Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. THE deck was still nothing but an immense timber-yard given up to an army of workmen. I could not believe I was on board a ship. Several thousand men—workmen, crew, engineers, officers, mechanics, lookers-on—mingled and jostled together without the least concern, some on deck, others in the engine-room; here pacing the upper decks, there scattered in the rigging, all in an indescribable pell-mell. Here fly-wheel cranes were raising enormous pieces of cast-iron, there heavy joists were hoisted by steam- windlasses ; above the engine-rooms an iron cylinder, a metal shaft in fact, was balanced. At the bows, the yards creaked as the sails were hoisted; at the stern rose a scaffolding which, doubtless, concealed some building in construction. Building, fixing, carpentering, rigging, and painting, were going on in the midst of the greatest disorder. My luggage was already on board. I asked to see CARPENTERING, RIGGING, AND PAINTING. Captain Anderson, and was told that he had not yet arrived ; but one of the stewards undertook to install me, and had my packages carried to one of the aft- cabins. " My good fellow," said I to him, " the ' Great Eastern' was announced to sail on the 2Oth of March, but is it possible that we can be ready in twenty-four hours ? Can you tell me when we may expect to leave Liverpool ? " But in this respect the steward knew no more than I did, and he left me to myself. I then made up my mind to visit all the ins and outs of this immense ant-hill, and began my walk like a tourist in a foreign town. A black mire— that British mud which is so rarely absent from the pavement of English towns—covered the deck of the steamship; dirty gutters wound here and there. One might have thought oneself in the worst part of Upper Thames Street, nea...