Page:The Clipper Ship Era.djvu/431

Rh 1884. The Falcon was sold in Australia, her name being changed to the Sophia Branilla. She was wrecked on the coast of Java in 1871. The Thermopylæ is now a schoolship at the mouth of the Tagus. The Yang-tze was lost in 1872. The first Guinevere, built by Robert Steele, in 1862, was lost in 1866, while the second Guinevere, built by Randolph Elder & Co., in 1868, was sold in Norway. The Ariel sailed for Melbourne and was never heard from. The Taitsing was wrecked on the coast of Zanzibar in 1883.

The Titania is the only one of all the old clipper ships that can now be traced as in active service. She is owned by Madame Maresca, of Castellamare, and sails under the flag of Italy, usually between European and South American ports. A few years ago she arrived at New York, and I was much interested in going on board of her, as I had known the ship and her captain many years before in China. She appeared so little changed that it was difficult to realize that nearly forty years had passed away since I last stood upon her deck one bright June morning at the Pagoda Anchorage, bidding Captain Burgoyne good-bye as he was getting under way bound for London with new teas. Her spars had been somewhat reduced and her rig changed to a barque, but the beautiful India teak used in the construction of her hull, decks, and bulwarks, with the polished brasswork of her rails, skylights, bells, and capstans, blinking cheerfully in the autumn sunshine, seemed to have paid little heed to the flight and ravages of time.