The following year, she and her sister ship were considered surplus, and so were loaned to the fledgling Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company, which chartered them on the Pacific route.

The Belgic and her sister ship, the Gaelic, were originally under construction in the Harland and Wolff shipyards on behalf of a Liverpool company, the J. J. Bibby.

She was originally intended to be only a cargo ship, however White Star Line added cabins to accommodate 40 first-class passengers.

[3] When it acquired this ship, White Star Line had been trying somehow to establish, since the end of 1872, a service to South America, briefly inaugurated by the Republic, the Asiatic and the Tropic.

[5] By this time, however, Thomas Henry Ismay and his associates had already abandoned the idea of having their larger ships frequented this route and were gradually withdrawing from it.

The opportunity arose that same year when George Bradbury, president of the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company asked Ismay to set up a regular service on the Pacific Ocean.