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CHAPTER XXVII.

STABILITY AND PROGRESS.-ROYAL SORROWS.

NOTHER year, another decade, opened upon us, with

their daily round of duties, responsibilities, and cares. The Dockyard-bell was heard in the early dawn; the workmen, summoned by its far-reaching voice, repaired from their homes to the Yard-and passed within its gates; the Officers returned to their several posts, or moved about among the people; the air was filled with the clattering of hammers and the many-toned sounds of labour; and all went on with the regularity of clockwork.

The war between Germany and France continued, but virtually came to an end on the 28th January, when Paris capitulated and the siege was raised.

The loss of the Captain still brooded heavily over the minds of our naval authorities. A Special Committee, consisting of several of the highest professional and scientific men in England, appointed to examine into the designs of our armoured ships, and especially of the Devastation (then under construction), assembled in January, and reported early in March that the ships of this class had stability amply sufficient to make them safe against the rolling and heaving action of the sea. The Committee, however, agreed in recommending a plan which the Constructor of the Navy had proposed with a view of making safety doubly sure; and with these and some other slight alterations the vessel was completed.

The Naval Estimates for the financial year 1871-72 for Sheerness Yard included £56,065 for (872) Established and

£33,647 for (647) Hired workmen ;* £1,100 for Teams; £3,584 for Yard-craft (with £1,698 for victualling the same); and £2,350 for (29) Police.

On the 21st June the first of the New Basins at Chatham, with two of the four Docks connected with it, which had been in progress since 1861-62, having been completed, were opened with considerable ceremony in the presence of Mr. Goschen, First Lord, and other Officers of the Admiralty, the Commander-in-Chief at the Nore, the Admiral Superintendents of Chatham and Sheerness Yards, Colonel Greene, Director of Engineering and Architectural Works, Colonel Pasley, and other eminent officials, as well as Mr. Bernays, Civil Engineer of Chatham Yard, and the Contractor for the Works, Mr. Gabrielli. It may be remembered that the Extension, according to the plan of 1862, included a Repairing-Basin, with four docks, and two larger Basins, with their docks. It was the Repairing-Basin, with two of its docks, as we have said, that were opened on this occasion. This basin (which was just opposite Upnor Castle) had an area of twenty-one acres, and was 1,320 feet long and nearly 700 wide, with a frontage of 3,000. The two completed docks were 520 feet over all in length; the width at the coping was 110 feet; the depth sufficient to admit 33 feet of water at spring and 30 feet at neap tides; and each of the four was big enough to hold any vessel not larger than the Great Eastern. In a word, the Basin and Docks were the largest and finest in the world.

It happened that the magnificent iron armour-plated ship Invincible had just arrived from Sheerness. In the presence of the Board of Admiralty and the Officers assembled, she at once steamed into the basin. It was a fine and impressive sight to see the ponderous ironclad, with the muzzles of her rifled guns peering from her ports, move stately and solemnly on the flowing tide as it drove back the broad waters of the Medway; to watch her swinging round to face the entrance, tended carefully by two stalwart tugs; and to raise one's eyes to the lofty masts, with their enormous yards and spars, towering above the gray walls of ancient Upnor Castle nestling on the river-bank a little way beyond. A

*The Factory men are included under "Hired."

sight, too, was this splendid Basin of twenty-one acres of deep olive water, upon the rippling surface of which the dockyard tender, with the First Lord of the Admiralty and other officials, sported round and about, throwing up the white spray with her rapidly-whirling screw. Wide as the entrance is, 80 feet across, it was a work of care and caution to get the huge vessel through without damage to herself or the works from the ponderous momentum she possessed, even from that slow and stately motion. Exactly at two o'clock she faced it; five minutes later she was fairly between its walls; in five more she was well within, and on the bosom of, that maiden water which never, at least on that particular site, had borne ship of war or vessel made with human hands. The soil of that great reservoir had all been dug away; and silt and peat and shells deposed to the ages that had elapsed since the waters of the sea rolled there. Merrily clinked the capstan, and the labourers hauled upon the hawser from her bow. In the same slow and stately manner she swung round again at right angles to her previous path to face the No. 1 or deep dock, in which she was to undergo those repairs which the rusted and sea-weeded condition of her lower hull seemed to indicate as being much required. At half-past two the noble vessel was motionless in the middle of the dock, on the site to which, as the water sank, she would rest on the shores set to receive her. The caisson was then floated across the dock entrance; the clanking of the pumping-barge, with the long arms of its engines, worked by near upon a hundred brawny labourers, resounded; the caisson filled, sank, and settled down. The dock was closed, the ship secured, and the event was accomplished.

The opening of this Basin and its docks was one of the most important events connected with the Navy that had for a long time occurred. The eyes of the British public had been so intent for years on the construction of our ironclads and the state of our naval armaments that very little attention had been given to the condition of our dockyards, or the means we had of docking our ships. Now and then it had been stated in the newspapers that the Extension works at Chatham were progressing, yet little was known

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about them. But acres of brickwork, varied, strengthened, or faced by granite, and acres of once marshy ground reclaimed from the river and fashioned into dry docks, now showed the work of the preceding ten years.* And the Repairing-Basin and two of its docks haying been completed, it would not be difficult to appreciate the national importance of the whole. But while the Dockyard covered 95 acres, the Extension works occupied 380.

The two other docks belonging to the Repairing-Basin were in progress, but much yet remained to be done. The second or Factory Basin, having an area of twenty acres, was being actively pressed forward, and, it was expected, would be opened in 1872; the Factories would ultimately follow; the third, or Fitting-Basin, which was to be thirty-five acres in extent, was yet in the future. "The difficulties of a gigantic undertaking like this," says an appreciative visitor, "can only be realized by actual inspection. Chatham Dockyard, with its well-paved roads, and the trim houses of the officials on one side and the slips and docks on the other, is very different from the scene which lies on the other side of the boundary-wall which separates the old yard from the extension works. Passing through a small door, one enters upon an almost chaotic scene. On every side one is confronted with trenches, mounds of earth, excavations, halfformed docks, sheds, and gigantic piles of granite carved in various forms to suit the docks of which they are to form the basis. These piles of granite are perhaps the most remarkable evidence of the difficulties which have to be encountered, and the ingenuity necessary to overcome them. One wonders how these masses of stone will find their way correctly to their destined places, and how it has been possible to form the curves, steps, and sides of docks which have not even been excavated; or how, when they have been curved, it is possible, by any system of numbering, for

The difficulties, we are told, had been enormous. Pleasant and unpleasant discoveries had varied the monotony of the work; for while a good bottom of gravel had been found in one part, in another the ground or bed of the river proved unstable and dangerous. When it was thought that the earth excavated might be used for brick-making, it was discovered that such earth was only to be met with in certain places. And, worst of all, it was found necessary on one occasion to pull down altogether some of the work, and rebuild it in order to obtain a more secure foundation.

the separate blocks to find their way to the proper places. Yet the granite slabs which form these docks are carved years, perhaps, before they are laid down, and the wonderful precision of the work is apparent upon inspecting the beautiful finish of the workmanship in the repairing-basin and docks which are now completed. Here, indeed, the works have an orderly appearance; but elsewhere, over the acres of excavation and rubbish which surround these new docks on all sides, it is not easy to understand how the same order is to be introduced, though it is not difficult to appreciate the ability and the painstaking perseverance necessary to carry out the plans, as well as to prepare them."

Sheerness continued to make progress, and in 1871 adopted the name of SHEERNESS-ON-SEA.* The census showed that, while contagious diseases had ravaged the country generally, the Isle of Sheppey had enjoyed comparative immunity; and some of the more enterprising inhabitants now formed themselves into a Sheerness Improvement Association, in order to make the place better known and more attractive to the public.

The Fourth Triennial Handel Festival was held at the Crystal Palace on the 19th, 21st, and 23rd June, and doubtless attracted many Sheerness visitors, for the love of music was increasing in Sheppey. The attendance of visitors on this occasion rose to 84,968, a larger number than had ever been present at any Handel festival.

We spent our holiday this year in a Midland Tour, which we afterwards described under that title month by month, from January to December, 1872, in that popular periodical, the Leisure Hour. During this tour we visited the birthhouse and tomb of SHAKESPEARE; Hagley, "the British Tempe," the home of Lyttleton, and the haunt of Thomson, Pope, Hammond, and Shenstone; the Leasowes, Shenstone's own beautiful demesne; Free Libraries, Schools of Art, and numerous manufacturing establishments.

It will be remembered that the nation, whose loyalty and sympathies had been excited in the early autumn by the

* The old port of Sheerness lies on the Medway inside Garrison Point, and is enclosed on the land-side by defensive earthworks. Sheerness-onSea is, as the name indicates, on the sea-front, and is entirely cut off from the old town by vacant Government land.