84 Book of Steamships 



intervene and prevent her calls. Next we 

 find the Great Eastern used as a vast 

 marine hoarding, her sides covered with 

 posters. What a life for the biggest ship 

 of her time ! 



Though we to-day would have been 

 interested to have seen her, especially if 

 she could have been usefully employed, 

 I think we may be really glad that her 

 existence as a hoarding was terminated 

 by her being sold to the ship-breakers, 

 who, it is said, actually made, in 1890, 

 double what she had been sold for in 

 1884. But it was as scrap, and not as a 

 steamship which had startled the world 

 in its coming. 



Yet nine years later she was exceeded 

 in size, and Brunei's dream of monster 

 vessels has indeed come true. 



Had Brunei's masterpiece been built 

 ten years later, I venture to think her 

 career would have been entirely different ; 

 the day of the big ship would have come 

 twenty years before it did, and the whole 



