existence by the opening of the Suez Canal; while the progress of science and the introduction of the compound engine had tended to render the machinery of many of the company's ships obsolete." So it had become necessary to "get rid of twentyone ships that had become obsolete, to build twenty-four large steamers, and to compound or re Company already alluded to. The great and deservedly popular "P. and O." was subjected about the same time to two necessities, a change of system and a change of style. The opening of the Suez Canal, besides, for example, revolutionising the tea trade with Europe, led to the establishment of many steam-packet lines between East and West, so that the “P. and O.” were seriously threat-construct the machinery of fourteen ened with the loss of their preeminence in this business. The new-comers could at once supply themselves with steamers fitted for the canal, and with the newest form of engine. To compete with them the Peninsular and Oriental Company had to revolutionise its steam fleet. The vessels fitted to carry the trade to and from the two ports of the Overland Route at the Isthmus of Suez had to be replaced by vessels fit to do the whole voyage, canal included. At the annual meeting of the company in December 1876, the chairman of the meeting gave some details of what this change meant, as between the ships of 1869 and the ships of 1876. In the former year the company had 46 steamers of a tonnage of 84,059 tons and 18,294 horse-power. The reorganised fleet consists of 48 steamers of a tonnage of 124,664 and 21,856 horse-power. "Many of the ships of 1869 had been admirably adapted for the purposes for which they had been originally designed, but they were quite inadequate for the great carrying trade called into more ships." This involved a capital outlay of £2,500,000. During the year the fleet of the company traversed 1,700,000 miles, and by its agency mails from India, China, Japan, and Australia, had, by converging lines at Point de Galle and Suez, been delivered in London every Monday morning with train-like punctuality. The company's ships during the year conveyed 300,000 tons of cargo, and 15,000 passengers, without loss of life, without serious accident, and without any maritime catastrophe. With some pride in such results the chairman boasted that" during the last thirtysix years the company had stood in the front rank of the maritime enterprise of the country," and declared his belief that neither the experience nor the trade gained during that time would now desert it, but that the mission of the company "had but just begun." To this organisation or that of the Cunard line no one desiring to quote a type of British enterprise, skill, and good management, whether by sea or land, need hesitate to turn. PERILS OF THE OCEAN- -TERRIBLE ATLANTIC THE ΟΝ BIRKENHEAD-AMERICAN RIVER STEAMERS. THE PLEASURES AND DANGERS OF STEAM NAVIGATION. board a steamer," says the famous traveller, Madame Ida Pfeiffer, "everything is agreeable and luxurious; the vessel pursues her rapid course independent of the wind, and the passengers enjoy good and fresh provisions, spacious, cabins, and excellent society." The testimony of such a traveller is valuable as that of one who had "tried it both ways " like the Scotch advocate of honesty, and had travelled over a great part of the world amidst all he delays, the inconveniences, and he dangers of a sailing vessel. Except to the captain and crew of uch a vessel, a voyage by sea without steam is almost unknown □ our day, and year by year the roportion of vessels aided in their rogress by this powerful agent is n the increase. To one for whom e dreaded mal de mer has no rrors, there is probably no greater joyment than a lengthened eamboat voyage in favourable eather. "A floating palace, sur rounded with all the conveniences and luxuries of a splendid hotel," is the description of one enthusiastic writer, and though there is a reverse to the picture, in the records of storm and disaster, there have been few inventions of man which have added so materially to the sum of human enjoyment as the development of steam navigation. The " Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" has expressed something of the joyful feeling with which one who is a good sailor can enter into the spirit of such a voyage in the following stirring lines: See how yon flaming herald treads The ridged and rolling waves, She rends the clinging sea, The morning spray, like sea-born flowers, And burning o'er the midnight deep, The living gems of ocean sweep With clashing wheel, and lifting keel, When seas are silent and serene, With even beam she glides, The sunshine glimmering through the green, That skirts her gleaming sides. Now, like a wild nymph, far apart She veils her shadowy form, The beating of her restless heart Still sounding through the storm. the sea, than as if they were in an element of their own. "They puff and blow like boasters braggin' that they extract from the ocean the means to make it help to subdue itself. It is a war of the elements, fire and water contendin' for the victory. They are black, dingy, forbiddin' looking sea monsters. It is no wonder the superstitious Spaniard, when he first saw one, said, 'A vessel that goes against the tide, and against the wind, and without sails, goes against God;' or that the simple negro thought it was a sea devil. Sam Slick is, however, of a very They are very well for carrying different opinion:— "Well," sais I, "as I was a sayin', Captain, give me a craft like this that spreads its wings like a bird, and looks as if it was born, not made, a whole-sail breeze, and a seaman every inch of him like you on the deck, who looks you in the face, in a way as if he'd like to say, only bragging ain't genteel, Ain't she a clipper now, and ain't I the man to handle her? Now this ain't the case in a steamer. They ain't vessels, they are more like floating factories; you see the steam machines and the enormous fires, and the clouds of smoke, but you don't visit the rooms where the looms are, that's all. They plough through the sea dead and heavy, like a subsoiler with its eight-horse team; there is no life in 'em ; they can't dance on the waters as if they rejoiced in their course, but divide the waves as a rock does in a river; they seem to move more in defiance of freight, because they are beasts of burden, but not for carrying travellers, unless they are mere birds of passage like our Yankee tourists, who want to have it to say I was 'thar.' I hate them. The decks are dirty; your skin and clothes are dirty; and your lungs are foul; smoke pervades everythin', and now and then the condensation gives you a shower of sooty water by way of variety that scalds your face, and dyes your coat into a sort of pepper-and-salt colour. "You miss the sailors, too. There are none on board-you miss the nice light, tight-built, lathy, wiry, active, neat, jolly crew. In their place you have nasty, dirty, horrid stokers; some hoisting hot cinders, and throwing them overboard (not with the merry countenances of niggers, or the cheerful sway-away-my-boys expression of the Jack Tar, but with sour, Cameronian - lookin' faces, that seem as if they were dreadfully disappointed they were | iron, trinkets, and so on, and can't not persecuted any longer-had talk of anythin' else; fellows who no churches and altars to desecrate, and no bishops to anoint with the oil of hill-side maledictions as of old); while others are emerging from the fiery furnaces beneath for fresh air, and wipe a hot, dirty face, with a still dirtier shirt sleeve, and in return for the nauseous exudation, lay on a fresh coat of blacking; tall gaunt wretches who pant for breath as they snuff the fresh breeze, like porpouses, and then dive again into the lower regions. They are neither seamen or landsmen, good whips nor decent shots; their hair is not woolly enough for niggers, and their faces are too black for white men. They ain't amphibious animals, like marines and others. They are salamanders. But that's a long word, and now they call chem stokers for shortness. walk up and down the deck, four or five abreast when there are four or five of the same craft on board, and prevent any one else from promenadin', by sweepin' the whole space, while every lurch the ship gives, one of them tumbles atop of you, or treads on your toes, and then instead of apologisin', turns round and abuses you like a pickpocket for stickin' your feet out and trippin' people up. Thinkin' is out of the question, and as for readin', you might as well read your fortune in the stars." All this merely expresses in the rough tongue of the New Englander, the same opinion as is put in other words by Mr. Ruskin, that "a ship under full sail is one of the loveliest things man ever made, and one of the noblest ; nor do I know any lines out of divine work so lovely as those of the head of a ship a broad strong sea boat, able to breast a wave and break it." | Whatever their commercial advantages, it must be admitted that the long black steamers—irreverently called gas-pipes, coffins, or "Then steamers carry a mob, and I detest mobs, especially such nes as they delight in-greasy ews, hairy Germans, mulattoooking Italians, squalling children, hat run between your legs and hrow you down, or wipe the utter off their bread on your | floating flat-irons,—cannot be said lothes; Englishmen that will to walk the waters like a thing of rumble, and Irishmen that will life. ght; priests that won't talk, and reachers that will harangue; omen that will be carried about, ecause they won't lie still and be iet; silk men, cotton men, bonet men, iron men, trinket men, d every kind of shopmen, who verally know nothing in the orld but silk, cotton, bonnets, "ACROSS THE ATLANTIC." Many writers have placed on record the incidents of an Atlantic voyage in one of the ocean steamers, and it would not be difficult to gather together a large volume of such narratives. Choos |