THE ORIENT LINE 171 CHAPTER XIV. The Orient Line-The early ships-The Orient-The present fleet-The Ophir Auxiliary steamships-The Union Steamship Company-The first ships-Their present fleet-The Scot-The lengthening of the ScotThe Norman-The Briton-The Castle Line-The steamers of the Castle Line-The loss of the Drummond Castle-The Allan Line-The White Star Line-The American Line-The Inman Line-Other great steamship lines. THE trade to the Mediterranean and to the Australian Colonies by way of the Suez Canal was clearly of far too valuable a nature to be left very long exclusively to the P. and O.; and in 1877, the two well-known shipping firms of Anderson, Anderson and Co., and F. Green and Co., started a new line of steamers to Australia under the name of the Orient Line, and the first steamship to leave London under the new flag of the Orient Steam Navigation Company was the Garonne. Besides the Garonne, the other original steamers of the new Company were the Lusitania, the Chimborazo, and the Cuzco, ships previously employed in the trade between Liverpool and the Pacific ports of South America. The Cuzco was built in 1870, by the firm of John Elder and Co., and the Chimborazo, a sister ship, was launched from the same yard in 1871. The Garonne was also built in 1871, but by Robert Napier and Sons. These ships were all very much alike, and although large for their time, yet look small now, when seen in proximity to the much larger ships of the present day. They were each 370 feet in length between perpendiculars, 41 feet beam, and 35 feet depth of hold, and were all of about 3850 tons, gross tonnage. They used to make the voyage from Liverpool to Valparaiso in forty-two days. These comparatively small vessels were very soon supplemented, and afterwards entirely superseded, by much larger and faster ships, the first to be placed on the line being the Orient. She was built and engined on the Clyde by Messrs. Elder and Co. Her principal dimensions are: length between perpendiculars, 445 feet; breadth, 46 feet; depth, 36 feet 10 inches; gross tonnage, 5385 tons; and displacement weight 9500 tons. Her engines are of 5500 indicated horse-power, and her average speed at sea is 14 knots. The Orient has four masts, three iron decks, and is divided by bulkheads into thirteen water-tight compartments. She can carry, in addition to 3000 tons of Welsh coal for her own consumption, 3600 tons of measurement cargo. She has passenger accommodation for 120 first-class, 140 second-class, and 300 third-class passengers. If she were required as a transport, and was entirely devoted to troops, the Orient could convey 3000 men and 400 horses, with all their proper stores, at one and the same time. The Orient is fitted with compound engines, having three cylinders-one high-pressure cylinder of 60 inches diameter, and two low-pressure cylinders, each of 85 inches diameter. The propeller is four-bladed, the diameter of the screw being 22 feet, and the pitch 30 feet. The steam is supplied by four boilers, each 15 feet 6 inches in diameter by 17 feet 6 inches long. The vessel is fitted with steam steering-gear, steam windlass, five steam winches, and has in all sixteen separate steam-engines for different purposes on board. The present mail fleet of the Orient Line consists of nine ships, with an aggregate register tonnage of 28,066 tons; some of the ships, however, sailing under the Orient flag-as, for example, the Oroya, the Oruba, and others-belong to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, and simply sail in the Orient Line. The latest addition to the Orient fleet is the Ophir, twinscrew, which, although a larger and much more powerful steamer than the earlier ship, the Orient, is hardly as handsome a vessel as that ship. She is 3223 tons register, 6900 tons gross, and her displacement at the load-line is 12,362 tons. Her length is 482 feet; beam, 53 feet 6 inches; and depth, 37 feet. "" 173 She is fitted with triple expansion engines, working up to 9500 horse-power. The two sets of engines for working the twin screws are placed side by side in the ship, with a watertight bulkhead running fore and aft between them, so that if from collision or any other cause one set of engines were disabled, and one of the engine-rooms full of water, the ship could still steam ahead with the other set of engines. The highpressure cylinder of each engine is 34 inches diameter, the intermediate cylinder 51 inches, and the low-pressure 85 inches, the stroke being 54 inches. The two screws have a pitch of 23 feet 4 inches, and at 102 revolutions made a knot on the measured mile in 3 minutes 12 seconds, or at the rate of 18.75 knots per hour; but with an average of 82 revolutions the Ophir steamed from the Cloch Light, in the Clyde, to Southend, at the mouth of the Thames, in 48 hours. For 500 miles of this trip she gave a speed of 16 knots, with a coalconsumption of 110 tons in 24 hours. The boilers are seven in number, and they work at a pressure of 160 lbs. to the square inch. They are divided into two groups, four of the boilers being placed in a compartment next the engines, while the other three are in a separate boiler-room thirty feet distant, with coal-bunkers between. This arrangement has necessitated the great distance, more than a hundred feet, between the two funnels. The Ophir has simply two polemasts, as, being fitted with twin screws, she is not required by the Board of Trade to carry any canvas. This, of course, is a practical, common-sense arrangement, but not an arrangement at all conducive to the beauty of the ship. As a partial preventative against rolling, the Ophir is fitted with deep bilge-keels. The Orient boats leave the Tilbury Docks for Australia every other Friday, working the weekly Australian mail alternately with the P. and O. boats; and for this they receive from the Government an annual subsidy of £85,000. The steamers call at Plymouth to embark the heavy portion of the mails the day after leaving Tilbury; four days later the ships are due at Gibraltar; and nine days after leaving Tilbury they are at Naples. The ships go through the Canal, calling at Colombo, and arrive at Albany, Australia, in 39 days from the |