NEVER was ill-starred voyage more auspiciously begun
than when the Titanic, newly crowned empress of
the seas, steamed majestically out of the port of
Southampton at noon on Wednesday, April 10th, bound for
New York.
Elaborate preparations had been made for the maiden
voyage. Crowds of eager watchers gathered to witness the
departure, all the more interested because of the notable
people who were to travel aboard her. Friends and relatives
of many of the passengers were at the dock to bid Godspeed
to their departing loved ones. The passengers themselves
were unusually gay and happy.
Majestic and beautiful the ship rested on the water,
marvel of shipbuilding, worthy of any sea. As this new queen
of the ocean moved slowly from her dock, no one questioned
her construction: she was fitted with an elaborate system of
water-tight compartments, calculated to make her unsinkable;
she had been pronounced the safest as well as the most sumptuous
Atlantic liner afloat.
There was silence just before the boat pulled out—the
silence that usually precedes the leave-taking. The heavy
whistles sounded and the splendid Titanic, her flags flying
and her band playing, churned the water and plowed heavily
away.
Then the Titanic, with the people on board waving handkerchiefs
and shouting good-byes that could be heard only
as a buzzing murmur on shore, rode away on the ocean,
proudly, majestically, her head up and, so it seemed, her
shoulders thrown back. If ever a vessel seemed to throb
with proud life, if ever a monster of the sea seemed to "feel
its oats" and strain at the leash, if ever a ship seemed to
have breeding and blue blood that would keep it going until
its heart broke, that ship was the Titanic.
And so it was only her due that as the Titanic steamed
out of the harbor bound on her maiden voyage a thousand
"God-speeds" were wafted after her, while every other vessel
that she passed, the greatest of them dwarfed by her colossal
proportions, paid homage to the new queen regnant with the
blasts of their whistles and the shrieking of steam sirens.
