372 AUSTRALIA : 



While upon this subject, we must indulge ourselves with 

 a short parenthesis as to that extraordinary line of steam 

 communication between England and her Eastern posses- 

 sions (somewhat strangely called the Overland Journey), of 

 which Australia and New Zealand will in future form the ex- 

 treme branches. The creation of the last twenty years, this 

 communication has already acquired a maturity of speed 

 and exactness, notwithstanding the enormous distances tra- 

 versed, and the changes necessary in transit from sea to sea. 

 The Anglo-Indian mail, in its two sections, and including 

 passengers and correspondence, possesses a sort of indivi- 

 duality as the greatest and most singular line of intercourse 

 on the globe. Two of the first nations of Europe, France 

 and Austria, struggled for a time for the privilege of carry- 

 ing this mail across their territories. Traversing the length 

 of the Mediterranean, it is received on the waters of the 

 ancient Nile ; Cairo and the Pyramids are passed in its 

 onward course ; the Desert is traversed with a speed which 

 mocks the old cavalcades of camels and loitering Arabs ; 

 it is re-embarked on the Eed Sea near a spot sacred in Scrip- 

 tural history; the promontory projecting from the heights 

 of Mount Sinai, the shores of Mecca and Medina are passed 

 in its rapid course down this great gulf; it emerges through 

 the Straits of Babelmandel into the Indian seas, to be dis- 

 tributed thence by different lines to all the great centres of 

 Indian government and commerce, as well as to our more 

 remote dependencies in the Straits of Malacca and the 

 Chinese seas. There is a certain majesty in the simple out- 

 line of a route like this, traversing the most ancient seats of 

 empire, and what we are taught to regard as among the 

 earliest abodes of man, while now ministering to the con- 

 nection of England with that great sovereignty she has con- 

 quered, or created, in the East ; an empire more wonder- 

 ful, with one exception, than any of those of antiquity j 



