"A tar, all pitch, did loudly bawl, sir, 'All hands aloft!'--'Sweet sir, not I. Though drowning I don't fear at all, sir, I hate a rope exceedingly.'"(2)
Another work, by a young lady in her teens, is entitled, "By Land and Ocean; or, the Journals and Letters of a Young Girl who went to South Australia with a Lady, thence _alone_ to Victoria, New Zealand, Sydney, Singapore, China, Japan, and across the Continent of America." Perhaps the most remarkable, however, of modern female travellers is a German lady,(3) who left Paris with only seven and a half francs in her pocket, and yet managed to go round the entire globe. It must be admitted that she had many friends abroad who helped her, and passed her on to others who could and did assist her in every way. Still, the voyages and travels she made denote the possession of a goodly amount of pluck.
The item of speed is of great importance, and may well be considered in connection with a voyage round the globe. Verne's title would have been deemed the raving of a lunatic had it been published before the age of steam, while in the first days of that great power which has now revolutionised the world it would have been regarded as absurd. The wooden Cunarder which, forty years ago, conveyed Charles Dickens on his first trip to America took double the ordinary time occupied now in making the voyage; and as a journalist has said, between such a vessel "and such ships as the _Arizona_ (Guion line), the _Germanic_ (White Star line), the _City of Berlin_ (Inman line), and the _Gallia_ (Allan line), there is undoubtedly not less difference than between the Edinburgh or Glasgow mail-coaches and a modern express train." The _Arizona_ has made the _round_ trip--that is, the voyage from Queenstown, Ireland, to Sandy Hook, New York, and back again--in fifteen days. The Inman line has been specially celebrated for quick passages, whilst their "crack" steamer, the _City of Berlin_, has made the single trip outwards in seven days, fourteen hours, and twelve minutes, and inwards in seven days, fifteen hours, and forty-eight minutes. The _City of Brussels_ and the _City of Richmond_ have done nearly as well, while other steamships of the same line have made the trip in a very few hours and minutes more time. Think of considering minutes in a voyage of 3,000 miles! The magnificent steamship named after the Orient Company has made the voyage from England to Australia in thirty-seven and a half days, or not very far from half the time occupied by other steamships a few years ago. This grand vessel is said to be only exceeded in size by the _Great Eastern_; she has a displacement of 9,500 tons and indicated horse-power of 5,400, and carries coal enough for her entire voyage--some 3,000 to 4,000 tons. But she is not to remain unchallenged, for, at the time these pages are being written, the Barrow Shipbuilding Company is constructing for the Inman line Atlantic service a still larger iron vessel, with engines of 8,500 horse- power, capable of propelling her at the rate of sixteen or seventeen knots; she will have four masts and three funnels. And yet another vessel of equal or greater power has been put on the stocks for the Cunard Company. Again, the largest _steel_ steamship, or ship of any kind, has been launched at Dumbarton. She is intended largely for the cattle trade between the River Plate, Canada, and England. She is over 4,000 gross tonnage, and has been christened the _Buenos Ayrean_. The sums of money invested in the construction of these superb vessels are enormous. The _Orient_ is said to have cost, _without_ her fittings, little less than £150,000, her engines alone involving the expenditure of one-third of that amount. And yet a third-class or steerage ticket to the Antipodes by her costs only fifteen guineas, while the emigrant can go out to the United States or Canada by almost any one of the finest steamships of the various Atlantic services for six guineas.