; 
MISCELLANEOUS 
ficient proof of the importance of 
@ speedy conveyance’ to our settle- 
ments in the east. 
At the conclusion of the late 
war, in January 1783, advices were 
sent to India of the cessation of 
hostilities, both round the Cape of 
Good Hope and over the great 
desert of Arabia; but through the 
delays to which conveyances by 
those routes are unavoidably sub- 
ject, the dispatches were not re- 
eeived at Madras till the beginning 
of July. On the 13th and 25th 
days of the preceding month, six 
months after the date of the pre- 
liminary articles, above two. thou- 
sand gallant men lost their lives in 
engagements between the French 
and British forces at Cuddalore, 
beside those who fell im the action 
between the two fleets about the 
same time. This unnecessary ef- 
fusion of blood would have been 
prevented, if government, or the 
India Company had possessed such 
information on the subject of the 
route to’ India, as would have ena- 
bled them to have transmitted  ear- 
lier advice to their officers of the 
important event of the peace. 
I shall now proceed to the busi- 
ness of this paper, which is to point 
out as concisely as possible, the 
superiority of the route by Con- 
stantinople over those by Aleppo 
and Cairo, which are considerably 
more expensive of time and money, 
without affording any greater secu- 
‘ity to the person of the traveller 
than that. which I.am about to re- 
commend. 
». Bhe most usual course of those 
who now come from: India over 
ESSAYS. 453 
land, is by the great desert of Ara- 
bia, over which they pass with the 
caravans from Bussora to Aleppo 
and Latichea ; at which latter place 
they embark for some port of Italy 
or France. To those who traveb 
with much baggage, or who are un- 
able to encounter fatigue, this route 
will certainly be found convenient, 
as a number of camels and horses 
may always be procured, propor- 
tionable to the quantity of baggage 
the traveller carries with bim ; but 
to those who are charged with pub- 
lic dispatches, or whose affairs re- 
quire expedition and economy, this, 
perhaps, is the least suited of any. 
The times whew caravans set out 
to cross the great desert are uncer- 
tain and rarely occur above once or 
twice in a year; and, at the slow 
rate at which loaded camels travel, 
they seldom perform their journey 
under fifty days. If to this you add 
the tedious navigation of the Le- 
vant seas, im which northerly. winds 
prevail three-fourths of the year, it 
will be pretty evident that this pas- 
sage from India will engage the tra- 
veller for at least nine months. 
Another mode of crossing the 
desert* is to hire a guard of forty 
or fifty men, with whom you: set 
out without waiting for a caravan. 
This method appears to me the 
most ineligible of any; the great 
expence to which this: mode of tra- 
velling must. be subject, is too obvi- 
ous to need any particular details 
neither is it necessary to dwell on 
the well-known risk of being at- 
tacked by the Arab plunderers, who 
in parties of two or three hundred 
infest the desert. 
- 
* The passage over the great desert is almost impracticable from the end of 
April till the end of August, on account of the parching heat of the climate; which 
few English constitutions are able to endure. 
vis 
Ff3 
A third 
