[60] It has been said the _Sirius_ carried no passengers. According to _Notes and Queries_, the New York _Herald_, of April 28, 1838, in reporting the arrival of the _Sirius_, says that forty-two passengers were on board, of whom eleven were females, for whose accommodation a stewardess was carried. A contributor to _Notes and Queries_ quotes the authority of the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen for the statement that the stewards’ department consisted of three stewards, one assistant, two cooks, and a boy, and he asks whether this staff would have been required in an ordinary boat of 412 tons if there were no passengers. [Illustration: THE “SIRIUS,” FROM A PRINT OF 1837.] The passage occupied sixteen and a half days, and the average speed was 8¹⁄₂ knots per hour; about twenty-four tons of coal per day being consumed. Her arrival at New York was hailed with delirious enthusiasm, and the excitement was yet further intensified when it became known on the morning of the 23rd, only a few hours after the _Sirius_ had anchored off the Battery, that another steam-ship was sighted making its way to the port, and that the approaching vessel was greater than any steam-ship ever seen in American waters. This was the _Great Western_, and New York celebrated the double arrival with that strenuous abandon attainable only in the Empire City. The _Great Western_ was built at Bristol by Patterson. She was brought round to London and left London again for the western port on March 31. Off Southend she was discovered to be on fire, and the heat and smoke were so great that all the engine-room staff had to take refuge on deck. Fortunately they had forgotten to stop her engines, and the vessel was beached on the Chapman Sands, her decks were cut into, and volumes of water were poured upon the flames. The fire was soon extinguished, and the damage was found to be much less than was feared. She floated on the tide and resumed her voyage under her own steam to Bristol. The fire was due to the ignition of the felt packing round the boilers. Owing to this adventure the _Great Western_ did not sail from Bristol for New York quite as early as was expected, and it was this delay which enabled the _Sirius_ to gain pride of place. The _Great Western_ left for New York three days after the departure of the _Sirius_ from Cork. Her average speed to New York was 208 knots per day, and she used 655 tons of coal on the voyage. Another account, published in 1840, says that of her 660 tons of coal only 452 were used when she reached New York. On her homeward voyage her speed was nearly 9 knots an hour as against the 8·2 knots outward, but she burnt only 392 tons of coal, the difference being accounted for by the fact that on the outward voyage she experienced very rough weather. Although she made a much faster passage than her little rival, it is but fair to remember that she was nearly twice her size, and with engines