somewhat similar in appearance to an ordinary
vessel, and comprising large, lofty, and sumptuous saloons and other
apartments.

The _Livadia_ is 260 feet long, 150 feet broad, and 50 feet deep. She
is 11,609 tons burden, and her displacement 4000. The two leading
merits of the _Livadia_, due to its peculiar construction, are--first,
that its frame can support a superstructure of almost palatial
proportions such as would founder any other vessel; and second, that its
great breadth of beam keeps the ship as steady as a ship can possibly
be, while, at the same time, its lower lines secure a very good degree
of speed.

The _Livadia_ possesses powerful propelling engines. There are three
sets of these, each with three cylinders, the diameter being sixty
inches for the high pressure, and seventy-eight inches for the low, with
a stroke of three feet three inches. As much strength and lightness as
possible have been secured for the propellers by constructing them of
manganese iron; while steel has been largely employed for the engines
and boilers, which are, for their weight, the most powerful possessed by
any vessel. The estimated horse-power is 10,500, and the ship, under
favourable conditions, can make fifteen knots an hour.

The double water-tight bottom of the _Livadia_ is three feet six inches
deep at the centre, and two feet nine inches at each end. In this
turbot-like lower part is the machinery, and it is the receptacle also
for coals and stores of all kinds. The twofold bottom of the ship
comprises forty compartments, and the whole is sufficiently strong, it
is believed, to withstand the heaviest weather to which the yacht is
likely to be exposed, as well as the strain of her powerful machinery.

The entire length of the upper part of the ship, in which are the
imperial apartments, and the quarters of the officers and crew, is 260
feet, and the breadth 110 feet. The crew all told numbers 260. The
private apartments of the Czar himself are forward on the main-deck,
well away from the heat of the engines and the smell of the machinery.
A visitor to the ship is chiefly struck, perhaps, by the height to which
the decks rise above the hull, the uppermost compartment of all being
fitted out as a reception saloon, in the centre of which a little
fountain rises out of a bed of flowers. This portion of the vessel is
forty feet above the level of the sea. The apartment is luxuriously
appointed in the fashion of