very few persons at that time believed that the direct trade between Europe and China could ever be carried on by steamers, or that the Suez Canal, even if completed, would prove of any commercial value.
In this year, however, Alfred Holt, of Liverpool, brought out three iron screw steamships with compound engines—the Ajax, Achilles, and Agamemnon,—2270 tons gross and 1550 tons net register—and put them in the China trade. These vessels could steam from London to Mauritius, a distance of 8500 miles, without coaling, a remarkable performance in those days, and they made the passage from Foo-chow to London in 58 days, at an average speed of 235 miles per day. These were the first steamships to perform long ocean voyages successfully, and they marked a new era in steam navigation, although they were expensive vessels to operate compared with steamers of the present day, and it was at first doubted whether they could be made to pay.
The owners, builders, and captains of the tea clippers were not men to yield without a contest; they met this new and aggressive invasion of steam by building in rapid succession such noted fliers as the Titania, Spindrift, Forward Ho, Lahloo, Leander, Thermopylæ, Windhover, Cutty Sark, Caliph, Wylo, Kaisow, and Lothair. These, with the older tea clippers, held their own against the steamers until the opening of the Suez Canal in November, 1869, greatly lessened the length of the voyage and the difficulty and expense of obtaining coal.
In 1868 the Ariel, Taeping, and Sir Launcelot
