When the furnace doors are opened tongues of flame leap forth, and the heat is enough to make a man sick. But with head turned away, the stoker stirs up the fire with his huge “slice” or fire rake, and cleans out the clinker clogging the bars. Then on go the coals! One layer, shot in from the shovel with unerring precision and skilful experience, right at the back; then another just in front of the first, and so on till the long furnace is filled. Bang! the furnace door clangs, and the man reels away, sick and exhausted, with tingling eyes and heaving chest. Then coal has to be brought from the bunkers to the furnaces, tons of it per day, and if the ship rolls too much for the barrows to be used, the fuel must be carried in baskets. There is an engineer in charge of each stoke hole, and two on the platform in each engine room; as a rule, the staff are on duty in turns—four hours out of every twelve. But if the weather be bad they may have harder times. No matter how hot the machinery becomes, the engineers must not reduce speed, except it be to prevent disaster. Oil is swabbed on in bucketfuls, so to speak, but at every thrust the polished steel may gleam dry and smoking. Then on goes the water, as if there actually was a conflagration, and meantime a mixture of oil and sulphur is dabbed on. The water flies off in steam, so hot are the bearings, so terrific the friction of the incessant speed; and at last, down comes the reluctant order, wrung out of the chief like gold from a miser—“Slow her down.” It is done—dampers are clapped on furnaces, steam pressure dropped a little, and engines reduced to half speed; the three great cranks of the high, intermediate, and low pressure cylinders move round easily, and the tremendous noise gradually sinks to a murmur, compared with the previous rush and roar. The machinery cools. But when quite safe, on is piled the speed once more, and again the cranks fly round, and the mighty engines work their hardest to drive the mammoth ship through the surging green rollers. So superbly are these marine engines built, and so excellently are they maintained, being continually overhauled, so as to be kept in the pink of perfection, that, as years go on, they seem to “warm to their work” and do even better than at first. On the completion of the 200th round voyage of the celebrated “White Stars,” _Germanic_ and _Britannic_, about January, 1894, they seemed steaming as regularly and as fast, or faster than ever. Thus, on the 198th outward trip of the _Germanic_, in September, 1893, she made the fastest westward passage, but one, she had ever accomplished. During their lives, it was said these vessels had maintained remarkable uniformity in speed, and each vessel had steamed 200 times 6200 nautical miles, that is nearly a million and a-half statute miles, with the original engines and boilers—a performance, in all probability, without parallel in the world.