the future there may be a reaction and a desire to “go slow,” time alone can tell. Perhaps such a condition might lead to an increased tranquillity of life as a whole, but it would also put a brake on progress generally, and on the steamship in particular. CHAPTER IX STEAMSHIPS FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES We have been enabled to gain some idea by now both of the nature and the historical evolution of the steamship liner. But not all steamships are liners, any more than all cattle are race-horses. Steamship is a word which covers a multitude of varying craft and embraces a large family of different natured children. Some of them go out into the world far beyond the horizon and vanish until a few weeks or months later they come returning homewards proud of their achievements as the safe carriers of mails and passengers. But there are other members of the same family whose duty keeps them close to the home where they first saw the light; who rarely venture out of sight of land. There are others who, though they never carry any passengers but their crew, nor an ounce of cargo, are yet as useful to the human race as those great speed-makers which go rushing through night and day across the ocean. Some of these steamships used for special purposes have a character of their own no less distinctive than their more elegant sisters, and the mere fact that they are not so violently advertised, or so prominently pushed before the eyes of the average citizen, detracts nothing from their interesting virtues. Nor, again, do we wish to give the impression that this large class of special steamships is in any way entirely confined to coasting or inland voyages. The steamship nowadays, both large and small, goes everywhere, and is ready to do almost anything, and one of the most interesting of all mechanically-propelled craft is the tug-boat, which it is quite possible the landsman, promenading his floating hotel, may have barely deigned to cast his eyes upon as his big steel home is being drawn out from the quay, or landing-stage, and swung round on her way to the other side of the world. How frequently indispensable is the tug to the big steamship, both when entering and leaving the comparatively narrow harbours! You see her at Southampton, for instance, pulling the great steel hull away from the quay; you see her at Liverpool hauling ahead to get the mighty, towering bows of the liner clear of the landing-stage out into the river. You see them in New York when the mammoth comes to enter the narrow opening alongside the pier, pressing their noses on to the mammoth’s stern and compelling her giant dimensions to move round. Or, again, you see the tug towing her overgrown sister through the dock at the end of her voyage, coming slowly in as if she had captured one mightier than herself, and was proudly conscious of her performance. Yet it is not only the big steamships, but those beautiful modern steel sailing ships which have to employ her help.