The steamers sent to India, however, from over sea were not the only ones in that country.
As far back as 1820 there was launched at Bombay the first steamer built in India; she was intended for service on the River Indus. Her engines were designed by a Parsee. She must have been a familiar object to many hundreds of Anglo-Indians during her long career. She was only broken up as recently as 1880, and her end came not through weakness but through her supersession by more modern and commodious boats.
There is a custom peculiar to Bombay, and stated to be of Parsee origin,[80] of driving a silver spike into the stern of a vessel at its launch. This is said to be analogous to the placing of coins under the foundation-stone. The ceremony was observed at the launching of a paddle-steamer at Bombay in 1875, when a nail some seven inches in length and three-quarters of an inch in diameter was used, but whether such a ceremony took place at the launch in 1820 is not recorded. If it is a Parsee ceremony, however, it is quite likely to have been observed, for the East clings faithfully to its traditions.
[80] Notes and Queries.
A paddle-wheel steamer built in 1859 for service on the Indus had a draught of only 20 inches. The hull was a frameless cellular raft, but the walls of the deck cabin were worked into the depth of the vessel, which was thus made a girder 200 feet in length, and by this contrivance the engine and boilers, weighing 150 tons, were supported. A couple of plate girders having a run of 115 feet were included in her middle length. These were 15 feet deep and formed the sides of the cabins, and they also projected under the deck for a distance of 35 feet. The hull of the vessel was practically a long, flat, shallow box; the stern was rounded and the keel was turned up about 2 feet to allow of the water rising easily. The bow was rather fine and designed on the wave-line principle. The engines were of 688 horse-power and the boilers had a pressure of 25 lb. The paddle-wheels were 14¹⁄₄ feet in diameter. Her load displacement was 331 tons and her draught when laden was only 24 inches.
The Ly-ee-moon, launched in 1860 by the Thames Iron and Shipbuilding Company, resembled in some respects the steam-yacht of the Queen. She was built for Messrs. Dent and Co. for service between Hong-Kong and Shanghai, and was 270 feet in length and 27 feet 3 inches beam with a draught of 12 feet 6 inches. She was of 1003 tons register and 1394 tons displacement; her oscillating engines had cylinders of 70 inches diameter, with a stroke of 5¹⁄₂ feet. She was the first merchant vessel fitted with Lindsay’s apparatus for scaling the boilers with superheated steam. The paddles were 22 feet diameter. She had two masts, the foremast carrying lower yard, topsail yard and topgallant yard, and the trysails reached to the topmast head and gave her a good spread of canvas. She also carried several guns, and the sponsons were so fitted that the guns could be worked on them in case of need. Her speed was from 18 to 19 miles an hour. She afterwards passed into the possession of the Japanese; the story goes that when she was making her first run with Japanese only on board, the Japanese engineers, being unable to stop the engines, put the helm hard over and sat down to wait with true Oriental patience until the steam gave out and she stopped of her own accord. The Ly-ee-moon afterwards passed into Australian ownership and she ran for a long time in the excursion and coastal trade, and was finally wrecked in March 1886, when seventy persons lost their lives.
The paddle-steamer Leinster was one of four constructed of iron for the mail service between Holyhead and Kingstown in 1860 by Samuda Bros. She had nine water-tight bulkheads. A vessel intended for this service, on which exceedingly rough weather is at times encountered, through which the vessels are driven at full speed in order to ensure the punctual delivery of the mails, has to be built very strongly to stand the strain of the rough seas. For this purpose the paddle-boxes were formed of iron plates internally, continued from the sides and bulwarks of the vessel together with a strong girder extending from each bow. Two of the four, the Ulster and Munster, were withdrawn from the service in 1896-7 and turned into barquentines, their places being taken by larger vessels of the same names. The present bearers of the names are twin-screws and have triple-expansion engines. The engines of the former boats had each two oscillating cylinders, 98 inches in diameter and having a stroke of 78 inches, situated immediately below the paddle-shaft. They had each eight multitubular boilers bearing steam at 20 lb. pressure, arranged in pairs, four before and four abaft the engines, and with their ends backed to the sides of the vessel so as to allow of the stoking of the furnaces from a middle gangway. The paddle-wheels, 32 feet diameter, had fourteen floats 12 feet in length by 5 feet in width. The indicated horse-power was 4751, and the average speed in all weathers was 15¹⁄₂ knots.
Model of the Engines of the “Leinster.”
Messrs. Scott, Russell and Co. launched at Millwall in September 1854, for a Sydney company, the steamer Pacific, which was expected to prove one of the fastest vessels afloat. She was 270 feet in length over all, breadth 82 feet, depth 34 feet, and tonnage 1200. She had oscillating engines of 450 horse-power nominal and over 1000 effective, four independent boilers, and her feathering paddle-wheels were of exceptional strength. She was estimated to steam sixteen miles an hour.