338 



to Kurrach.ee, and on to Lahore, a distance of 1500 miles. Of course, the 

 longest and last part of the line was anything but plain sailing. Some arrange- 

 ment was proposed to be made with the government of Persia, by which an 

 armed party could proceed with safety from Bussorah to the Indus ; but Sir 

 Macdonald Stephenson depended more than anything upon the material advan- 

 tages conferred upon the country by a well-managed railroad from Belgrade, 

 than on all the diplomacy in the world, even in a country governed by Turks. 

 New ideas would penetrate where a somnolent despotism has prevailed for 

 ages. Fertile land for hundreds of miles would be reclaimed from the waste, 

 and the blessings of a popular government would be sure to follow the material 

 improvement of the country. It was to this that he looked as a means of 

 getting over the danger arising from the wild tribes inhabiting the countries 

 between Bussorah and Scinde ; and in support of what I say I could not cite a 

 more apposite instance than that of Hungary at the present hour. That 

 country was prepared for a perfectly free government through Count Secheyny 

 devoting his useful life to the introduction of roads and steam boats on the 

 Danube ; as by these appliances the production of the country was greatly 

 stimulated ; the comfort of the people was increased ; and the confines of the 

 Austrian Dominions were brought in contact with Pesth and "Vienna, by which 

 a public opinion was created that has saved the Empire. 



The result of this third line was to bring Lahore within a fortnight of 

 London ; and the whole strength of Sir Macdonald's argument lay in the 

 superiority of rail over sea passage, or in other words, of forty or fifty miles 

 over ten or fifteen miles an hour. 



From the information received from the best possible sources at that time, 

 I am not aware that there is a serious engineering difficulty between Calais 

 and the Indus ; and I therefore look upon the adoption of this line as perfectly 

 certain if once Belgrade and Bussorah are connected by rail. 



The last line lately proposed was to start from Hamburgh to Warsaw, and 

 thence to Odessa, Poti on the Black Sea to Tiflis and Teheran. But I cannot 

 see the advantage of a more northerly line through a worse climate, and through 

 the defiles of the Caucasus, because it is straighter. Constantinople is made by 

 nature as the centre of trade with the East. Within the same area there is no 

 spot in the world which commands so easy a communication with the most 

 productive parts of the earth, both by sea and land, and any line of telegi'aph 

 or railroad that avoids the Bosphorus throAvs away the most remunerative 

 portion of the road between Europe and India. 



The Pacific Railway. 



The origin of the Pacific Railway may be traced to the increase of terri- 

 tory by the United States at the close of the war with Mexico, and the finding 

 of gold in California rather more than twenty years ago. 



By an Act of Congress, passed in March, 1853, the War Department was 

 directed to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad 

 from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Jefferson Davis was then Secre- 

 tary at War, and the results of the explorations and surveys made under his 

 directions between 1854 and 1857, are comprised in the eleven volumes of 

 Pacific Railway Reports, which are as well known to botanists, naturalists, 

 and geologists, as to geographers and engineers. 



Five different lines were surveyed and reported upon, Mr. Davis deciding 

 upon that marked red upon the map, and strongly recommended its adoption 

 by Congress. But between 1853 and 1860 the political horizon gradually 

 assumed a lowering aspect. The pro-slavery question being defeated in the 

 West, with Southern influence paramount at Washington, civil war followed 

 as a direct consequence ; and the almost matured project of constructing a 



