The idea of this book originated many years ago, in yarns with old seafarers who had worked in ships of the pioneer services of the Pacific. By degrees the idea took shape, as more and more of the romance of it all was unfolded in terse sentences and long stories spun on the watersides of many ports, till it seemed that this would he a worthy work to engage in, so that those who knew them, and many who never could have known them, would see something of the records of the early Pacific steamers. set out in print before them. As the task of gathering the facts went on, it soon became evident that not every ship nor even every line, could be dealt with, so the scope of this volume had to be narrowed down to the passenger and mail lines, and again to those lines which had survived, at any rate until a few years ago, either in their original form, or in an incorporation which retained the principles of the old company.