As they got older, they actually became faster instead of slower, and the _Etruria_ made her fastest westward passage in five days, twenty hours, fifty-five minutes, with a highest day’s run of 509 knots. She even maintained an average of 20 knots bound eastward. At the end of 1909 she was sold by the Cunard Company, and a like fate befell her sister, the _Umbria_, which was sold to the Forth Shipbreaking Company in April, 1910, for the sum, it is said, of £20,000. But the _Umbria_, right to the end, continued to break records, even when she had been long since outrun in matters of speed. For instance, in the year 1893, two days before Christmas, whilst bound west across the Atlantic, it was discovered that a serious fracture had occurred in the propeller shaft. The engines were accordingly stopped, and after a time the German steamship _Bohemia_ came in sight and took her in tow, but a heavy gale sprang up and the tow-rope parted. The _Umbria_ lost sight of her friend and drifted about the Atlantic for three days and nights, but during this time Chief-Engineer Tomlinson pluckily succeeded in repairing the shaft, and the _Umbria_, with her engines going half-speed, made New York on the last day of the old year, to the great relief of those ashore who had given her up for lost. Another record of a totally different nature was made by her only a few weeks before she was sold out of the Cunard Line. She reached Liverpool just before midnight on Thursday, February 10th, 1910, and in spite of having only just completed her round trip of the double Atlantic journey, she was got ready at once to sail eastward again on the Saturday, February 12th. We can gain some idea of the magnitude of the task when we realise that in that remarkably brief time she had not only to be overhauled, but to have her stores taken on board, to be supplied with 3,000 tons of coal and 450,000 gallons of water, to say nothing of the many tons of cargo of all kinds. Some of the officers had barely time to make a hurried call to see their wives before rushing back on board to superintend this exceptionally fast “turn-round.” The measurements of these two ships were 501 feet long, 57 feet broad, 38 feet deep, with a gross tonnage of 7,718 tons; their builders were Messrs. John Elder and Company, of Glasgow.