Henry Field - From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn

We landed this morning at two o'clock, by the light of the moon, which was just past the full, and which showed distinctly the beautiful harbor, surrounded by hills and forts, and filled with ships at anchor, through which the tender that brought us off from the steamer glided silently to the town, which lay in death-like stillness before us. Eight days and six hours took us from shore to shore! Eight days we were out of sight of land. Water, water everywhere! Ocean to the right of us, ocean to the left of us, ocean in front of us, and ocean behind us, with two or three miles of ocean under us. But our good ship, the City of Berlin (which seemed proud of bearing the name of the capital of the new German Empire), bore us over the sea like a conqueror. She is said to be the largest ship in the world, next to the Great Eastern, being 520 feet long, and carrying 5,500 tons. This was her first voyage, and much interest was felt as to how she "behaved." She carried herself proudly from the start. On Saturday, the 15th, seven steamships, bound for Europe, left New York at about the same time. Those of the National and the Anchor lines moved off quietly; then the Celtic, of the White Star line, so famous for its speed, shot down the Bay; and the French steamer, the Amerique, swept by, firing her guns, as if boasting of what she would do. But the Berlin answered not a word. Since a fatal accident, by which a poor fellow was blown to pieces by a premature explosion, the Inman line has dropped the foolish custom of firing a salute every time a ship leaves or touches the dock. So her guns were silent; she made no reply to her noisy French neighbor. But at length her huge bulk swung slowly into the stream, and her engines began to move. She had not gone half-way down the bay before she left all her rivals behind, the Frenchman still firing his guns; even the Celtic, though pressing steam, was soon "nowhere." We did not see the German ship, which sailed at a different hour; nor the Cunarder, the Algeria (in which were our friends, Prof. R. D. Hitchcock and his family), as she left an hour before us; but as she has not yet been signalled at Queenstown, she must be some distance behind; 1 1 She came in fifteen hours after us, and the Celtic twenty. The German ship reached Southampton two days later. so that the Berlin may fairly claim the honors of this ocean race.

But in crossing the sea speed is secondary to safety and to comfort; and in these things I can say truly that I never was on board a more magnificent ship (excepting always the Great Eastern, in which I crossed in 1867). She was never going at full speed, but took it easily, as it was her first voyage, and the Captain was anxious to get his new machinery into smooth working order. The great size of the ship conduces much to comfort. She is more steady, she does not pitch and roll, like the lighter boats that we saw tossing around us, while she was moving majestically through the waves. The saloon, instead of being at the stern, according to the old method of construction, is placed more amidships (after the excellent model first introduced by the White Star line), and covers the whole width of the steamer, which gives light on both sides. There are four bath-rooms, with marble baths, supplied with salt water, so that one may have the luxury of sea-bathing without going to Rockaway or Coney Island. In crossing the Gulf Stream the water is warm enough; but if elsewhere it is too chill, the turn of a cock lets the steam into the bath, which quickly raises it to any degree of temperature. The ventilation is excellent, so that even when the port-holes are shut on account of the high sea, the air never becomes impure. The state-rooms are furnished with electric bells, one touch on which brings a steward in an instant. Thus provided for, one may escape, as far as possible, the discomforts of the sea, and enjoy in some degree the comforts and even the luxuries of civilization.

Captain Kennedy, who is the Commodore of the fleet, and so always commands the newest and best ship of the line, is an admirable seaman, with a quick eye for everything, always on deck at critical moments, watching with unsleeping vigilance over the safety of all on board. The order and discipline of the ship is perfect. There is no noise or confusion. All moves on quietly. Not a sound is heard, save the occasional cry of the men stretching the sails, and the steady throb, day and night, of the engine, which keeps this huge mass moving on her ocean track.

But what a vast machine is such a ship, and how complicated the construction which makes possible such a triumph over the sea. Come up on the upper deck, and look down through this iron grating. You can see to a depth of fifty or sixty feet. It is like looking down into a miner's shaft. And what makes it the more fearful, is that the bottom of the ship is a mass of fire. Thirty-six furnaces are in full blast to heat the steam, and at night, as the red-hot coals that are raked out of the furnaces like melted lava, flash in the faces of the brawny and sweltering men, one might fancy himself looking into some Vulcan's cave, or subterranean region, glowing with an infernal heat. Thus one of these great ocean steamships is literally a sea monster, that feeds on fire; and descending into its bowels is (to use the energetic language of Scripture in speaking of Jonah in the whale) like going down into the "belly of hell."

All this suggests danger from fire as well as from the sea, and yet, so perfect are the precautions taken, that these glowing furnaces really guard against danger, as they shorten the time of exposure by insuring quadruple speed in crossing the deep.

And yet I can never banish the sense of a danger that is always near from the two destroying elements of fire and water, flood and flame. The very precautions against danger show that it is ever present to the mind of the prudent navigator. Those ten life-boats hung above the deck, with pulleys ready to swing them over the ship's side at a moment's notice, and the axe ready to cut away the ropes, and even casks of water filled to quench the burning thirst of a shipwrecked crew that may be cast helpless on the waves, suggest unpleasant possibilities, in view of recent disasters; and one night I went to my berth feeling not quite so easy as in my bed at home, as we were near the banks of Newfoundland, and a dense fog hung over the sea, through which the ship went, making fourteen miles an hour, its fog-whistles screaming all night long. This was very well as a warning to other ships to keep out of the way, but would not receive much attention from the icebergs that were floating about, which are very abundant in the Atlantic this summer. We saw one the next day, a huge fellow that might have proved an ugly acquaintance, as one crash on his frozen head would have sent us all to the bottom.

But at such times unusual precautions are taken. There are signs in the sudden chilliness of the air of the near approach of an iceberg, which would lead the ship to back out at once from the hug of such a polar bear.

In a few hours the fog was all gone; and the next night, as we sat on deck, the full moon rose out of the waves. Instantly the hum of voices ceased; conversation was hushed; and all grew silent before the awful beauty of the scene. Such an hour suggests not merely poetical but spiritual thoughts – thoughts of the dead as well as thoughts of God. It recalled a passage in David Copperfield, where little David, after the death of his mother, sits at a window and looks out upon the sea, and sees a shining path over the waters, and thinks he sees his mother coming to him upon it from heaven. May it not be that on such a radiant pathway from the skies we sometimes see the angels of God ascending and descending?