THE SALOON OF A SAILING PACKET-SHIP, ABOUT 1840.
Merchant vessels may be divided into three classes, of which the first includes steamships and sailing-vessels planned primarily for freight transportation, which run back and forth between certain ports, and so constitute “lines” for freight. Such lines exist along even the remotest coasts, so that goods may be shipped directly, or by a single transfer, from any given seaport to almost any other in the world. Some of these lines, sailing between certain ports, are devoted to particular uses, such as those of oil-steamers and cattle-steamers. The oil-steamers run between America and Europe with American petroleum, and in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean with oil from Russia; the entire holds are divided into vast iron tanks for this liquid, which is poured into and pumped out of them as into and out of a great barrel. The cattle-steamers are specially arranged for the transportation of live stock, but one line, running between America and England, also carries passengers at a cheap rate. The second class of vessels consists of those which make the transportation of passengers their first object, loading their holds with first-class freight, for which high rates are paid in consideration of its swift delivery. The third class includes what are known as “tramp” steamers, which run irregularly, as the old sailing-vessels used to do, picking up cargoes wherever they find them and carrying them to any port. They are often of great size and power, but being under less close supervision are often less careful as to the safety of crews and cargoes, and are sometimes unseaworthy. They are always ready to answer any sudden demand for ships, their owners keeping watch of the chances and telegraphing to their captains where to go for their next cargoes. Without the submarine telegraph these tramp steamers could scarcely compete with the regular lines; but, besides the great transoceanic cables, all the sea-coasts are now festooned with electric cables, which have frequent stations and connect the important ports of America and Europe with those of Africa, Persia, India, the Spice Islands, Australia, and New Zealand, and there is now a plan to run a cable across the Pacific between America and New Zealand, by way of the Sandwich Islands, Samoa, and Fiji.
A CORNER IN THE SALOON OF A MODERN STEAMSHIP.
The passenger-ship is a distinctly modern feature of marine carriage. In former days the few persons who were obliged to cross the seas on business errands, and the fewer who went abroad for health or pleasure or the love of travel, had to accept such rough accommodations as the ordinary merchant ships afforded. But as soon as the East and West Indies were added to the map of the world, and colonies of Europeans began to settle on distant coasts and islands, the amount of travel justified owners of vessels in enlarging cabins and providing comforts likely to induce patronage of their lines. Even two hundred and twenty-five years ago the voyage between India and England around the Cape of Good Hope, though it became somewhat tedious, because it lasted six or seven months, was by no means a miserable experience in a well-found ship. Thus Dr. John Fryer has recorded of such a sea-journey in 1682 that “it passed away merrily with good wine and no bad musick; but the life of all good company, and an honest commander, who fed us with fresh provisions of turkies, geese, ducks, hens, sucking-pigs, sheep, goats, etc.”
A century later, when England had come firmly into possession of India, and thousands of her officers, troops, and traders, with their families, were colonizing her ports, there were demanded the largest and finest ships that could be built, combining accommodations for many passengers with great cargo capacity. Such were the great East Indiamen; and in those leisurely days a trip half-way round the world on one of these roomy old vessels was a continuous pleasure to almost every one that undertook it.
The ship was a bit of Old England afloat, where the passenger rented for so many months a well-lighted, roomy, unfurnished apartment, which, according to his taste and means, he fitted up for the voyage with numberless comforts and sea stores that none but a yachtsman would think of cumbering himself with at sea to-day; and, reading narratives of the old long sea-voyages, one is constantly coming across expressions of regret by passengers when they “took leave of the good ship that for so many months had been their floating home.” These fine old passenger sailing-ships were, like a man-of-war, entirely dismantled at the end of each homeward voyage, and underwent a complete overhaul and refit before starting out again on an outward one. Passengers usually sold their state-room furniture by auction on board the ship on her arrival in port.
Such a ship, the Atlantic packets, and even men-of-war bound on a long blockading cruise, did not hesitate to stow aboard all the live stock that room could be found for, sometimes by comical devices. In that book of charming reminiscences of ways and means afloat before the days of quick steam transit, “Old Sea Wings,” Mr. Leslie has a chapter which he calls “The Old Ship-Farm,” where one may learn curious particulars of this matter.
The man in charge of this part of the stores was the ship’s butcher, and he had as “mate,” or assistant, a youth of all work known to all sailors as “Jemmy Ducks.” Their barn, or storehouse, was especially the great long-boat, which often looked more like a model of Noah’s ark than a craft serviceable in case of shipwreck.