Speed of its vessels.
Difficulties to encounter.
But, from first to last and amid all its difficulties, the Pacific Steam-ship Company has carried on these distant services with remarkable regularity. Even in the earlier portion of its career, the steamers performed the service between Panama and San Francisco, a distance of 3300 miles, at an average speed of 254 miles per day, touching at various ports on the way; the company has also by its semi-monthly line from San Francisco to Oregon materially assisted in populating that rich and beautiful agricultural district. Nevertheless, had it not been for the discovery of the gold fields of California, the undertaking must have been a great commercial failure; indeed, even within the last few years, its history has been one of disaster, while its management has been characterized by a succession of mistakes each one graver than the last. Its most formidable rival is now the Central Pacific Railroad Company with other allied lines, which carry off a large portion of the more valuable goods previously conveyed in steamers, viâ Panama, between the northern and eastern states and California.
Number of its steamers.
The Pacific Steam-ship Company is, however, still by far the greatest of the American maritime undertakings, having at present in commission thirty-three very fine steamers of an aggregate capacity of 74,000 tons of cargo, exclusive of the large space assigned to passengers. It has thirty-five chief agencies on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States and in the West Indies, Mexico, Central and South America, Canada, England, China, and Japan. There are altogether fifty ports where its steamers call, three of which are on the Atlantic and forty-seven on the Pacific: these figures may in some measure afford my readers an idea of the extent of its commercial operations.
Services performed.
The steamers engaged on the China line leave San Francisco for Yokohama and Hong Kong every alternate Saturday, connecting at Yokohama with their branch steamers for Shanghai and at Hong Kong with the English and French steamers for Singapore and the principal ports in India, and, viâ the Suez Canal, with the Mediterranean and Atlantic ports of Europe. The New York and Panama line connects at Aspinwall with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company to Southampton; with the West India and Pacific Steam Packet Company to Liverpool; with the Hamburg-American Steam Packet Company to Hamburg, and with the Companie Générale Trans-Atlantique to France. At Panama, they connect with the Pacific Steam Navigation Company to all South American ports. The Mexican and Central American line leaves San Francisco every alternate Thursday for Panama, stopping at all Mexican and Central American ports. The New York and Panama line leaves New York every alternate Saturday and San Francisco every alternate Wednesday.
China and Japan line.
The China and Japan line, which the company is now promoting with great vigour, was not started until the 1st of January, 1867, when the first of its fleet passed out of the “Golden Gate” of California bound across the Pacific to those ancient nations. The Great Republic, China, Japan, and America, all of them wooden vessels with paddle-wheels and “walking beam” engines, soon followed. These vessels, of somewhere about 4000 tons each, make the voyage from San Francisco to Yokohama in twenty-two days, thence to Hong-Kong in seven more, the whole distance occupying, with the stoppage at Yokohama, thirty days.
Until recently, the service was monthly each way, but the rapid increase of trade has now induced the company to despatch a steamer from each end, once a fortnight. Between Yokohama and Shanghai, this company runs, in connection with the large steamers, many smaller vessels which, passing through the inland seas of Japan and calling at Hiogo and Nagasaki, have secured a large share of the local traffic, at the same time feeding the trunk line, the vessels of which have very extensive accommodation for the numerous Chinese passengers, between Hong-Kong and San Francisco. Though this company now finds a large and increasing amount of employment for its ships in goods, as well as passengers, consisting chiefly of wheat, flour, treasure, and general merchandise for China, and tea, sugar, cleaned rice, oil, and miscellaneous articles in return, it is largely subsidised by the American Government, which, as well as its subjects, shows considerable jealousy of the steamers of other countries competing for the same trade.