passage from Liverpool to Java Head in 80 days, her best day's run being 320 miles.
The very keen rivalry between the British and American clipper ships engaged in the China trade at this time, seems to have been stimulating to the imagination. W. S. Lindsay, in his History of Merchant Shipping (vol. iii., p. 291), relates an interesting story of one of the early races, and as I wish to do the narrative full justice, I give it in Mr. Lindsay's own words:
"Mr. T. C. Cowper, of Aberdeen, himself a member of a well-known ship-building firm in Aberdeen, who had spent some time in China at the period to which I refer, and to whom I am much indebted for the information connected with our struggles to maintain our position in that trade, gives the following graphic description of his voyage home in the Ganges, Captain Deas, belonging to Leith, one of the vessels we had sent forth after the repeal' of our Navigation Laws, to compete with the Americans in that trade: 'We loaded,' he says, 'new teas at Wampoa, and sailed on the first of September, 1851. Two of the fastest American clippers, the Flying Cloud and Bald Eagle, sailed two or three days after us. A great deal of excitement existed in China about the race, the American ships being the favorites. The southwest monsoon being strong, the Ganges made a rather long passage to Anjer, but when we arrived there we found that neither of our rivals had been reported as having passed. We arrived in the English Channel on the evening of the 16th of December. On the following morning at daylight we were off Portland, well inshore
