The Union Line was founded in 1853 as the Union Steam Collier Company, and it made a start with five little steamers, the largest of which were the _Dane_ and _Norman_ of 530 tons. The outbreak of the Crimean War, and the consequent withdrawal of the P. & O. steamers from the Southampton and Constantinople service for use as transports, saw the Union vessels placed upon that service till they also were engaged as transports, and a sixth vessel was acquired. When the war was ended, the steamers were placed for a time in the Southampton and Brazil trade, but it was not a very profitable venture and they were diverted to the South African trade, the company receiving a subsidy of £30,000 a year for five years for carrying the mails to and from the Cape of Good Hope. The first sailing was made by the _Dane_ in September 1857, and the sailings thereafter were monthly. The subsidy was increased by £3000 the following year on condition that calls were made at St. Helena and Ascension. In 1857, Rennie’s “Aberdeen” Line, after having been for many years in sail, went in for steam and despatched its first steamers, _Madagascar_ and _Waldensian_, from London to South Africa, carrying the mails between Cape Town and Durban. These are stated to have been the first steamers on the South African coast. The _Madagascar_, of 500 tons, was commanded by Captain George Rennie. Like all the long-distance steamers of her time, she carried a large spread of sail, but her engines, like those of most of her contemporaries, were calculated to be able to render her independent of the wind if it did not happen to be suitable, and therein they marked a great improvement upon those of an earlier type, which were merely assistants to sail. The steamers built in the later ’fifties were intended to place reliance principally on their engines, because of the regularity of passage thereby secured, rather than upon their sail-power; so that even by this time, although the vessels were described as auxiliary steamers, a more correct description would have been that they were steam-propelled vessels carrying a large spread of canvas.