vessels of the time, and the paddles could be disconnected. Hall’s patent tubular condensers were fitted, and her four tubular boilers each had five fireplaces. One peculiar feature was that the main mast was stepped between two of the boilers. The _Penelope_ carried a crew of three hundred officers and men, and could accommodate a thousand soldiers with provisions and water for a voyage to the Cape. Inasmuch as her tonnage was only 1,780 tons, she must have been uncomfortably crowded, especially if the soldiers’ wives and families accompanied them. Some frigates were built to be paddle-propelled, one being the _Terrible_, twenty-one guns, which had engines of 800 h.p. The _Valorous_, the last of the type, was withdrawn in 1883. Probably the most luxurious paddle-propelled steam frigate ever launched was the _Faid Gihaad_, whose sumptuous fittings were intended to gratify the taste for comfort, no less than the extravagant whims, of the then Pasha of Egypt. She carried on the upper deck two 84-pounder pivot guns and twelve 32-pounder broadside guns, and on the main deck fourteen guns of the latter type. Yet she was described as a yacht--of 2,200 tons. She was built by Mare and Co., of Blackwall, in 1852. One drawback urged against all paddle-wheeled war vessels was that the deck space was seriously encroached upon, and that the paddle-boxes restricted the range of the guns. To get over this difficulty the sponsons were carried further forward and aft, before and abaft the paddle-boxes respectively, the deck-houses, which usually encumbered the sponsons, were removed, and the bulwarks were carried along the outer edge of the sponsons, thereby giving greater deck space; and as each sponson under this arrangement carried a gun, a vessel thus fitted had four more guns than was previously possible. Two of the guns had a range extending from abeam to right ahead, and two from abeam to right astern. One vessel thus equipped in accordance with Scott Russell’s patent was the _Dantzig_, built by Robinson and Russell, at Millwall, for the Prussian navy. She was of 1,280 tons, with a deck length of 230 feet, and a draught of 15 feet; her paddle-wheels were of 24 feet 4 inches diameter. Her dimensions, no less than the arrangement of her armament, attracted widespread attention. She distinguished herself against the Riffs in 1856. The Admiralty ordered, in 1843, its first screw steamer, the _Rattler_, a sloop of war of 1,078 tons displacement. She had engines of 437 indicated h.p., and of the type known as Maudslay’s Siamese, spur gearing increasing the revolutions of the screw to four times those of the crank. These engines derived their curious name because of their double cylinders, the arrangement having been patented some years before by Messrs. Maudslay and Field, to enable a long cylinder to be fitted in a paddle ship where the height is limited.