An hour or so at lonely Ascension, and the same at St. Helena--in each case to deliver and receive mails, and to keep up telegraphic communication with London--a voyage altogether of wondrous beauty and enjoyment, nights of solemn loveliness, and days that broke in perfect splendour, cloudless, save for little patches of white here and there, and the ocean a dazzling radiance of deep blue. Cape Town--six thousand miles in sixteen days out from Tilbury--and, greeted by thousands who had flocked from far and near to witness the sight, the _Princess Ida_ glided to her berth inside the great breakwater. And there for the present I must leave her. I think I have demonstrated that, theoretically at least, the tiny electric launches, put on the Thames in 1889 by the Immisch Company, one of which, the _Lammda_, took the then Prince of Wales through Boulter’s Lock, was the forerunner of the ocean steamer of the twentieth century. But there is no absolute novelty under the sun; for it is stated that in 1838 a distinguished Roman scientist, Jacobi, invented an electric motor which drove a small boat on the Neva at two miles an hour. CHAPTER XIX _SOME ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION DRAWBACKS_ “Perfection is attained by slow degrees; she requires the hand of time.”--VOLTAIRE. THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE Little more need be said as to the advantages of the new order of things, for however technical opinions may differ about the relative advantages of steam or electricity, there cannot be any doubt that the public fully recognise the immense superiority of the latter in details of cleanliness and general comfort. Tube railways are intensely disliked by some people, and as heartily appreciated by millions of others. That they are an advantage in many ways is unquestionable, though they are not yet without defects. Motor-cars (electric or petrol), to those who use them, appear to be the safest and most delightful of vehicles, but here again perfection has not been reached. With these four well-known forms of traction I must now deal, and not eulogisticallv. In the old days when some recluse renowned for his holiness--which he had instanced by living unwashed for years in a hair shirt until it fell to pieces--died, his admirers frequently put in a claim for his canonisation. This necessitated the appointment of an individual called the _Advocatus Diaboli_, a leader of the opposition, whose duty it was to raise all kinds of objections to the granting of the sacred honour, and to recall everything possible to the detriment of the candidate. Not a pleasant task, certainly, but not altogether unnecessary. After this fashion it is fair to bring up some sort of a case against electric traction. ELECTRIC RAILWAY ACCIDENTS AND BREAKDOWNS