The _Oceanic_ also introduced an improved type of water-tight doors. The old-fashioned candle-lamps which lit the rooms were replaced by oil-lamps, and instead of the old-fashioned form for seating, the passengers had the comfort of revolving arm-chairs, which have since become such features of ocean travel. On deck, her forward and stern ends were fitted with turtle decks, so that a wave sweeping over this dome-like shape could swish across it without doing the damage it could have effected on the first _City of Paris_, for instance. The importance of this in a following sea of any size is obvious, and we must remember that whereas to-day the stern of a modern liner towers high above the waves, and can usually defy them, yet in those days the _Oceanic_ and her contemporaries were still of modest altitude. From the illustration before us some conception of the bow turtle deck, painted white, may be gathered, but a much better idea may be seen of a similar arrangement at the stern of the _Britannic_ (facing page 154). The addition of that extra deck of iron in the _Oceanic_ shows the commencement of the many-decked modern liner, to which attention was drawn in the German liner and her successors, so that in the _Mauretania_, as we look down on her decks, she seems to be built up over every possible inch of space that is permissible. But the _Oceanic_ was something more than a comfortable boat and an ingenious example of the naval architect’s originality; she was also a “flyer.” With her four-cylinder compound engines she was able to reel off her 14¼ knots on an average. There were two high-pressure cylinders and two of low-pressure, the high-pressure cylinder being above the low-pressure and driving the same crank. Her indicated horse-power was 3,000, and her tonnage came out at 3,808 gross. She even attained to 14¾ knots, and showed herself to be the fastest liner afloat, faster even than the Inman liner _City of Brussels_. It is a proof of the excellence of her design and the perfection of her build that on her sixty-second voyage in October, 1889, after she had been transferred to the Pacific service running between San Francisco and Yokohama, she made the quickest passage on record across the Pacific. [Illustration: THE “BRITANNIC” (1874). As she appeared as a transport during the South African War. _From a Photograph by F. G. O. Stuart, Southampton._] [Illustration: THE “SERVIA” (1881). _From a Painting. By permission of the Cunard Steamship Co._]