Man on the Ocean Part 10

It was not until five years after the Americans set us the example that we launched our first pa.s.senger steamboat, the _Comet_, a vessel of about twenty-five tons, with engines of three horse-power. This little vessel was started by Henry Bell, of Helensburgh, on the Clyde. It began its career in 1812, and plied regularly for two years.

Like her predecessor the _Clermont_, she was regarded with no small degree of scepticism, and with a large amount of surprise by the thousands who saw her set forth. Nevertheless, she soon proved her value, became a successful speculation to her owners, and was ere long followed by many other vessels of a similar kind.

THE "ARGYLE", AFTERWARDS NAMED "THE THAMES."

In 1813 the _Argyle_ was launched. This vessel was the first European steamer that pushed out into the more dangerous navigation of the open sea-coast. She was purchased by a company in London. On her pa.s.sage up, she was as nearly as possible wrecked on a lee-sh.o.r.e, but, by her steam-power, was enabled to go straight against the wind, at the rate of three and a half knots an hour, and so escaped.

One of the pa.s.sengers has left us an interesting account of this interesting voyage, from which we cull one or two paragraphs:

"The weather had now become so stormy and bad that our captain determined to put in to the port of Wexford, his great object being to navigate the vessel safely to London, rather than, by using great despatch, to expose her to unnecessary risk. We put to sea again at two o'clock p.m., on May 30th, and steered for Saint David's Head, the most westerly point of Wales. During our pa.s.sage across Saint George's Channel, one of the blades of the starboard paddle-wheel became out of order; the engine was stopped, and the blade cut away. Some hours afterwards, a similar accident happened to the other wheel, which was remedied in the same manner.

"About two-o'clock in the afternoon, twelve hours after leaving Wexford, we reached the pa.s.s of Ramsay. We remained there for three hours, to oil the engine, and to give the stoker, who had not quitted his post an instant since leaving Wexford, a little rest. In a short time several boats were seen coming to our a.s.sistance, the idea prevailing here, as at Wexford, that our vessel was on fire. We landed on the island of Ramsay, a most desolate spot, containing only one habitation; we, however, procured some bread, b.u.t.ter, milk, cheese, and ale, with which we returned to the vessel, and commenced steaming through the straits, and across Saint Bride's Bay.

"The weather had now become unfavourable, and the sea ran alarmingly high in the bay. On the south side of Saint Bride's Bay, between Skomar Island and the mainland, is a nasty pa.s.sage called Jack Sound. Our pilot warned us of the danger of attempting this pa.s.sage, excepting at high-water and with a favourable wind, as there were several formidable whirlpools, which would seize the vessel and carry her on the rocks.

Captain Dodd, however, who knew the power of his engine, insisted on going through the sound, in order to save five hours and another night at sea. The pilot repeated his remonstrances, at the same time trembling for fear; but we pa.s.sed through all the whirlpools with the greatest ease. Nothing, however, can be conceived more frightful than the aspect of some of the rocks, and especially of those called the Bishop and his Clerks. Had we been in a sailing vessel, our position would have been most perilous; but our steam was all-powerful, and brought us safely to Milford Haven.

"We put to sea again late on the evening of the 31st, and on Friday morning we were in the middle of the Bristol Channel, with no land visible; but towards evening we discovered the high coast that terminates England in the west. As the weather, however, again a.s.sumed a gloomy aspect, our new pilot judged that it would be imprudent that night to double Land's End, so we shaped our course towards Saint Ives.

"On approaching the sh.o.r.e, we perceived a crowd of small vessels making towards us with all possible rapidity, by means of oars and sails.

Here, as elsewhere, the alarm was taken, on seeing a vessel, judged to be on fire, steering towards the town, and all the disposable craft immediately put to sea. All the rocks commanding Saint Ives were covered with spectators; and when we entered the harbour, the aspect of our vessel appeared to occasion as much surprise amongst the inhabitants as the ships of Captain Cook must have produced on his first appearance amongst the islanders of the South Seas.

"Another night pa.s.sed, a night of storm and danger, but the little _Thames_ (the vessel had been renamed by the new company who purchased her) behaved n.o.bly, and next day reached Plymouth. Here," continues the narrative, "the harbour-master, who had never seen a steam-vessel before, was as much struck with astonishment, when he boarded the _Thames_, as a child is on getting possession of a new plaything. He steered the vessel, and we pa.s.sed round several ships of war in the sound. The sailors ran in crowds to the sides of their vessels as we pa.s.sed them, and, mounting the rigging, gave vent to their observations in a most amusing manner.

"We left Plymouth at noon on the following day, and steamed without interruption to Portsmouth, where we arrived on Friday, June 9th, having accomplished one hundred and fifty miles in twenty-three hours. At Portsmouth astonishment and admiration were, if possible, more strongly evinced than elsewhere. Tens of thousands of spectators were a.s.sembled to gaze on the _Thames_; and the number of vessels that crowded around us was so great, that it became necessary to request the admiral to give us a guard to preserve some degree of order.

"We entered the harbour in the most brilliant style, steaming in, with the a.s.sistance of wind and tide, at the rate of from twelve to fourteen miles an hour. A court-martial was at the time sitting on board the _Gladiator_ frigate; but the novelty of our steamboat presented an irresistible attraction, and the whole court came off to us, excepting the president, who was obliged by etiquette to retain his seat until the court was regularly adjourned. On Sat.u.r.day, June 10th, the port-admiral sent his band and a guard of marines at an early hour on board; and soon afterwards he followed, accompanied by three admirals, eighteen post-captains, and a large number of ladies. The morning was spent in steaming amongst the fleet, and running over to the Isle of Wight. From Portsmouth we proceeded to Margate, which we reached on Sunday morning.

Here we remained until the following day, when we embarked for our final trip, at half-past eight in the morning; and about six in the evening arrived at Limehouse, where we moored."

We have entered thus at considerable length into this voyage, because, besides being the first steam sea-voyage, it serves to exhibit very distinctly how great and how rapid has been the progress of steam-navigation within the last fifty years. In reading such an account as this, in these days of "ocean mail-steamers" and "Great Easterns," we can scarcely believe that in it reference is made, not to the middle ages, but to the year 1813.

OCEAN-STEAMERS.

After that momentous era when steam was first successfully applied to useful purposes, human progress and improvement in all departments of science and art seemed to have been hooked on to it, and to have thenceforth rushed roaring at its tail, with truly "railroad speed,"

towards perfection!

Scarce had the first model steamboat splashed with its ungainly "blades"

the waters of a pond, than river traffic by means of steamboats began.

And no sooner had this been proved to be a decided success, than daring schemes were laid to rush over the ocean itself on wheels. Men were not long about it, after the first start was made. Their intellectual steam was up, and the whirl of inventive effort racked the brains of engineers as the wheels of their steamboats tortured the waters of the deep.

And here again the name of Fulton comes into notice. Early in 1814 he conceived the idea of constructing a steam-vessel of war, which should carry a strong battery with furnaces for red-hot shot. Congress authorised the building of such a ship, and before the end of the same year it was launched. Fulton died the following year, but the fame of that enterprising engineer will never die.

The new vessel received the rather quaint t.i.tle of _Fulton the First_.

She consisted of two boats joined together. Those who were appointed by Congress to examine her and report, gave the following account of this curious man-of-war:

"She is a structure resting on two boats and keels, separated from end to end by a channel fifteen feet wide and sixty-six feet long. One boat contains the caldrons of copper to prepare her steam; the cylinder of iron, its piston, lever, and wheels, occupy part of the other. The water-wheel revolves in the s.p.a.ce between them. The main or gun-deck supports the armament, and is protected by a parapet four feet ten inches thick, of solid timber, pierced by embrasures. Through thirty port-holes as many thirty-two pounders are intended to fire red-hot shot, which can be heated with great safety and convenience. Her upper or spar-deck, upon which several thousand men might parade, is encompa.s.sed by a bulwark, which affords safe quarters. She is rigged with two stout masts, each of which supports a large lateen yard and sails. She has two bowsprits and jibs, and four rudders--one at each extremity of each boat; so that she can be steered with either end foremost. Her machinery is calculated for the addition of an engine which will discharge an immense column of water, which it is intended to throw upon the decks and through the port-holes of the enemy, and thereby deluge her armament and ammunition.

"If, in addition to all this, we suppose her to be furnished, according to Mr Fulton's intention, with hundred-pound columbiads, two suspended from each bow, so as to discharge a ball of that size into an enemy's ship ten or twelve feet below her water-line, it must be allowed that she has the appearance, at least, of being the most formidable engine for warfare that human ingenuity has contrived."

She certainly was; and even at the present time the _Fulton the First_ would cut no insignificant figure if placed alongside our gunboats, floating-batteries, and steam-frigates.

It is not easy to get intelligent men to believe in things that savour of the marvellous; yet there seems to be a point past which, if once a man be got, he will go on to believe almost anything, no matter how absurd. In those days few people in Europe would credit the truth of this ship's proportions; but when, in the course of time and from indubitable testimony, they were compelled to believe, they flew to the opposite extreme of incredulity and believed anything, as the following curiously comical paragraph will show. It is said to have appeared in a Scotch treatise on steamships, and is intended for a "full, true, and particular account" of this monstrous American man-of-war steamer.

After giving her dimensions three times larger than they were in reality, the author continues:--"The thickness of her sides is thirteen feet of alternate oak plank and cork wood. She carries forty-four guns, four of which are hundred pounders; quarter-deck and forecastle guns, forty-four pounders: and further, to annoy an enemy attempting to board, can discharge one hundred gallons of boiling water in a minute; and, by mechanism, brandishes three hundred cutla.s.ses with the utmost regularity over her gunwales; works also an equal number of heavy iron spikes of great length, darting them from the sides with prodigious force, and withdrawing them every quarter of a minute!" This vessel, although probably intended for an ocean-steamer, was never used as such. But not long after, a vessel propelled by steam ventured to cross the Atlantic, and thus became the parent of commercial steam navigation. This vessel was:

THE "SAVANNAH" STEAMER.

Unfortunately, little information as to this, the first ocean-steamer, has been chronicled.

She was launched at New York on the 22nd of August 1818, and in the following year made her first voyage to Savannah, from which she sailed for Liverpool soon after, and crossed the Atlantic in twenty-five days-- during eighteen of which she used her engines.

The _Savannah_ was about 350 tons burden, and was on this occasion commanded by Captain Moses Rodgers. She was fitted with machinery for taking in her wheels in stormy weather, which was found to work admirably; and she is mentioned as having been seen on the ocean going at the rate of nine or ten knots.

From Liverpool this steamer went to Saint Petersburg, and afterwards returned to Savannah in safety.

This was the insertion of the wedge. Our own country did not follow the lead until 1838, when the good people of New York were thrown into a state of excitement by the arrival of two steamers, the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_, from England. So long a time had elapsed since the voyage of the _Savannah_ that men had well-nigh forgotten it, and were disposed to regard these vessels as the _first_ ocean-steamers. Indeed, some narrow-minded and ungenerous writers have a.s.serted that they _were_ the first--totally ignoring the prior claim of the _Savannah_.

From that period ocean-steamers began to run frequently across the Atlantic. They now do so regularly, as well as to nearly all other parts of the world.

OCEAN MAIL-STEAMERS.

The improvements which have taken place during recent years in ocean-going steamships have been great and rapid. The speed attained by some of these magnificent vessels is little short of marvellous. Many persons still living can recollect the time when the voyage to Australia in a sailing vessel lasted six months. What is now the state of matters? By more than one line of steamships the traveller may reach Sydney or Melbourne within forty days. A recent voyage of the _Orient_, one of the latest and finest additions to ocean steamships, merits more than a pa.s.sing notice. The _Lusitania_, which belongs to the same line, steamed from England to Australia in less than forty days, and the feat was regarded as a great one. But the _Lusitania_ has been far outmatched by her sister-ship the _Orient_, which has actually accomplished the same voyage in thirty-five days, fifteen hours, and forty-six minutes. From Plymouth to the Cape of Good Hope took the _Orient_ only seventeen days twenty-one hours. This is the fastest speed on record. Whether it is the maximum rate possible to ocean steamships, or whether it is destined to be surpa.s.sed by a still higher degree of speed, remains to be seen. Many persons are of opinion that the increased facilities of speed which are now within reach of travellers on long voyages will gradually lead to the total disuse of sailing ships for pa.s.senger traffic. It may be so, but there are still not a few who would prefer a sailing to a steam ship for a long sea voyage, notwithstanding its so greatly inferior rate of speed. But nowadays everything must be sacrificed to _time_. "Time flies," is at present the motto of most instant and potent power with the world; but the day is perhaps not far off when the fiat, "Thus far, and no farther," must be p.r.o.nounced not only on the speed of steamships, but on the breathless rush and hurry of the age in general.

THE CZAR'S YACHT "LIVADIA."

Undoubtedly one of the most remarkable craft afloat is the Russian Czar's steam-yacht the _Livadia_. To a Scotch shipbuilding firm belongs the credit of having constructed this unique and splendid vessel, and it is certainly a feather in the cap of Messrs. Elder and Company, the well-known Glasgow shipbuilders, from whose yard the _Livadia_ was launched in July 1880.

One would imagine that the highest point of comfort and luxuriousness has been reached in the accommodation offered by the _Livadia_; but this is far from being the only or even the chief respect in which the vessel is remarkable. She is notable from a purely nautical point of view-- being the outcome of principles that may be said almost to revolutionise all pre-existing ideas of shipbuilding, though something like the same principle may be found in the circular ironclads of Admiral Popoff.

Hitherto the plan which naval architects have followed, where the desideratum was exceptional speed, was to give the vessel in course of construction length in combination with as fine lines and as perfect proportion as possible. But in the case of an imperial pleasure-boat, like the _Livadia_, it was an object to obtain an ampler and more drawing-room like accommodation than is compatible with length, narrowness of beam, and fine lines; and the constructors of the Czar's new yacht have succeeded in securing not only this internal s.p.a.ciousness and comfort, but also a satisfactory degree of speed.

It was to the united exertions of Admiral Popoff of the Russian navy, and Dr Tideman of the royal dockyard, Amsterdam, that the design of the _Livadia_ was due. It is not easy in words to convey a distinct impression of this curiously-shaped craft, but our description will, we hope, give the reader a pretty correct idea of the vessel.

The constructors of the _Livadia_, it is believed, chose a turbot as their model for the hull; and in thus taking a flat fish as a suggestion for their vessel, the builders, as a recent writer on the subject points out, followed no extravagant, though certainly a novel, fancy. In broad terms the _Livadia_ may be described as a wide and shallow oval in shape, half submerged, while over this turbot-shaped raft a superstructure is erected, somewhat similar in appearance to an ordinary vessel, and comprising large, lofty, and sumptuous saloons and other apartments.

The _Livadia_ is 260 feet long, 150 feet broad, and 50 feet deep. She is 11,609 tons burden, and her displacement 4000. The two leading merits of the _Livadia_, due to its peculiar construction, are--first, that its frame can support a superstructure of almost palatial proportions such as would founder any other vessel; and second, that its great breadth of beam keeps the ship as steady as a ship can possibly be, while, at the same time, its lower lines secure a very good degree of speed.

The _Livadia_ possesses powerful propelling engines. There are three sets of these, each with three cylinders, the diameter being sixty inches for the high pressure, and seventy-eight inches for the low, with a stroke of three feet three inches. As much strength and lightness as possible have been secured for the propellers by constructing them of manganese iron; while steel has been largely employed for the engines and boilers, which are, for their weight, the most powerful possessed by any vessel. The estimated horse-power is 10,500, and the ship, under favourable conditions, can make fifteen knots an hour.

The double water-tight bottom of the _Livadia_ is three feet six inches deep at the centre, and two feet nine inches at each end. In this turbot-like lower part is the machinery, and it is the receptacle also for coals and stores of all kinds. The twofold bottom of the ship comprises forty compartments, and the whole is sufficiently strong, it is believed, to withstand the heaviest weather to which the yacht is likely to be exposed, as well as the strain of her powerful machinery.

The entire length of the upper part of the ship, in which are the imperial apartments, and the quarters of the officers and crew, is 260 feet, and the breadth 110 feet. The crew all told numbers 260. The private apartments of the Czar himself are forward on the main-deck, well away from the heat of the engines and the smell of the machinery.

A visitor to the ship is chiefly struck, perhaps, by the height to which the decks rise above the hull, the uppermost compartment of all being fitted out as a reception saloon, in the centre of which a little fountain rises out of a bed of flowers. This portion of the vessel is forty feet above the level of the sea. The apartment is luxuriously appointed in the fashion of the reign of Louis XVI. The drawing-room is furnished in a style of equal sumptuousness, in the Crimean Tartar style; but the rest of the imperial apartments are in a simpler order of decoration. Behind the funnels there is another deck-house, containing the captain's quarters and rooms for the Grand Duke Constantine. It will thus be seen that the _Livadia_ is literally a floating palace, equipped and decorated with that almost Eastern love of sumptuous display which characterises the Russians as a people.

All the three screws with which the _Livadia_ is furnished are wholly submerged in the water--another novelty in the construction of the vessel. One or even two of these screws might suffer serious injury and the ship still remain manageable.

It is not wonderful that the launch of a craft, at once so splendid and so curious, should have caused much interest and excitement in the neighbourhood in which it took place. A distinguished company witnessed the ceremony, while the crowd which lined the banks of the river Clyde numbered 10,000. A short service was conducted by three priests of the Greek Church, and the bows of the vessel were then sprinkled with holy water. After the conclusion of this ceremony, the yacht received her name from the d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton, and was then launched. The launch was a complete success, the _Livadia_ taking the water in gallant style, though the task was one of more than ordinary difficulty from the circ.u.mstance of the great breadth of the ship's keel-less bottom, which much increased the friction to be overcome. At the luncheon which concluded the day's proceedings, Mr Pearce, the chairman, who represented the firm of Elder and Company, stated that the principle adopted in the building of the _Livadia_ would probably be more useful in the case of ships of war than of merchant vessels, but that builders of the latter might also derive valuable hints from the construction of the new ship. Whether this will prove to be the case time has yet to show.

A most interesting discovery of a Norse war-ship has recently been made at Sandefjord in Norway. The vessel, there can be no doubt, is one of the kind in which those formidable buccaneers, the Nors.e.m.e.n, used to harry the coasts of Great Britain and France ten hundred years ago. It was found buried in the ground, and seems to have been the sepulchre of some great Viking chieftain, who had probably many a time sailed forth in it to the terror and detriment of some less warlike and powerful neighbour.

The ship is unusually large, and very completely equipped. Its length is about seventy-five feet; and sails, rigging, a number of shields and other instruments of battle, were found on board.