Later I came to know that these are the names of different places in Barisal

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Later I came to know that these are the names of different places in Barisal. The way to recognize them is that they had two white colored bands on their Chonga or funnel.
The other company was named Indian General Navigation, abbreviated as I, G, N. The color of their lanterns was black. The names of their ships were Sitakunda, Sandwip.
There was competition between the two companies. But I liked I, G, N company ships. These ships were steam powered then. For this reason they were called steamers. The engine ran by burning coal and generating steam in the boiler.

The engine room could be seen from the upper deck of the ship. The pistons were hissing under the pressure of the steam. It was quite scary to see at that age. What I feared the most was a small steam engine on the lower floor of the ship to turn the rudder, which the people of Sandwip called the rudder, to change the direction of the ship. When the steering wheel was turned from the upper bridge, the engine made a loud noise, pulling the steering chain to and fro and turning the rudder.
In this era, giant ships were turned around at the touch of a switch. But these were not paddle steamers like the ships that ran in the rocket service from Dhaka. Their propellers were towards the back like modern ships.

Even though the steamer left Chittagong's Sadarghat early in the morning, everyone had to board the ship the night before. My father used to book us a first class cabin. They were quite luxurious. The front of the ship had a huge deck. There were comfortable chairs to sit on. At night we slept on the ship.

He used to wake up in the morning hearing the ship's horn.