RETURN VIA MARSEILLES. 203 



journey through Italy was impossible on account of 

 the war in Lombardy. The news of the declaration 

 of war by France and of the death of Alexander 

 von Humboldt I had received in the Red Sea during 

 the cable -laying. The subsequent great political events 

 had also been communicated to us through the cable, 

 so that we had remained well-informed of the events 

 of the world. 



For the rest Meyer and I narrowly escaped being- 

 left behind in Malta. The captain of the French 

 passenger steamer emphatically declared that he could 

 take no passengers to Marseilles without passports, that 

 we must therefore provide ourselves with passports in 

 Malta, if we had lost our own in the shipwreck. When 

 the captain presented us to the respective consuls as 

 shipwrecked persons handed over to him in Alexandria, 

 all the rest received consular passports without any 

 difficulty; the Prussian consul alone, a commercial man 

 who had settled there and been entrusted with this 

 office, declared that he possessed no authorization, 

 as we could produce no regular evidence of identity. 

 Only after some stormy scenes did he give in, and 

 we were able to reach the ship just before its de- 

 parture. 



The Indian line was extended in the following 

 year from Aden to Kurrachee, William Meyer super- 

 intending the electrical arrangements. Unfortunately 

 the line did not long remain in a serviceable con- 

 dition. Defects of insulation, which impeded corre- 

 spondence, showed themselves already in the Ked Sea 



