828 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[October. 



RAILWAYS IN INDIA; 



(From the Foreign Quarterly, ) 

 If any one accustomed to tlie modes of travelling in Europe were to be 

 transported suddenly into the territories of Hyderabad or Nagpore, or 

 even into many districts of the Bombay Presidency, he would imagine 

 himself carried back to the primitive ages of mankind, when all the arts 

 of government were in their infancy, when there was litlle or no science, 

 and when people were perfectly content if they could satisfy the primary 

 ■(vants of nature. The interior provinces of that great table-land which 

 stretches from tiie Nerbudda to Cape Comorin, are all of lliem destitute of 

 one of the principal necessaries of life — we mean salt, which has, there- 

 fore, to be convej ed to them perpetually from the coast. Its price, con- 

 sequently, is in many places so high, that the poorer classes are unable to 

 purchase it ; so that they are driven by a rude kind of process to extract 

 from the saline earths, found in various districts, a coarse and unwhole- 

 some substance, which they use as a substitute for salt. 



To facilitate the transport of this latter article, therefore, it might have 

 been expected tliat a highroad would, from time immemorial, have been 

 constructed by the united efforts of all the governments of the peninsula. 

 But what is ths actual state of the case ? Thousands of Brinjarri bullocks, 

 laden with salt, may constantly be seen traversing the C'oncan at the rate 

 of only six or seven miles a day, threading the narrow passes of the Ghauts 

 over paths which their own feet have worn, and, arrived at the summit, 

 breaking into separate lines, and taking their way towards every point of 

 the country along the crests of the mountains, or besides the beds of rivers, 

 ■where Nature's hand may have prepared for them a level track. Some- 

 thing we have ourselves done towards facilitating tliis and other branches 

 of internal trade. In the Bombay provinces, for example, between live 

 and six liundred miles of road, have, we believe, been constructed. But 

 bow imperfectly ! In some places it has been thought sufficient to clear a 

 space of about forty feet broad, and run a shallow trench for drainage on 

 either side. Elsewhere, the simplest rudiments of a road have been 

 created : thiu strata of broken stone or of mooruni* have been laid upon 

 the face of the soil, sufficient to support the feet of men and cattle, but 

 seldom adapted to the passage of wheel-carriages, which would speedily 

 jjlough up deep ruts and render the road impassable. 



Yet government has received every possible encouragemeut to proceed 

 with the work of improvement. Each amelioration in he public ways 

 lias been immediately succeeded by an increase of traffic, so that the tolls 

 and duties levied, though in themselves extremely moderate, very soon 

 repay to government the sums expended on the roads, after which they 

 become a permanent source of prolit. One example may be worth men- 

 tioning. A considerable trade in cotton has long been carried on between 

 Bellary and Kamptee, Canara. To facilitate the traffic, government, in 

 1839—40, constructed 140 miles of cart-road from the former town to 

 Sirsee on the top of the Ghauts. Thence down the slope, and across the 

 low country to the sea, the road is hitherto only passable to laden cattle, so 

 that a stoppage takes place at the summit of the Ghauts, where the cotton 

 is transferred from carts to the backs of beasts of burden. Nevertheless, 

 this trifling advance towards civilisation has had a remarkable effect upon 

 the cotton trade of Bellary. During the lirst four years after the forma- 

 tion of the 101 carts plied upon it, while iu the ensuing year the number 

 increased to 443, and has probably gone on augmenting to the present 

 lour. The change, however, has not been confined to the substitution of 

 one mode of carriage for another, but a much greater amount of cotton has 

 been sent down to the coast. The value of the entire exports at Kamptee 

 multiplied rapidly, rising in three years from ]60,000;.to 400,000(., whilst 

 the customs increased from 4,622Z. to 18,015/. lOs. This holds out, we 

 think, an extremely encouraging prospect to government, which should at 

 once render the remaining forty miles of road from Sirsee to Kamptee 

 practicable for carts. One year's increase of the custom's w^ould defray 

 the whole expense. 



If we now consider the effect of this improvement upon the price of the 

 cotton, we shall find it to be very great. Formerly, when bullocks only 

 ■nere employed in conveying it, the cost of carriage amounted to 4/. 10s. 

 per ton, or TJd. per ton per mile. It is now reduced to 21. per ton, or S^d. 

 per ton per mile, which is still double the price of carriage in England. 

 This cotton, ill-cleaned, and subject to much damage from thorns and 

 bushes on the roadside, and dust during its passage on the backs of oxen 

 below the Ghauts, sells at Kamptee for little more than twopence a 

 pound. Thence it is shipped for Bombay, where it is screwed into bales 

 for the English market. It has been found upon calculation, that the cost 

 of bringing this cotton from Bellary to Kamptee, a distaice of 184 miles, 

 considerably exceeds that of conveying it to England, a distance of 17,000 

 miles ! Taking the price of carriage in India at two and a half annas per 

 ton per mile, and reckoning the value of money according to the price of 

 bread corn at six times what it is in England," it is equal to twenty-two 

 pence and a half there; whereas in England the expense is tenpeuce per 

 ton on common roads, and about threepence per ton on canals in general, 

 or even as low as one penny. If threepence be the average, it is less than 

 one-seventh of the cost in India. The expense of the transport of goods 

 from Madras to Trichinopoly, 230 miles, is thirty-five rupees, or 3/. 10s. 

 per ton, which is neariy as much as the frieght from Madras to London. 

 The most important fact, however, still remains to be considered : when 

 brought into the market at Liverpool, this cotton often sells with difficulty 



* N«ar Husliiingabad, in the valley of Nerbudda, is one of the tineat coal fields in 

 InolB, or perliaps the world, situated moreover in the vicinity of inex!iou3tibIe iron mines. 



at threepence per pound, so that the merchant importing it profits very 

 little by the transaction. 



Let no man in haste traverse the Deccan. The snail is and must be the 

 prototype of all wayfarers there. Your bead has almost time to grow 

 gray whilst on a journey ! Locomotion is usually performed on foot, on 

 horseback, or in palanquins. There are, as will readily be supposed, no 

 inns or places of resort where strangers may find shelter or accommoda- 

 tion. Individuals belonging to the industrious classes, who journey on 

 foot, proceed when they enter a town to that quarter of it where persons of 

 similar occupations reside. There they obtain permission to pass the night 

 in some shed or out-house, near which they prepare their own food, and 

 wait as well as they can upon themselves, renewing and closing their 

 journey under the same circumstances upon the morrow. The landlord, 

 who in this manner receives a guest is required, as on the continent of 

 Europe, to report his arrival and departure to the police, and should he 

 have been lodged within the house he becomes responsible for bis ap- 

 pearance. 



Travellers who move in numbers, or who have equipages of tents with 

 them, encamp in the neighbourhood of the town, and their attendants pro- 

 cure from the shops what they require, and prepare tlieir food in vessels 

 they bring along with them. Nothing can be more tedious, expensive, or 

 inconvenient than this mode of travelling. Troops moving from station to 

 station to the distance of several hundred miles, are required to march 

 thirty-six miles iu four days, or rather to advance twelve miles three days 

 successively, aud rest on the fourth. Travellers proceed at about the 

 same rale, and the trade of the country conveyed on hired cattle, does not 

 proceed nearly so fast for a continuance. Consequently, according to the 

 Indian rate of travelling, and of commercial intercourse, it would require 

 three weeks for a passenger to reach Liverpool, York, or Exeter from 

 Loudon, a distance which is now daily accomplished in ten or eleven 

 hours. In England, a first class passenger on a railway pays at the 

 rate of about tivepeuce per mile, and travels from twenty to thirty miles 

 per hour ; in India he pays, by the most expeditious conveyance, one 

 shilling per mile, and travels at the rate of three miles per hour. 



Such at present is the state of internal communication in India. But 

 the people of this country, who certainly cannot be accused iu general of 

 going too fast, or engaging rashly in any enterprise, appear to be at length 

 taking into consideration the benefits they may confer on their subjects 

 and themselves, by extending the advantage of railroads to that noblest of 

 all our dependencies. The reasons which would justify the adoption of 

 such a policy as this are far too numerous to be all stated here. Possibly, 

 even the most practised and sagacious statesman would not, from the 

 point of time on which we stand, be able to foresee or point out the whole 

 of them. But mauy are at once so obvious and so cogent, that the most 

 ordinary reflection must suggest them to every man's mind. 



It has been very justly observed, that no nation can be expected to 

 undertake great and expensive public works from mere motives of philan- 

 thropy. It is the spirit of gain that imparts an irresistible impulse to 

 enterprise ; but, fortunately, it has been so ordered by Providence, that 

 the gains of industry and commerce bless, like mercy, both those who 

 give and those who take. The principle that constitutes the very basis of 

 commerce, always presupposes reciprocal advantages to those who engage 

 in it; and it is true, uot only of commerce in its simple rudimental .state, 

 but applies equally to its most elaborate and recondite forms, over which 

 the highest science and political wisdom preside. 



In projecting railways for India, therefore, the capitalists of this 

 country need uot to be called upon to put forward any other views than 

 those of profit, which are intelligible to all the world. The process was 

 begun many centuries ago. We have projected moveable roads from the 

 shores of England to those of India, by means of which we greatly en- 

 riched ourselves as a nation. It is now found that we have uot gone far 

 enough ; that the riches of India cannot find their way down to the coast ; 

 that they are pent up by certain restraints in the interior, where they rot 

 and perish, without conferring any benefits on the natives or on us. We 

 must, therefore, extend the lines of communication from the decks of our 

 ships and steamers athwart the peninsula, up to the very roots of the 

 Himalaya, and thus facililate the outpouring of those vast sources of na- 

 tional prosperity, which we know to exist iu every province. 



^Vhen the Roman republic extended its conquests, its first care was to 

 link the newly-conquered territory to Rome by a great road, over which 

 the legion could move rapidly to and fro, and thus bring to bear the irre- 

 sistible strength of the parent state upon any point that might be threatened, 

 either by interual commotion, or invasion from without. In this matter 

 we should imitate Rome : uot, however, for the purposes of war only ; 

 bnt for the higher and more beneficial purposes of peace and civilisation. 

 In whatever direction we may carry a railway through India, it must en- 

 rich the districts through which it passes, not merely by supplying, in the 

 instance, labour to those who need it, and exchangiug the actual commo- 

 dities of diii'erent provinces, but by imparting a new and extremely power- 

 ful impulse to population and industry, and calling forth the bidden 

 capabilities of the soil. By degrees a town would spring up around every 

 station, while the land, beginning from the very banks of the line, would 

 be cultivated like a garden, and aflbrd an inexhaustible supply of many of 

 the articles most coveted in Europe, 



Among these, if we commence operations with the Deccan, the most 

 important, by far, will be cotton, of which a sufficient quantity may 

 speedily be raised iu India to render us completely independent of the 

 slave states of America. And here we may briefly allude to a fact which 



