William Pryor Floyd (1834-1900), attrib.

HOMEWARD BOUND, P&O STEAMER BENARES AT THE WHARF, HONG KONG, c.1865-68. Albumen print, tipped-in to thin period album leaf, image/sheet size 190 x 240mm, overall 250 x 365mm, titled in manuscript ink in an unknown hand "Homeward bound" P&O Steamer "Carnatic" [stricken-through in pencil and annotated "Benares" beneath] at the wharf - Hong Kong - New Years day - Getting up steam."

The P&O passenger liner "Benares" made her maiden voyage from Gravesend to Alexandria in April 1858, and took on the Galle/Hong Kong/Shanghai route seven years later, in 1865. According to the P&O Heritage Archive, in May 1868 "Benares" became "stranded on an uncharted rock in the Fisherman’s Islands in the China Sea, on a voyage from Shanghai to Hong Kong. The accident was blamed on the two officers left on watch when her Captain went to consult a chart, who failed to alert him when land was sighted through the fog. There were no casualties and the specie and mails were subsequently recovered by divers."

Incidentally, the P&O passenger liner "Carnatic", which launched in 1862, undertook the Bombay/Suez and Bombay/Hong Kong services in 1864-1865, and in September 1865 was permanently allocated to the Bombay/Aden/Suez service. In September 1869, "Carnatic" ran aground on an unchartered reef 5km north of the island of Jabal at the mouth of the Gulf of Suez, southbound for Aden and Bombay, and was wrecked, sinking into deep water by early 1870.