1867.1 TJie Means of Transit in India. 23 



road of any length on which it would have answered to employ 

 wheel-carriages. There existed, however, proof that attention had 

 once been given to the construction of roads, in the fine avenues of 

 trees, which in some districts measured several hundred miles in 

 length ; hut, as they had never been properly formed or drained, 

 and bridges had not heen built nor care taken to keep the path- 

 ways practicable, they were roads no longer. For some time after 

 the establishment of British rule very little was done towards pro- 

 viding the country with roads, excepting where they were required 

 for military purposes ; the traffic of the country, however, profited 

 in some degree by these military lines, and there can, even now, 

 be traced in many of the great trunk roads the lines used for 

 connecting the military arsenals and cantonments. With the year 

 1846 a new era commenced in the history of the roads of the 

 country, and the operations and expenditure, being placed under 

 the direction of a Road Department, began thenceforward to exhibit 

 more satisfactory results ; the introduction of the European form 

 of wheel led, moreover, to the employment of cattle in draught 

 where little or nothing had been done for the roads, and the im- 

 proved condition of many hundred miles of road soon led to the 

 extensive use of the common country-cart, or bullock-bandy, for the 

 traffic between the inland districts and the coast. 



The principal trade throughout the peninsula has, for many 

 years, been carried on through the agency of a class of people called 

 Bunjaras, who date the first establishment of their business prior to 

 the Macedonean invasion in the fourteenth century. These Bun- 

 jaras are still extensively employed, but chiefly in the conveyance 

 of coffee from the district of Wynaad to the Malabar coast, and in 

 the conveyance of merchandize from the eastern coast into the 

 interior. As the demand for improved means of transport through- 

 out the country increased, the Government started a Barighy 

 Dawk, for the conveyance of light articles, and a bullock-train for 

 goods of a heavier nature, and passengers ; and those establishments 

 have since been superseded by the carts and waggons of the ' Inland 

 Transit Company,' the ' Punjab and North-western Dawk Company,' 

 the ' Indian Carrying Company,' and the ' Commercial Transport 

 Association,' which undertake the conveyance of both passengers and 

 goods. 



The most expeditious mode of travelling by land was formerly 

 by Dawk, in which the passenger rode in a palanquin borne on the 

 shoulders of four men ; the speed attained, however, was but slow, 

 being only from three-and-a-half to four miles per hour, and the 

 usual charge was one shilling per mile. Any other mode of travel- 

 ling — especially when it was necessary to convey much baggage, or 

 furniture — was excessively tedicus; anything of a delicate nature, 

 such as glass, china, (fee, was carried in bundles on the heads of 



