Page 9: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 1889)

Mr. Francis, for the construction of a fleet of light-draft steamers, to be pushed to completion rapidly as possible. The result was that, ere the year 1862 had passed, steamers, fully engined, and ready for service, were erected at the Liverpool factory, and taken apart again for shipment. These vessels were 150 to 200 feet in length, built on similar lines to vessels already con- structed by the Company. When the steamers had been put together, tested and again set up at the factory, they were boxed for shipment, in sec- tions, both hulls, floating dock and machinery, when they were ready for

THE STRANGEST ROUTE EVER TRAVERSED BY SHIP.

From Liverpool they went first to St. Petersburgh—thence to Moscow— on to Nijni Novgorod— across the Volga—over the Ural Mountains—to the

Aral Sea, in Asia—where they were at length unboxed, the sections once again put together and, lo, a

PROUD FLOTILLA GRACED THE ARAL, upreared as if by magic hands. This was the initiative in Russia's grandest

Dream of Empire. These vessels had crossed the Aral barrier, and swoop- ed down like things of life on the insulated sea, the inhabitants of whose shores fondly dreamed they dwelt secure in Nature's fastness. Impossi- ble would it have been to transport vessels in their entirety over the rugged heights, and deadly impracticable would it have been to attempt their construction on the Aral seaboard, in full view of an alert and suspicious people.

Here it may be well to introduce three letters, the originals of which are in possession of the writer, and which are fully corroborative of the preced- ing statements. " To His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Constantine : " I beg leave to present to Your Imperial Highness lithographs of the two corrugated galvanized iron steamers, built at Liverpool for the Syr

Dariah River, under the supervision of Captain A. Boutakoff, of the Russian

Imperial Navy.