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.
Footnotes.
[1] Report of Lecture in the Liverpool Albion, delivered in Liverpool, December, 1835.
[2] The account given of the Savannah is condensed from Admiral Preble’s Notes for a History of Steam Navigation.
[3] Daniel Dod, an American citizen, was granted a patent November 29, 1811, in which he states: “I form the condenser of a pipe or number of pipes condensed together; and condense the steam by immersing the pipes in cold water, either with or without an injection of water.”
The present surface condenser consists essentially of a great number of small brass tubes, about three-fourths of an inch in diameter, passing through an air-tight chamber. The exhaust steam from the cylinders enters the chambers, and cold water is constantly pumped through the tubes. The steam is condensed by contact with the cold tubes, and the water thus obtained pumped back to the boiler in a fresh state, instead of being mixed with about thirty times its weight of salt water, as in the old jet condenser. Practice varies, the steam sometimes being passed through the tubes and the water around them.
[4] The Naval Chronicle of 1818, vol. xxxix., p. 277, speaking of the steamers on the Clyde, says: “No serious accident has occurred since their introduction, which is more than two years. The secret of security consists in using large steam-engines of great power and small pressure. If the boilers of cast-iron should in any part give way, a piece of cloth is firmly wedged in the hole, and the vessel proceeds without any danger or inconvenience to the passengers.”