the steamers, where the bales are hoisted into the holds.
Landing Passengers at Natal, South Africa.
At this port the traveller will find a newly organized transpacific service, running by way of Yokohama to Vancouver, where connection is made with the Canadian Pacific Railway to Quebec and Halifax, and thence to London. The line, as at present formed, consists of three magnificent steamers, sailing monthly. The Empress of India, the pioneer of the line, made the voyage early in 1891 from Yokohama to Vancouver in the unprecedented time of 10 days and 15 hours.
Observing the steamers closely, the traveller will discover that one of them is flying a different flag from those he has been accustomed to see while on the journey along the great Indian Ocean highway: the stars-and-stripes belong to one of the vessels of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company of the United States.
The Pacific Mail Steamship Company was organized in 1847, at the time of the colonization of the Pacific States, and gained notoriety by despatching one of its first vessels, the California, from New York, in 1848, to San Francisco by way of Cape Horn. The successful termination of this extraordinary performance, in those early days of steam navigation, enabled the company to inaugurate a steamship service between Panama and San Francisco. The route thus opened was from New York to Colon (Aspinwall), and thence across the Isthmus to Panama, where the steamer was in waiting to run up the Mexican coast to California. The transpacific route was commenced in 1867, soon after the opening of the Pacific Railroad, and is now worked in conjunction with an English line, the Oriental & Occidental.
The traveller bound from Hong-Kong for Yokohama can take either the Canadian Pacific steamers or the Pacific Mail. If, however, he is anxious to see the ports of China and Japan before entering on the great thoroughfare of the Pacific Ocean, he has at his choice several efficient lines of local and coasting steamers, that will bear him safely to the different treaty ports and afford him all the time he will require for sight-seeing.
Most of the European mail lines go to Shanghai, and the coasting lines of both China and Japan make it a stopping-place. Shanghai is worth a visit because of the different European ways of living in China. The city is composed of sections where each nation has established its own settlement, contiguous to, but quite distinct from, that of any other nation. There is an American town, an English town, a French town, a German town, and a Chinese town, each preserving its own language and society, and as far as possible its own architecture.
The Mitsu Bishe line of steamers, the Nippon Yusen, and two or three others, ply between the ports of Japan along the really beautiful inland passage, and up the Japan Sea. If one be interested in Japanese ceramics, swords, armor, and antiquities, he should take this way trip; eventually bringing up at Yokohama, whence a railway ride of an hour will land him in Tokio.
At Yokohama passage is secured for San Francisco, 5,000 miles to the eastward, across the broadest part of the Pacific Ocean. This route is one of the longest direct lines between two places that is steamed over by the ships of any company. It is a dull and monotonous voyage; nothing but blue water for 18 days, no land is seen, no strange sail sighted, rarely even do gales of wind blow hard enough to make things lively. The cabin passengers are principally Americans returning to their native land, a few Englishmen making the round of the world, a couple of Australians full of talk of the greatness of their own country and sceptical as to the advance and improvement of any other; some Japanese, curious, polite, intelligent; one or two rich Chinamen who keep to themselves, and a sprinkling of other nationalities. This heterogeneous crowd gets on well together, plays cards, makes pools on each day’s run, discusses the 180th meridian question, as to why the week is one day longer than seven, jokes, laughs, reads, smokes, and drinks.
The steerage passengers are mostly Chinamen returning to California after a visit home. Special accommodations are fitted for them. Not infrequently the Chinese in large numbers take passage on the Pacific Mail to be landed at Honolulu. This will give the traveller a day in port, when he should go on shore to enjoy Sandwich Island hospitality, and see the Hoola-hoola—a native dance that must be prearranged and paid for, since it is interdicted by the Government because of its supposed demoralizing influence—on the native. After a voyage of 2,000 miles in 7 days to the northeast, the steamer enters the Golden Gate, and passes up to the city of San Francisco. A six-day run by railroad, and the traveller is once again back in New York.
The whole distance travelled by the way described is, in round numbers, 23,000 miles, and the time taken to do this may have been but 80 or 90 days, or more; the longer the better, for it requires plenty of time to enjoy a trip around the world. It also requires money. About $1,000 would be necessary for passage money alone; double this amount would be sufficient to take the traveller in comfort and ease, and upon his arrival home he would consider it money admirably spent.
The traveller reaching San Francisco by the above highway of circumnavigation can further add to his knowledge of strange countries by selecting a sea journey to New York, instead of a land run by railroad across the continent. To go by sea passage must be secured on board a Pacific Mail coasting steamer, the only line running to Mexico, Central America, and Panama. Steaming down the beautiful coast of California, stopping at picturesque harbors in Mexico, anchoring off roadsteads of Central America, taking on and off a few passengers, an Englishman, a German, an American, handling cargo—such is the rough log of the cruise of 20 days and 3,200 miles until the splendid Bay of Panama is reached. The eight or ten ports of call are better seen from the ship than from the shore. The enchantment of distance gives way upon close examination to pity and disgust, for dirt, indigence, and a total ignorance of how to live decently are noticeable everywhere.
At Panama two widely different routes leading to the United States are offered: the one goes over the Isthmus of Panama by rail and thence to New York by sea; the other stretches away down the west coast of South America, through the Straits of Magellan, and up the Atlantic highway.
By the first route the railway journey over the 45 miles of land separating the Pacific from the Atlantic Ocean, crosses, recrosses, and runs beside the deserted canal, affording ocular proof of the failure of the scheme. At both Panama and Colon the same appearance of being left is noticeable. The business of the two ports is one of transit only, but is sufficiently great to furnish employment to some thousands of Americans and Jamaicans.
Nearly a dozen steamship lines leave Colon for ports in the United States, Europe, the West Indies, and the neighboring coasts, and by one or two of them the traveller can run up to Greytown, where he will have an opportunity to see the Nicaraguan Canal. This canal, when completed, will make important changes in existing routes between the United States and Europe at one end of the line, and the west coast of the American Continent, China, Japan, and Australasia at the other. For instance, the route from London to Sydney is 12,500 miles, via the Suez Canal; by the Nicaraguan Canal the distance will be less than 12,000 miles. And if the lengths of the routes from the Atlantic seaboards to the Pacific seaboards, both east and west, be compared with those now followed, the great saving by the Nicaraguan gateway becomes still more apparent. Returning to Colon, the traveller boards the north-bound steamer, and lands in New York, 2,000 miles distant, in 8 days.
It may be, however, that the traveller decides upon proceeding by the second route, leading from Panama to New York. If so, he books on board a steamer belonging to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company of England, a powerful organization having the contract for carrying the mails, and controlling almost exclusively the Isthmian trade to and from South America. The ships of the Company run into all the ports of consequence on the west coast, and the lines extend from Valparaiso by way of Magellan Straits to the river Plate and Brazil ports, and thence to Lisbon and England. An important point for consideration in connection with this southern trip is the probability of there being a revolution in progress in some of the countries to be visited, which might interfere with going on shore.
At length the steamer leaves Panama, and the passenger for the United States begins his long journey. His companions are very few, South Americans, principally, bound for ports along the coast, so he is left to his own resources. He can read, and lounge, and make good friends with the officers of the ship, who are Englishmen. At night he can stretch out in his steamer chair and dream away the warm hours gazing at the “majestical roof fretted with golden fire.”
From Panama to Valparaiso, some 3,100 miles, 25 ports are touched at, which, Callao excepted, are of no special interest. Callao, the seaport of Peru, is in itself unattractive, the town and the people are dirty; the empty docks, the lazy inhabitants, the atmosphere of laissez aller, confirm the opinion that the place and all around it have had their day. From Callao the traveller should go to Lima, 7 miles distant by rail, and take the Oroya Railway to the top of the Andes, 15,000 feet above the sea-level: the wonderful engineering ability displayed in constructing this road will prove quite as impressive as the truly magnificent mountain scenery. Two days will suffice to make the excursion and bring him back to Lima, an old Spanish city with many interesting corners. The cathedral should be visited; in the crypt lie the bones of the great Pizarro. A dirty Cholo shows them. Reverently pulling aside a ragged curtain from before a dingy stone bench, he exclaims, “Behold the bones of Francisco Pizarro!” Their state of perfect preservation and symmetry of arrangement might incline one to doubt the truth of the statement.
The Port of Valparaiso in a Norther.
Leaving Callao, en route for Valparaiso, the steamer makes several ports; some of them interesting because of the recent war operations, but otherwise they had better be viewed from the ship’s deck, for the same low adobe dwellings and squalid existence characterize them all. After 11 days of pleasant weather Valparaiso is reached. Valparaiso is built on several hill slopes running to the water from a high ridge back of the city. It is a place of great activity; the docks are piled high with freight, the people move about with spirit, the harbor is full of ships, and there is that general air which betokens financial soundness and commercial prosperity. The streets are noticeably clean, the buildings are of good architecture, the stores are inviting, and the frequently recurring signs in English, French, and German, and the people met, are indicative of the cosmopolitan nature of the inhabitants.
The Bay of Valparaiso is open to the northward, from which point the heavy gales blow, raising a long rolling sea that works considerable damage to shipping. Steamers weigh and stand out when these blows come on.
Valparaiso has connection, via Magellan Straits, with Montevideo, 2,750 miles distant, by means of four or five lines of good steamships. The P. S. N.—as the Pacific Steam Navigation Company is called—runs vessels over this route. So do the Cosmos and Hamburg Companies, German lines; there are besides French and Italian lines.
Since leaving Panama, 21 days ago, the weather along the Pacific highway has been uniformly pleasant—for northers are infrequent—the breezes have been light and warm from the southward, the sea long and smooth, and the ship seldom out of sight of the bare sandy hills running along the shore, or the towering Andes stretching away in the background. To the south from Valparaiso, however, this changes. It grows colder, the sea gets rougher, and by the time the Gulf of Peñas, the entrance to the inside passage, is reached, the chances are it will be thick and unsettled, with every prospect of a foul gale. When the storm breaks it is tremendous; in no other part of the world do winds blow harder or seas rise higher; lofty ships carry low sails hereabouts, and steamers frequently have to lie to.
The mad ocean is left astern when the ship enters the inside passage leading along the coast of Patagonia and the Straits of Magellan. Here the scene is one of unparalleled magnificence. High bare walls of stone, towering barren cliffs, lofty snow-capped peaks, weather-scarred mountains down whose furrowed sides extend steel-blue glaciers—all reveal nature in her most majestic and awe-inspiring form.
From Sandy Point, a small settlement midway in the strait, where coal can be obtained, to Cape Virgins, 150 miles beyond, the lay of the land is less varied and attractive. At the Cape the ship enters on the tempestuous Atlantic highway, and heads northward for Montevideo, 1,300 miles away. Five days later the anchor is let go about 3 miles off the city. The traveller must remember, when going on shore at Montevideo, that pamperos blow frequently, raising a nasty cross-sea which makes boating very uncertain. Several well-known lines of foreign vessels make Montevideo a port of call; among them the Messageries Maritimes; the North German Lloyds, the Austro-Hungarian Lloyds, and the Italian Mail. Of the many other lines, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Brazilian, to be seen in the harbor, none is of more importance than the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, of Southampton. In 1842 this steamship company was the first that carried mails to the West Indies from Europe. It began the Brazilian and River Plate (Rio de la Plata) mail service in 1850. To-day its routes include the West India Islands, Mexico, and Central and South America.
The regular liners to Montevideo, and the several local and coasting steamers, come to off Buenos Ayres, 100 miles to the southeastward. The extensive harbor works, for the purpose of making the city a deep-water port, at once excite admiration. Both Montevideo and Buenos Ayres are attractive cities of regular streets, many substantial houses, public buildings with Italian marble façades, Spanish cathedrals, and extensive suburbs of handsome residences surrounded by beautiful gardens. The mean temperature of the two places, 63°, corresponds with that of Palermo and Rome. The business of Montevideo is good, the imports of merchandise, machinery, and manufactured articles exceeding $22,000,000, and the exports of hides, horns, wool, and beef being valued at $15,000,000. The trade of Buenos Ayres is much larger, the imports being valued at $88,000,000, the exports at $65,000,000.
The traveller for Rio Janeiro can take a coasting line if he desires to visit southern Brazil; otherwise, any one of the big mail ships will make the run of 1,150 miles in 6 days. The port of Rio, large, deep, and the most beautiful in the world, is entered by a channel a mile and a half wide, defended by forts. Inside the bay is 17 miles long by 10 miles broad. The town is most attractive from the water. It is especially picturesque at night, when the arrangement of the innumerable gas-lights distinctly outlines the entire city, built on a gentle incline toward the bay. The streets are narrow, badly paved, and not over-clean. The traveller will find that he can get on well enough if he talk French, for there is a certain French air about the community. Many of the stores have French signs, nearly all the shopkeepers speak French, it is the language of the hotel clerks, the opera bouffe sings it, and the black-eyed señoritas murmur it.
Rio is connected with Europe by 12 regular lines of steamships, and with the United States by 3. New York being the traveller’s objective port, he should take passage on board one of the vessels of the United States & Brazil Mail Steamship Company, flying the American flag. Since leaving Panama, 40 odd days ago, the tourist has steamed over 7,000 miles of ocean highway, yet throughout all this time and distance, he has never once seen the stars-and-stripes. The ships of the United States & Brazil Mail Steamship Company are despatched monthly from Rio, making stops at Bahia, Pernambuco, Maranham, and Para in Brazil. At Para a most interesting route is offered by regular steamers running up the Amazon to Manaos, 1,000 miles away; thence, irregular vessels go 2,000 miles farther. From Para the United States & Brazil Company makes Barbadoes, of the Windward Isles, in 5 days—a healthy, delightful winter resort, where a mean daily temperature of 80° is tempered by the steady northeast trade-winds.
The weather along the Atlantic highway, from the river Plate to the Windward Islands, is for the most part fine, clear, and warm, with occasional rain-squalls when on the line, and possibly a stiff blow when rounding Cape St. Roque. Excepting the pleasure incident to being at sea, there is little to excite the traveller, for the passengers are few, Americans and South Americans, and are not addicted to much amusement. Lounging, reading, smoking, and walking the deck, conversation and cards pass the time.
At Barbadoes the traveller enters the waters of the West India Islands. These islands present a great contrast to South America, not only in physical features, but in weather and population. During the winter months the northeast trades blow at times with force enough to raise a rough sea. During the summer season hurricanes are to be feared. The differences of race characteristics are more noticeable than those of the weather. Instead of the lazy, polite, cruel South Americans, the traveller encounters the ubiquitous West Indian darky, celebrated for his insolence, chaff, and annoying persistence.
From Barbadoes the steamer shapes her course for the Island of St. Thomas, a day’s run of 300 miles. St. Thomas is a place of great shipping activity. It communicates with Europe by lines running to England, France, Germany, and Spain. It is the West India head-quarters of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, and the central point from which branch lines radiate that will take the traveller to any or all of the islands, as he desires.
Now that the West Indies, the Bahamas, and Cuba are growing in favor as winter resorts, the lines and routes of steamers from the West Indies are many and various. For instance, to reach New York the Clyde and Atlas lines sail from Hayti; the New York Cuba line from Cuba and the Bahamas; the New York & Porto Rico line from St. Johns; the Red D line from Curaçao and Colombian ports; the Quebec Steamship Company from St. Kitts and other Windward Islands and Bermuda; the Atlas, Honduras, & Central America and Wessels lines from Jamaica, and the Trinidad line from Port of Spain, Grenada, and Guiana. The Plant line from Jamaica lands the traveller in Tampa, Fla., a place in communication with Havana, as is New Orleans.
If, however, the traveller has taken none of these minor routes, but stayed by the United States & Brazil steamer at St. Thomas, he is landed in New York, 1,450 miles distant, in 6 days.
The whole voyage from San Francisco around the American continent to New York, along the ocean highways commonly navigated by the larger steamships, is 16,500 miles long. The time taken to make this distance is about 100 days. The cost of the journey for tickets, transfers, and unavoidable delays is $1,000; $2,000 will enable the passenger to do it comfortably.
Steamer at Anchor, Simon’s Bay, Cape of Good Hope.
The traveller from New York has been gone from start to finish, by the ocean highways to Europe, India, China, San Francisco, South America, and back to New York, nearly 200 days; has steamed over about 40,000 miles of water, and has spent $4,000. He has learned that there are other lands and other peoples than his own worthy his admiration and study. Let him take a year and $5,000 for this rounding the world, and he will be better satisfied and better informed, and appreciate more fully that “going to sea clears a man’s head of much nonsense of his wigwam.”
The fourth great ocean thoroughfare, the route around the Cape of Good Hope to Africa, Australia, and the East, is traversed by many fine steamers. The way lies from Europe via Madeira, Cape Verd, St. Helena, West Africa, and Cape Town, thence to East Africa via Mauritius to Australia, whence the Occident line leaves for New Zealand, Samoa, Sandwich Islands, and San Francisco. This long route covers 30,000 miles. To reach the Cape, 6,000 miles from England, the two well-known English mail lines, the Union Steamship Company and the Castle Mail Packets Company offer the most attractive routes; the steamer service of both is of the highest order. The time out is 18 days, the fare about $180.
Two English lines, the New Zealand Shipping Company and the Shaw, Savill & Albion Company deserve special mention, because the route they follow gives the longest possible stretch of ocean navigation, each vessel making a complete circuit of the world on the round voyage. The fleet of each company comprises 5 large, well-appointed steamships, despatched alternately every two weeks over the following route: From Plymouth to Teneriffe, 1,420 miles in 5 days, where a stay of 6 hours for coaling gives opportunity for a trip on shore. Then a run of 4,450 miles in 15 days brings the steamer to Cape Town, where an 8 or 10 hour stay is made. Passengers for African ports transfer here. From Cape Town a run of 5,400 miles in 17 days brings the steamer to Hobart, where Tasmanian and Australian passengers leave the vessel. After a few hours in this beautiful harbor a 4 days’ run of 1,270 miles lands the traveller in Wellington, New Zealand.
For the homeward voyage a course is shaped for Cape Horn, a 14 days’ run. Once around this point the ship makes Rio, 22 days and 6,820 miles distant from Wellington. The next port of call is Teneriffe, 3,360 miles and 12 days distant, whence a 5 days’ run is sufficient to cover the 1,420 miles that again lands the traveller in Plymouth, after having been gone 81 days and travelled over 25,150 miles. The price of a ticket over this longest of great sea routes is about $650.