Always securely stowed amidships, well lashed down and housed over, the boat, as she lay upon the ship’s deck, was full of live provender, being divided, as to her lower hold, into pens for sheep and pigs, while upon the first floor, or main deck, quacked ducks and geese, and above them (literally in the cock-loft) were coops for another kind of poultry. This great central depôt was closely surrounded by other small farm-buildings, the most important being the cow-house, where, after a short run ashore on the marshes at the end of each voyage, a well-seasoned animal of the snug Alderney breed chewed the cud in sweet content. In fact, when, in the old days, a passenger-ship began her voyage, the hull of her clumsy long-boat was nearly hidden by the number of temporary pens and sheds required to house the live stock for the supply of her cabin table; and with its many farm-yard and homelike sounds a ship was, even then, more like a small bit of the world afloat than it is now.

There was always regular traffic between America and Europe, especially with Great Britain, and the rapid growth of emigration to the United States and Canada made it profitable, early in this century, to put on fast-sailing packet-ships, making voyages, at intervals of a month, between London and New York. By 1840 a man might find a large, well-ordered ship departing every week or so for the transatlantic passage, which usually required less than a month going east, but might be two weeks longer coming west. Their cabins were as comfortable and perhaps more homelike than any seen now, and quite as pretty, with their white and gold paint, cut-glass door and locker knobs, damask hangings, dimity bed-curtains, and other old-fashioned niceties; and the fare was abundant and varied, as it ought to be in a neat ship with a small dairy aboard, and perhaps a green-salad garden planted in the jolly-boat. None of these packets were more popular than those of the well-remembered Black Ball Line.

FAIR WEATHER ON THE DECK OF A CLIPPER-SHIP CARRYING GOLD-SEEKERS TO CALIFORNIA IN 1849.

The steerage passengers were not so well off then, though they seemed to stand the voyage quite as well as nowadays. The fare was twenty-five dollars, and the passenger found himself “in everything but fire and water.” “Steerage passengers then had to cook their own victuals, weather permitting, at an open galley-fire on the waist-deck; ... but in anything like rough weather, all steerage passengers had either to run the chance of getting constantly wet with salt water or keep below.” The ’tween-decks space allotted to them was almost completely filled by rows of bunks, built in each port by the ship’s carpenter, in three tiers, one above the other, though the ceiling was scarcely seven feet from the floor; and when in a stormy time the hatches were closed the only way the crowd could find room was by most of it stowing itself away in the bunks, while a few tried to sit or lie on the luggage piled in the narrow aisles. The only light was that of a few candle or whale-oil lanterns, and in a very bad storm everybody came near smothering, for then it was impossible to ventilate the steerage properly without flooding it. Considering that all the provisions for the steerage people were kept in this crowded, damp, and fearfully close room, it is marvelous that a pestilence did not break out during every voyage, but, in fact, sickness was rare.

The introduction of steam into oceanic navigation was experimented with as soon as river steamboats were successfully built. The first vessel to go across the ocean by the aid of a steam-engine is said to have been the Savannah. This vessel, built in Savannah, Ga., and having a steam-engine and paddle-wheels, certainly crossed to Liverpool in 1819; but it is asserted that she sailed all the way, using her steam very little, if at all, although making the trip in twenty-two days. In 1825 the English steamer Enterprise went from London to Calcutta; but it was not until some years later that ocean navigation by steam became successful in the beginning of operations by the Cunard Company in 1833.

These first steamers were side-wheelers, and their huge boilers and simple engines consumed so much fuel that the space taken up by the coal, added to that devoted to passengers, left little room for cargo. Moreover, their speed was less, often, than that of the “clippers,” so that for some time the sailing-packets maintained their competition. The adoption of the screw propeller, in place of the costly and cumbersome side-paddles, and the perfection of the compound marine engine, which effected a great saving in fuel, soon established the superiority of steam navigation for passenger service, fast freights, and service in war, yet even these improvements were not fairly brought about until the first half of the present century had gone; and sails are not yet abandoned, not only because they steady a vessel in a gale, and may help her decidedly when the wind is fair, but may save her altogether in case of the disabling of her machinery.

Great modifications and improvements on old models have grown out of the employment of steam and the screw, and human invention has been taxed to the uttermost to combine economy of space and expense with the various needs of different climes, or special cargoes, or the demands of a traveling public that is growing more fastidious every day. The most obvious changes in naval construction have been in the greatly elongated hull, the enormous dimensions aimed at, and the all but universal employment of iron. When the first steamship crossed the ocean the proportions of ships averaged three to five beams in length.... But it was discovered that with a given power and depth and beam the length could be increased without materially affecting the speed, thus adding to the carrying capacity of steam. Great length to beam, however, does not necessarily imply great speed; the speed of beamy vessels has too often been demonstrated. Fineness of lines is equally essential, together with the proper distribution of weights, and the like. The great average speed exhibited by the modern steamship is due in large part to the momentum of such a vast weight, which, once started, has a tremendous force.

Long after the transatlantic steamships were regularly running, sixteen or seventeen days was considered a good passage between New York and Liverpool. Then the Inman and White Star lines began to see the importance of faster speed, and their rivalry had cut this estimate in two by 1870, and ten years later the Guion Line’s Arizona and other crack boats took a full day off that. Since then there has been a steady improvement in speed, as is shown by the table below; and this seems to have followed proportionately the steady increase in length. The ships of 1850 never reached 300 feet in length, and few were over 2300 tons in burden measurement. By 1880 almost all the first-class “liners” of the world exceeded 450 feet, and some soon approached 600, as the City of Rome (586 feet, 8826 tons), and several of the famous Hamburg liners, White Stars, and Cunarders nearly equaled her in dimensions (Paris and New York, 580 feet each; Teutonic and Majestic, 582 feet); while some of the more recent boats are even longer, as Campania and Lucania, 620 feet, and the gigantic Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, 648 feet. Two other ships, now planned, will considerably exceed this length. The total number of transatlantic passenger-steamships regularly sailing from New York alone is now between 90 and 100, belonging to 14 different lines. The table of speed-records between New York and Queenstown, since the time was reduced to less than six days, is as follows:

Year.Steamer.Line.Direction.Date.Days.Time.
Hours.		Min.
1882AlaskaGuionEastwardMay 30 to June 6 6 2 0
1891MajesticWhite Star 518 8
1891TeutonicWhite StarWestwardAug. 13-19 51631
1892ParisAmericanWestwardAug. 14-19 51424
1893CampaniaCunard 512 7
1894LucaniaCunardWestwardSept. 8-14 5 838
1894LucaniaCunardEastwardOct. 21-26 5 723