“AUGUSTA VICTORIA.”
The line has not been exempt from marine disasters and loss of lives. The Austria was burned in 1858, when only sixty-seven were saved of the whole ship’s company of 538. By the wreck of the Schiller on the Scilly Islands, in 1875, 331 persons perished. In 1883 the Cimbria was sunk off the coast of Holland, with the loss of 389 persons. The Normannia, on a recent trip, narrowly escaped collision with a huge iceberg, but thanks to her good “lookout” and her twin screws, she sheered off from the towering monarch just in time.
This company has recently added to its fleet one of the largest freight-carrying steamers afloat. The Pennsylvania, built and engined by Harland & Wolff, Belfast, has a carrying capacity of 21,762 tons, with accommodation for 200 first-class and 1,500 steerage passengers. Her length is 585 feet; breadth, 62 feet; draught of water when fully loaded, 30 feet. She has two balanced quadruple expansion engines, with five boilers, and carries a working pressure of 210 pounds of steam. Her three-bladed twin screws, each weighing 9½ tons, make 76 revolutions per minute, developing a speed of fifteen knots an hour. The Pennsylvania left New York on her first voyage with a cargo of 18,500 tons measurement, said to be the largest cargo ever taken out of New York in one ship, if not the greatest that any ship in any part of the world has ever carried.
The North German Lloyd Company.
This company, founded in 1857, has its headquarters at Bremen, and is also a very large concern, owning a fleet of eighty steamships, with a total tonnage of over 225,000 and 200,000 indicated horse-power. Among these are a number of very fine express steamers, mostly Clyde-built and fitted up with all the latest improvements in machinery and decoration. The Kaiser Wilhelm II., the Havel, Spree, Lahn, Trave and Fulda are all well-known and favourite ships on the Atlantic route. Besides maintaining a weekly service between Southampton and New York, this company has a regular line running direct from New York to Genoa, Naples, Alexandria and other Mediterranean ports, and also lines running to India, China, Japan and Australia. A sad disaster was that which overtook the Elbe of this line in January, 1895, when she was struck amidships by a trading steamer, the Crathie, and sank in a few minutes, with the loss of 332 lives, only twenty-seven of the whole ship’s company being saved. In December, 1896, the Salier, of this line, while on her voyage from Bremen to Buenos Ayres, foundered off the coast of Spain, when every soul on board perished, numbering about three hundred persons.
“PENNSYLVANIA,” HAMBURG-AMERICAN LINE.
The largest cargo steamer afloat.