INTRODUCTORY. 5 



plenty of space over head, and ample ventilation is pro- 

 vided from the lofty skylights, a matter of no small im- 

 portance in any climate and in any vessel, but of the 

 greatest necessit}^, ^vhen it is considered that the numbers 

 congregated therein daily for meals amount to several 

 hundreds, and also that the ship's destination is ahvay.s 

 across the equator and within the tropics. 



Another great advantage which the construction of the 

 Shannon offers is her flush deck, which extends from stem 

 to stern without a single step or obstruction of any kind, 

 and thus offers an admirable promenade to the Englishman 

 at sea, who is notorious amongst all nations for the perti- 

 nacity, the diligence, the endurance, and the speed with 

 which, of grave face and dejected mien, he paces up and 

 down the allotted space, as if impelled by some avenging 

 Fury, or as if, like a leopard caged in his den, he must 

 perforce make the most of the little room for exercise at 

 his command. 



We found our ship well furnished with animals for food, 

 including a stye of pigs, several pens of sheep, amounting 

 in all to about a score, poultry of all sorts and in great 

 profusion ; and, above all, the cow, which was to supply 

 the milk at breakfast, that never-failing subject of interest 

 to idle passengers, round whose stall a group of smokers 

 generally congregated every da3^ 



But that which most frequently arrested our steps as we 

 wandered carelessly over the great ship, and afterwards 

 often attracted our admiration and wonder, was the colossal 

 size of the engines, which, though working so easily and 

 gently and smoothly, seemed powerful enough to tear away 

 from all opposition, and to work their way against all 

 antagonists, and do desperate battle with the winds and 

 waves even of the great Atlantic, though proverbially the 

 stronghold of those mighty elements. No wonder that the 

 furnaces which acted as the jaws of those huge monsters 



