Route to India. 137 



perly speaking, governed India ; they have merely had the pri- 

 vilege of naming its governors ; and upon the personal charac- 

 ter of these men, their wisdom, their foresight, their vigilance, 

 the course of events have chiefly depended. So true is this, 

 that the late Mr James Mill, a high authority, stated it as his 

 opinion, that the fate and fortunes of India would have been 

 nearly the same, although not one of the many voluminous in- 

 structions issued by the Directors and the Board of Control 

 had never been penned. It ought not to be so. Abuses have, 

 no doubt, grown up in India, and blunders have been commit- 

 ted, which would have been prevented by such a close super- 

 intendence on the part of the home authorities, as they will 

 now be able to exercise. 



The most defective part in the present line of communica- 

 tion is that between Alexandria and Suez. The passage from 

 Bombay to Falmouth is generally accomplished in a calendar 

 month, or a day or two more, and the distance is, pretty cor- 

 rectly, 7000 English miles. The journey from Alexandria to 

 Suez, by the present route, is about 240 miles in length, and 

 occupies, we believe, seven or eight days ; and thus nearly one- 

 fourth part of the time is consumed in passing over one-thir- 

 tieth part of the distance. 



We learn from the Parliamentary Report of 1837,* that a 

 railway from Alexandria to the Nile, and another from Cairo 

 to Suez, was projected by the Pasha, and he had even procured 

 the rails from England for part of the work. Neither, how- 

 ever, has yet been executed, or even, we believe, commenced ; 

 and if executed, they would not shorten the time spent in pass- 

 ing from Alexandria to Suez by more than two days, or three 

 at the most, because they make no change in the most tedious 

 part of the journey, that from Edfah to Cairo by the Nile. 



The ancient canal of the Ptolemys was described in the 

 Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal for October 1825, 

 from a survey given in the Description de VEgypte. To 

 this article Captain Vetch repeatedly refers. The canal 

 passed from the head of the Red Sea through the Bitter Lakes 

 to the Serapeum (see the Map), and thence westward by a 



* " On steam-communicotion with India," 15th July 1837. 



