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she made her passage to Java Head in 76 days, which, in view of the unfavourable weather, was considered a very fine performance. She caught Thyatira, which sailed a fortnight ahead of her, and overhauled Wylo, the Doune Castle, and the Fiery Cross. By this time all on board must have realised that she was something very remarkable from the point of view both of speed and seaworthiness. She made her port on 31st May, 104 days out.

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"A pilot was picked up, and as the ship headed for the light-vessels, she began to overhaul numbers of junks, the largest of which boasted as many as seven masts. These Chinese coasters must have opened their eyes at the way in which this three piecey bamboo' slipped ahead in the light wind. They had the advantage of the clipper in being able to cut across the flats with their shallow draft and leeboards. . . . With the aid of a tug the new clipper successfully negotiated the celebrated Woosung Bar, a frequent cause of delay for vessels bound in or out of Shanghai, a name which means 'out of the sea.' The city lies twelve miles up the river from Woosung. As the Cutty Sark began to breast the chow-chow' water, crowds of sampans gathered on her quarters and endeavoured to hook on; and no sooner was her anchor down than swarms of Chinks, the touts of every imaginable trade that could VOL. CCXV.-NO. MCCCIII.

interest the sailor, came bundling aboard.

"Those who have only seen the Shanghai River under present-day conditions can have no idea of its picturesqueness in 1870, with its thousands of junks and dozens of tall ships.

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The anchorage for foreign shipping lay opposite the Bund, with its stone jetties, its palatial hongs and busy godowns. Where in 1843 a few piraticallooking opium schooners lay opposite to a muddy shore, with their hammock nettings triced up and the tompions out of their pop-guns; in 1870 the stately men-of-war sparkled in the sunshine as they lay peacefully moored with awnings spread and boat booms out, whilst on either side of them floated the famous tea clippers, their masts raking the skies, their jib-booms casting shadows on the water some 60 to 70 feet beyond their figureheads, and their yards squared by lift and brace to a mathematical exactness.

"Sampans waddled to and fro like water-beetles, whilst smart gigs, their yoke-lines held by the sunburnt fists of burly hard-faced skippers in shore-going rig of tall chimneypot hat and black cloth coat, dashed between the shipping and the landing places.

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roared the Cutty's apprentices, quick to adapt their songs to the pidgin lingo of the Flowery Land.

"In the days of sail, seamen, from captain to cabin-boy, took a special pride in the appearance of their ships, and in harbour a good officer considered himself disgraced if so much as a rope-yarn was out of place. The spotless cleanliness of these wind-jammers, their sparkling brass-work, their yacht-like decks, and their varnished carved teak rails and stanchions would have dazzled the modern eye, used as it is to the smoke and grime, the oily waterways, and smutty paint of even the smartest of steamdriven vessels."

But this was the year 1870, and little as they knew it, the reign of steam was fated to supplant the reign of the beautiful-winged vessels that like live things flew in the winds, and flagged in the calms, and raced each other home from Foochow to the English Channel.

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Suez Canal was open, and the number of steamers loading new teas lowered the freights for sailing ships, which, starting at £3, 10s. per 50 cubic feet, soon dropped to £3 and even £2, 10s. The Cutty Sark and Serica both managed to fill their holds at £3, 10s., but it was for the last time, although they did not guess it, and none of the other ships succeeded in getting more than £3.

The Cutty Sark, from her earliest days, exercised a fascination quite distinct from

the fame she won later. "From the start she had captured the hearts of the shippers, and she was the first sailing ship to load at Shanghai, a great honour for a new untried ship.”

The tea was very slow that year in coming down from the interior, and while they waited and loaded, in friendly rivalry, chaffing each other over every little mishap, the skipper of the big Duke of Abercorn, confident that he could beat every other ship in Shanghai on the race home, proceeded to challenge every clipper that was going to load new teas. The sporting spirit was so strong amongst the shipping fraternity that the crews of no less than seven clippers wagered a month's pay to go to the ship which made the quickest passage from Shanghai to the Channel. These seven were the Cutty Sark, Duke of Abercorn. Serica, Forward Ho, Argonaut, Ethiopia, and John R. Worcester-all cracks, of course. The last-named ship bore a full-sized and striking likeness of John R. Worcester in his top-hat and Sunday best as her figurehead. The famous Thermopylae was not in this race, as she went to Foochow for a cargo, and did not sail until more than a month after.

Early on the morning of 25th June, to the sound of guns fired in salute from every merchantman as she passed, according to ancient custom, the Cutty Sark, first tea ship of the year to leave Shanghai, was towed away to sea with

flags flying and her signal guns spouting white smoke. One ship only was beating down the China Sea ahead of her. This was the beautiful Titania, which had loaded at Hankow, and crossed the bar of Woosung exactly a week before the Cutty Sark.

Here we cannot refrain from uttering our humble plaint to Mr Lubbock on the subject of a map. It is ungrateful to complain of anything, perhaps, in his delightful book, with its wonderful sea history, so full of illustrations of rare interest. But oh, if he had only included a map of the China Seas for handy reference! Perhaps, in succeeding editions, he may think well to supply the want.

For some reason of his own, Captain Moodie usually chose to work due south from the Formosa bank, whereas all other skippers chose to hug the Cochin-China coast so as to use the land and sea breezes, and to get the benefit of the current. Captain Moodie was generally unlucky in his weather, and this voyage was no exception to the rule. All the way down to the Karamata Passage he had nothing but light winds and calms, except during three days; and finally on the 6th August he broke out in disgust:

"This ship is apparently doomed to light winds, for the legitimate winds seem to flag at our appearance. Here we are in the middle of calms, where it ought to be blowing a steady strong S.E. trade."

On that very day, however, the wind at last came out of the S.E., and the Cutty Sark grew lively, and made a run of 303 miles next day, increasing her distance to 311 miles on the following day, and 320 miles on the third day. But very soon after the wind petered out, and Captain Moodie fell to grumbling again.

"Sails clashing against the masts. The old music. Very pleasant to people not in a hurry."

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So it continued. less the Cutty Sark managed to round the Cape in 26 days from Anjer, and the rest of the passage was without incident. On the 13th October she came racing up Channel before a strong S.W. gale, with the usual thick rainy weather, having made the passage home in 109 days, which, considering the extremely unfavourable weather, was recognised as a very fine performance.

It was the best passage made that year in the height of the S.W. monsoon, and none of the ships which had wagered a month's pay came anywhere near it, their times beingSerica, 118 days; Ethiopian, 114 days, and so on. Though both Captain Moodie and Jock Willis were disappointed with the actual time, they were perfectly satisfied with the vessel herself.

In the next year, 1871, both Cutty Sark and Thermopylae made such fine outward passages, and were so even in their times, that, when in June they

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found themselves both in the Shanghai River, the whole shipping community began to look forward to a fair race between these two; but it did not come off that year, and the reason was an ominous one. It was a very bad year for tea freights on account of the competition of many new steamers. Cutty Sark's agents were so dissatisfied with the rates at Shanghai that, when the tea lighters were actually alongside, they withdrew her from the berth and sent her down to Foochow to see what could be done there. Here she found the Duke of Abercorn on the same errand as herself; but freights were as bad and charters as difficult in Foochow as they were at Shanghai. Captain Moodie waited three weeks in hopes of better things, and then up-anchored and went back to Shanghai, obliged after all to accept the despised £3 per 50 cubic feet, as it was late in the season, and he had already wasted two months in an effort to get more. It was time for the shipowners to recognise the situation.

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or more on the best times taken by the clippers in the long passage round the Cape. Nevertheless, sailing-ship owners were by no means discouraged, and faced the future with a confidence which was rather more stout-hearted than far-sighted.

"They had, however, very good reasons for this confidence. For instance, many of the tea - merchants were firmly of opinion that tea carried in iron hulls deteriorated, and for this reason preferred the composite clippers, especially for their choicest brands. Besides this, the trade had grown so in volume that it was hoped there would be ample room for both sailing ships and steamers.

"Thirdly, a number of shipowners in the Eastern trade were by no means sure that the Suez Canal would be a success, and predicted that the steamers using the Canal would experience unexpected delays, which would add to their expenses, and cut down their profits very seriously. In these days we can hardly realise the many difficulties with which those in charge of the early steamers had to contend. Undoubtedly the chief of these for ships in the Eastern trade was the task of finding stokers who could stand the ill-ventilated stokeholds in the heat of the Red Sea. At first it was thought that stoking in the Red Sea was more than any white man could endure; thus Kroomen from the west

coast of Africa were specially considered to be
signed on for this object.
Though probably the hardiest
race in the whole Bight of
Benin, these sturdy surf boat-
men collapsed in front of their
furnace doors, and had to be
relieved at frequent intervals.

"Experiments were tried with other tropical races, but with the same result. Then yellow men were tried, and finally the steamship owners were compelled to fall back on their own colour, and make the best of it. Here we come to the triumph of the Liverpool Irishman, for it was soon realised that the Liverpool Irish stoker, the son of the Liverpool Irish Western Ocean packet-rat, was the only man that could submit to this near approach to the fires of hell and survive. Without a doubt the Liverpool Irishman is the toughest of all the sons of man. He soon proved himself as indifferent to the stifling heat of the Red Sea as to the bitter cold of the North Atlantic winter, and but for his astounding powers of endurance, it is probable that the racing steamers would have had a much stiffer fight before they captured the tea trade."

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the perfect examples of the thorough-bred tea clipper; he therefore made no attempt to improve upon them, but turned his attention to auxiliaries, and finally to steam. So for a few years there was a tremendous boom in racing steamers. Though at first good freights were earned, the tonnage soon threatened to overweigh the trade; then freights began to fall, profits became problematical, weak owners fell out of the struggle-such as poor old Findlay, who, when nearly ruined by the loss of Spindrift, uninsured, broke his heart and died; thus gradually the trade became stabilised again, but not before the sailing ships had been driven from the China Seas. What a wonderful thing it is to think that although the Cutty Sark is still afloat and still seaworthy, not a single one of these first tea steamers is in existence! As Mr Lubbock remarks, "Their life indeed was a very short one; they were soon shaken to pieces, and had to be scrapped and replaced, besides which their losses from strandings were very heavy. In the first two or three years of the boom, as many as half a dozen came to grief. The Drummond Castle, when barely clear of her tea port, was wrecked on

By the year 1870 shipowners began to grasp the hard realities of the case, and there was something like a rush to build steamers for the China trade, the Chusan Islands; and at in which even sailing ship owners joined; that is, those who were far-sighted. Of such was Maxton, the owner of Ariel and Titania. These he

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the subsequent inquiry at Shanghai a great deal was said about the reckless driving of racing steamers through intricate channels."

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