Top Deck Pool

Augustus was the first and greatest Emperor of Rome (63 B.C.-A.D. 14). He gave the world the adjective "august." It reflected his Majesty, Serenity, Power. Therefore Signor Benito Mussolini recently caused the newest and largest motor ship in the world to be christened Augustus.

She came steaming across from Genoa to New York, last week, on her maiden New York voyage. She is 100% "made in Italy." Il Duce saw to that. She has the Majesty of 33,000 tons, the Serenity of four giant silent Diesel Engines, and she has Power, 28,000 horse power.

A certain Miss Louise Moore, 42, of Manhattan, furnished peculiar proof, last week, of the extreme spaciousness and luxury of the Augustus. Miss Moore occupied with a Miss Goebel one of the de luxe cabins. It had windows, not portholes. Miss Moore leaned out of her spacious window to enjoy the night breeze, leaned further, fell out and overboard.

Captain Francesco Taraboth of the Augustus thus had an almost unprecedented opportunity to show his metal. He is the new Commodore of the N. G. I.* Line. He is new on the Manhattan route. Until last week he had been engaged in taking poor Italians to South America, bringing rich Argentines to Europe. Commodore Taraboth is lithe, slender, quick, with pointed mustachios fascinating to Signoras. He did all he could, all anyone could, to save Miss Moore.

Click! The automatic lifebelt release on the Captain's bridge hurled a belt, coated with luminous paint, into the darkness. Click! The Captain's controller whirled from Full Speed Ahead to Full Speed Astern. Twenty-eight thousand figurative horses stopped galloping forward, galloped backward. Click, click, click! The powerful searchlights of the Augustus were switched on; and, as she stopped, lifeboats were lowered from whirring davits.

Two hours. Then the Augustus steamed on. None doubted that Miss Louise Moore had drowned instanter. But 17 hours later, the Italian merchant vessel Capo Nord came wallowing after the Augustus into the vicinity where the tragedy occurred. A lookout peering from the Capo Nord's mast saw or thought he saw a woman floating. Whatever the lookout saw vanished before the Capo Nord could be stopped. Search again proved fruitless. The lookout said: "I distinctly saw a bobbed-haired woman in a pink garment."

Connoisseurs who inspected the Augustus when she docked found her interior decoration rather commonplacely Italian, in Renaissance and various provincial styles. The Augustus has not the vast, gloomy, cathedral splendor of the Roma, her sister ship (in hull dimensions only). The Augustus has not the rampant, modernist decore of the new Saturnia, a rival Italian motor ship of the Cosulich Line.

But the Ancient Roman Emperor Augustus, a great bath lover, would have joyed to behold the swimming pool on his namesake ship. It is on the top deck, under the sunshine, where it ought to be. All other big ship pools are many decks down, steamy, stuffy.

*Navigazione Generale Italiana.