But a certain amount of towing has still to be done, and the tug is then able to prove herself indispensable. She has often to tow a ship from one coast port to another, while for rescue work on the coast their services mean all the difference between success and failure. A lifeboat is towed to a wreck or vessel in danger. The tug, which has perhaps been several hours fighting her way forward against a howling gale and a terrific sea which threatens to overwhelm her, then stands by, and a paragraph in the papers to that effect is about all the recognition she gets, yet the perils undergone by the men on the tug are no less real than those of the lifeboatmen. Year in and year out the tugs pursue their calling, and it must indeed be bad weather that will induce a tugboat captain to seek the shelter of a harbour if his bunkers are fairly full and he sees a chance of doing business. The feats performed by some tugs are extraordinary. They will undertake a voyage of a few thousand miles as serenely as one of as many yards. Cleopatra’s needle, in its strange cylinder ship, was towed to this country, after being lost adrift in the Bay of Biscay, by a well-known London tug. Among the most remarkable recent feats are the towing of immense unwieldy floating docks from this country to South American west-coast ports; it is not too much to say that a tug-owner will cheerfully undertake to tow anything that will float from any one seaport to any other. The cargo steamer until ten or fifteen years ago possessed no special features. It was simply a big box carrying propelling machinery and as much cargo as possible on the smallest attainable registered tonnage. Such vessels were usually loaded and discharged by the necessary machinery on the quay side, while if the transfer of cargo had to be to or from barges alongside, the operation was likely to be tediously performed by means of a derrick or two, or a gaff with tackle that might or might not be worked by a steam-winch. The increasing size of vessels and the use of steel for steamer building rendered imperative the adoption of faster methods, and the demands for special steamers adapted for particular trades brought about the development in cargo steamers of special types. These types have to a very large extent taken the trade away from the steamer of the “tramp” class, which wandered from port to port taking cargoes of anything or everything from anywhere to anywhere. They were usually slow and uncomfortable boats and the complaints made as to the condition of some of them were fully justified. The demand for better cargo accommodation was met by the supply of vessels of various types which are a tremendous advance upon the old “tramp,” and their advent compelled the builders of ordinary cargo carriers to produce a better and larger steamer in every way, and fitted with modern appliances for the rapid and satisfactory handling of cargo.