The Dane: is depicted here after departure from Southampton in September, 1857, with the Needles off the Isle of Wight in the background. She arrived in Cape Town on 29 October. The Dane was the first Union Line mailship on the run and symbolises the beginning of an era. The Dane was moved from the mail service to the Mauritian service in 1864. During the following year she was used as an admiralty transport vessel in the naval operation to suppress slave trading on the East African coast. En route from Simons Town to East Africa, she was wrecked on Thunderbolt Reef near Port Elizabeth on 1 December.