and brilliant work, quite two-thirds of her were cut off by means of blasting, and, not without grave peril, towed all the way up Channel to Southampton, where this greater portion was docked, and the present writer remembers the sad and sorrowful sight she presented lying alongside the quay. But the firm of Harland and Wolff, who had made her, at once set to work to build a replica of the bow portion which had been left on the Lizard rocks, and this, also after a perilous passage from Belfast to Southampton, was towed round to the dock, where the other two-thirds were awaiting. The illustrations here given show the stern portion of the _Suevic_ lying in dock at Southampton, with all the breakage cleared ready for the new bow, and the replica of the forward portion just arrived from Belfast and being warped into the dock to be joined on. The two parts were effectively joined together--a wonderfully clever shipbuilding achievement--and the _Suevic_ partly modern and partly old, has long since been restored to her original route as a perfectly sound and satisfactory ship. [Illustration: THE “SUEVIC” ASHORE OFF THE LIZARD. _From a Photograph by Gibson & Son, Penzance._] [Illustration: THE STERN PART OF THE “SUEVIC” AWAITING THE NEW BOW AT SOUTHAMPTON. _From a Photograph by Reginald Silk, Portsmouth._] [Illustration: THE NEW BOW OF THE “SUEVIC” AT ENTRANCE TO DOCK. _From a Photograph by Reginald Silk, Portsmouth._] CHAPTER XII THE SAFETY AND LUXURY OF THE PASSENGER In the course of our story we have treated with less consideration the aspect of luxury which, to some minds, is at once the most obvious and most striking feature of a steamship, whether yacht, liner, or excursion steamer. But since we set forth not to write a treatise on marine furniture and upholstery, but to show, step by step, how the modern steamship has come to be what she is, it was essential that we should have kept strictly to the main points of our task. Nevertheless, we should have fallen short of our duty had we omitted to give some idea of the care which is paid to make the ship take on the dual personality of hotel and ferry. It is inevitable that the ship in any age, whether of sail, steam or petrol, should be influenced by the forces at work ashore. Caligula’s galleys (of which a detailed description was given in the author’s “Sailing Ships: The Story of Their Development from the Earliest Times to the Present Day”) were not in discord with the debasing influences at work on shore, and after due allowance has been made, it cannot be regarded as a healthy sign that modern tastes have to be catered for with such luxuriance, and that steamship companies even go so far as to advertise their graceful, stalwart ships as hotels. Not that one would wish to revert to the hardships and utter discomforts which had to be endured by the transatlantic passengers less than a hundred years ago, when the ship, after contending against waves and wind, at last came staggering