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Being one of the world's great ports, Hongkong has always taken a keen interest in ships and the men who go down to the sea in them. The arrival of the C.P.R. liner, Empress of Britain, on her annual round-the-world cruise always provides columns of "copy" for the newspapers,
And right back through the Colony's history, one can find innumerable references to the arrival of new ships, fast ships, and freak ships.
A correspondent has sent me a cutting from the Friend of China and Hongkong Gazette, dated November 11, 1846, dealing with the arrival of the Rainbow. With its fine lines and majestic "white wings" the Rainbow was universally admired, The Journal says:
The beautiful ship Rainbow, (Captain Hayes), arrived in this harbour on the evening of the 9th; she is last from Callao on the west coast of America. The Rainbow maintains her reputation for speed. She left New York on the 18th May; doubled Cape Horn, and arrived at Valparaiso on the 17th of August, where, and at Coquimbo, she landed half of a full cargo shipped in America. She sailed from Coquimbo for Callao on the 4th September; at the latter port she landed a moiety of her original cargo (that for China having been shipped at Coquimbo) and started for China on the 12th of September, after having visited three ports on the west coast, at all of which she landed or took in cargo. The whole of this service has been executed in 174 days, for the not uncommon duration of a passage from England to China direct. This speaks volumes for fast ships if they carry less, in long passages it is more than made up by the saving in time, interest on money,
The Seattle
Extract from the S.O.M. Post of May 13, 1909:- Post-Intelligencer published the following Victoria (B.C.) dispatch on April 61 It is reported that the Blue Funnel line is preparing to enter the trans-Pacific trade. The British shipping firm, Alfred Holt and Co., is building four new liners, and in each of these passenger accommodation is to be a feature. The Blue Funnel line has heretofore confined itself mostly to freight, the only ventures in the passenger trade being the carrying of pilgrims and steerage passengers from Hongkong and Japan ports. The profits from the carrying of steerage passengers have been large, however, and it is now stated that an effort will be made to cater to the better classes of travellers. This summer is expected to ...
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several other changes in the trans-Pacific trade.
Quite a lot of ink has been spilt about stirring events on the China coast. Fiction has provided us with scores of heroes men who outwitted pirates, performed great feats of navigation, and braved the worst typhoons of the China Sea.
Fiction, however, cannot claim all the heroes. There have been men who have sailed up and down this treacherous coast for years, doing their work in accordance with the highest traditions of their profession, expecting no reward other than fair payment for their services, and certainly never dreaming of their names being handed down for posterity to honour.
It is of Samuel Ashton, Commodore Captain of the Douglas Line of steamers, that I write to-day. When he died during the night watch on Wednesday, July 5, 1893, China coast officers mourned his loss to a man. Of him, a contemporary journal wrote: "He was the most able, indefatigable and deservedly popular mariner that ever strode the deck of a British merchant vessel."