The introduction of the twin-screw system was made in the Orient liner _Ophir_ (see opposite page 166), which was built in 1891. Each of her four decks is of steel, and she was given the triple-expansion engines in two sets--one set for each propeller. She was the first vessel on the Australian route to be fitted with twin-screws, but many others have since followed and proved the wisdom of this innovation. Her propellers are made of manganese bronze, with three blades each, and give her a speed of between 18 and 19 knots. It will be recollected that it was this ship which was selected to carry the present King and Queen on their tour of the British Colonies in 1901. The ceaseless competition in the Atlantic steamship progress continued without abatement, and by now the Cunard Line was ready again to fight for the lead. In September of 1892 the _Campania_ was launched, and was followed in the next February by the _Lucania_. Since their length was greater than the width of the Clyde, where they were built, they had to be launched into the river diagonally. They were, of course, fitted with twin-screws and with triple-expansion engines, there being five cylinders, of which two are high-pressure, one intermediate, and two low-pressure. We do not intend to weary the reader with a list of statistics which can easily be obtained by those to whom bare figures make their appeal; our purpose is served if we show in what important detail each successive vessel advanced the history of the steamship so as to approach more nearly to what is considered the ideal by modern experts. But we shall be shirking our duty if we do not indicate some of the main characteristics which gave to such a craft as the _Campania_ a distinctiveness that distinguished her and her sister the _Lucania_ from her contemporaries. One greatly improved liner nowadays so quickly surpasses her predecessor; the age of obsolescence now moves at so greatly quickened a speed; that the general public, whose memory is also so short-lived, scarcely has time to appreciate all that the latest steamship means ere it has passed quietly from service and been handed over to the ship-breakers, or, under a new flag and a changed name, continues its work at some remote corner of the world. [Illustration: THE “LUCANIA” (1893). _From a Photograph. By Permission of the Cunard Steamship Co._] Those who remember seeing the _Campania_ lying in the Mersey soon after she was commissioned, and with their minds full of the hitherto unparalleled features which had been foretold concerning her, will recollect that the first impression conveyed was identical with that made on seeing the _Mauretania_ immediately after she had left the builders’ hands. Not so much size but gracefulness; not the characteristics of a floating monster, but of a singularly beautiful creature whose every line suggested dignity with speed were the points that attracted one.