28rd October.
.To those whose memories carry them back forty years, the evolution of the steamer carrying passengers and mails, as well as of the steamer devoted entirely to cargo, is a matter of unceasing admiration. The P. & O. steamers thas brought the mails to China forty years ago were small paddle or screw vessels of a thousand tons gross, barely able to carry coal enough to go from port to port, and " small cargo of opium, and with passenger accommodation of the most rudimentary description. The saloon was a long narrow room at the stern with the cabins on either side of it, so that the anguish of the passengers in bad weather was distinctly audible to those who were better seasoned, and for them there was no refuge but the deck, such things as smoking-rooms, libraries, ladies' parlours, nurseries, ete, being undreamt-of, In fine weather these vessels were able, with an enormous consumption of coal considering their size, to make ten knots an hour; but against head winds they toiled almost in vain, and the Ganges, for instance, was sometimes ten days making the eight hundred odd miles between Hongkong and Shanghai; and between Singapore and Hongkong they had sometimes to go inside Palawan for shelter, and call at Manila for coal. Steamers trading to the Bast were necessarily provided with bathrooms, but the crack Atlantic steamers of forty years ago had not a single bathroom on board, and the inconsiderate passenger who declined to go without a bath for some ten days had to gob up early and have the hose played on him while the decks ware being washed, or get the steward to bring a footman into his narrow stateroom, to the indignation of his stable companion whose belongings it was impossible not to splash. Even in the Eastern steamers there was no fresh water in the bathrooms, and fa very limited supply in the staterooms, and the passenger who wanted to wash down with fresh water after his salp water bath had to take a can of water from his stateroom with him.
The change-from such steamers as these to such Vessels as Mr. Hill has lately built to extend the operations of the Great Northern Railway Company to. the Far East, the Minnesota and Dakota, is almost incredible, The exile in China read. with wonder of the magnificent vessels thab now carry passengers between Europe and New York, never believing thab such grand floating hotels would ever be seen in his own ports. The German, and to a less extent, the French, mail companies began to
ines, and they were in turn stir-modern steamers on their China
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.