Every nation is interested in the extension of its ocean freight-carrying business. The welfare of the farmer, the artisan, and the merchant is interwoven with that of men who live on the sea. Commerce and the industries go hand in hand, and the magnificent showing that the former makes is only an indication of the prosperity of the latter. No more apt illustration of the growth of the American nation in the last quarter of a century can be pointed out than the development of her ocean traffic.
[18] There are several other lines, like the Liverpool, Brazil & River Plate, and John Norton’s Son, which usually send out from four steamships a year to one a month, but which are doing very little just now, owing to the disorganized condition of trade in the River Plate region. Reciprocity with Brazil is counted upon to increase their trade.
There is one line of steamships from New York direct to Indian, Chinese, and Japanese ports by way of the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal. It is operated by Edward Perry & Co., and case oil forms the bulk of the trade. About one vessel a month is sent out, and this vessel has a tonnage of about 3,000 gross.
Carter, Hawley & Co., and Carter, Macy & Co., had during the year 1891 about 25 steamships consigned to them from China and Japan, the tonnage of which was about 60,000 gross. Inward these vessels are tea-laden, but on the return trip they are usually chartered by other firms for general cargo.
[19] Certain kinds of freight admit of peculiar packing, of which an instance occurs to me in the loading of American cheeses. The side-ports of the ship are opened, and a series of inclined chutes are arranged so that the cheeses roll by their own weight from the truck on the pier through the open port, and are switched off on side chutes, which carry them to their final resting place, where men stow them in solid layers. Some vessels, not provided with side-ports, hoist the packages on deck in nets and lower them down the hatchways. Some of these products of the American dairy return to us as English manufacture—the “Cheshire” and “Double Gloucester.”
IMPORTANT PART TAKEN BY THE UNITED STATES IN ESTABLISHING OCEAN ROUTES—RIVALRY IN SAILING VESSELS WITH ENGLAND—EFFECT OF THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA—THE CAPE HORN ROUTE—AUSTRALIAN PACKET LINES—THE PROBLEM OF A SHORT ROUTE TO INDIA—FOUR MAIN ROUTES OF STEAMSHIP TRAFFIC—CHARACTERISTICS OF THE REGULAR SERVICE BETWEEN EUROPE AND THE EAST—PORT SAID AND THE SUEZ CANAL—SCENES AT ADEN AND AT BOMBAY—THE RUN TO COLOMBO, CEYLON—SOME OF THE BY-WAYS OF TRAVEL FROM SINGAPORE—THE PACIFIC MAIL—FROM YOKOHAMA TO SAN FRANCISCO—TWO ROUTES FROM PANAMA TO NEW YORK—SOUTH AMERICAN PORTS—MAGNIFICENT SCENERY OF THE MAGELLAN STRAITS—BEAUTIES OF THE PORT OF RIO—THE GREAT OCEAN ROUTE FROM LONDON TO AUSTRALIA.