The Peninsular & Oriental Line
Front Cover, The Peninsular and Oriental Line: Peeps at Great Steamship Lines by G. E. Mitton, 1913. Cover Illustration is of the S.S. Mooltan. GGA Image ID # 204a2fdbfe
When the East India Company began running boats regularly to Suez, the bold idea of competition in this line also occurred to the enterprising directors. They launched out on this most daring and costly scheme and became the Peninsular and Oriental Company. Two ships were built, the Hindostán and Bentinck, and a third, the Precursor, was bought for this service. These three were large ships for that date, about 1,800 tons, or nearly double what Lardner had asked for. Yet, looking at the pictures of them now, with their long, narrow funnels and great paddle wheels at the side, they seem merely fit for tourist traffic in the Thames. They were sent round by the Cape to take up their station on the far side of the Isthmus of Suez. The Hindostán was a remarkable ship and proved herself an uncommonly good sailer; she was sent off from Southampton on her long voyage with great éclatt, and many times from subsequent newspaper reports, we gather she had brought the news in anticipation of the regular mail service of the East India Company's boats.
-Exceprt from The Overland Route: The P&O, pp. 15-16.
The SS Osiris of the P&O Line Leaving Brindisi, Italy. The Peninsular and Oriental Line, 1913. GGA Image ID # 204afd9800
There is as much difference in social grade among the ships' officers as in any other profession. A good social position will be a great asset to a man in the Mercantile Marine, for on the attainment of command, social qualities are called for to a larger degree than in almost any other profession. The Captain on a first-class passenger liner habitually mixes with people of the governing classes or the best strata of society, and the Captain's table is always made up according to strict precedence. "Someone told me they were going to write a book called 'Snobs at Sea,'" a good-humored Commander informed me smiling. "A lady said we were all snobs, for we always picked us out at the table. I told her it wasn't our fault. Still, the passengers themselves, for there would be heart-burning and offended dignity if those who thought they were somebody were not treated as such."
-Excerpt from The Commander and Officers: The P&O, pp. 58-59.
Map Illustrating the Routes of the P & O Steamships with their Ports of Call. The Peninsular and Oriental Line, 1913. GGA Image ID # 204af88f05
Contents
CHAPTER I The Modern Steamship
CHAPTER II The Overland Route
CHAPTER III The Suez Canal
CHAPTER IV Mails and Transports
CHAPTER V The P. and O. Fleet
CHAPTER VI The Commander and Officers
CHAPTER VII Across the World
CHAPTER VIII The Christening of the Fleet
List of Illustrations
- An Arab Café, Cairo
- Sir Thomas Sutherland, G.C.M.G.
- Off the Coast of Ceylon
- The Desert
- The First P. and O. Steamship, " William Fawcett" (209 Tons, Built 1829), with Some Naval Contemporaries
- S.S. "Osiris" leaving Brindisi
- Europa Point, Gibraltar
- Native City, Shanghai
- S.S. Mooltan
- Map Illustrating the Route of the P. and O. Steamships
Also twenty-two line drawings in the text
G. E. Mitton, The Peninsular and Oriental: Peeps at Great Steamship Lines, London: Adam and Charles Black, 1913.
Containing 9 Full-Page Illustrations (8 in Color) and 22 Line Drawings in the Text.
