From a Photograph by Reginald Silk, Portsmouth.
THE NEW BOW OF THE “SUEVIC” AT ENTRANCE TO DOCK.
From a Photograph by Reginald Silk, Portsmouth.
CHAPTER XII
THE SAFETY AND LUXURY OF THE PASSENGER
In the course of our story we have treated with less consideration the aspect of luxury which, to some minds, is at once the most obvious and most striking feature of a steamship, whether yacht, liner, or excursion steamer. But since we set forth not to write a treatise on marine furniture and upholstery, but to show, step by step, how the modern steamship has come to be what she is, it was essential that we should have kept strictly to the main points of our task. Nevertheless, we should have fallen short of our duty had we omitted to give some idea of the care which is paid to make the ship take on the dual personality of hotel and ferry. It is inevitable that the ship in any age, whether of sail, steam or petrol, should be influenced by the forces at work ashore. Caligula’s galleys (of which a detailed description was given in the author’s “Sailing Ships: The Story of Their Development from the Earliest Times to the Present Day”) were not in discord with the debasing influences at work on shore, and after due allowance has been made, it cannot be regarded as a healthy sign that modern tastes have to be catered for with such luxuriance, and that steamship companies even go so far as to advertise their graceful, stalwart ships as hotels. Not that one would wish to revert to the hardships and utter discomforts which had to be endured by the transatlantic passengers less than a hundred years ago, when the ship, after contending against waves and wind, at last came staggering into port to the intense relief of everyone concerned. Pitching and rolling, washed fore and aft, swept from one gunwale to the other, a hell afloat for the timid and sea-sick, and a source of the gravest anxiety to her officers, she was too small to be equal to her task, too barely furnished to make life other than just tolerable.
Cooped up in bad weather below, where ventilation was sadly lacking; crowded with men, women and children going out to the New World to try their fortunes; with hard, scanty sleeping accommodation that was not even human in its comfort; gangways crowded with mean luggage, and no proper commissariat department; no refrigerating machinery, no preserved foods, but a medley of animals on deck to be killed and consumed as required—if they were not washed overboard by the unkindly Atlantic seas—it was no wonder that when at last the dragged-out agony was ended the passengers stepped ashore with firm resolutions never more to entrust themselves to the uncertain vagaries of the sea and its ships.
CHARLES DICKENS’S STATE-ROOM ON THE “BRITANNIA.”
By permission of the Cunard Steamship Co.