MR. C. SHAKSPEAR. 
215 
trivance beyond the simplest implements of hus- 
bandry, or the common weapons of warfare. 
Several of these rope bridges have been erected of 
late years by a Mr. C. Shakspear, as will appear from 
Bishop Heber’s Journal. 
“ In passing Cossipoor,”* says the bishop, f e on my 
return to Tittyghur, I called on Mr. C. Shakspear, 
and looked at his rope bridges, which are likely to be 
most useful, in this country at least, if not in Europe.t 
Their principle differs from that of chain bridges, in 
the centre being a little elevated, and in their needing 
no abutments. It is, in fact, an application of a ship’s 
standing rigging to a new purpose ; and it is not even 
necessary that there should be any foundation at all, 
as the whole may be made to rest on flat timbers, 
and, with the complete apparatus of cordage, iron, 
and bamboos, may be taken to pieces and set up again 
in a few hours, and removed from place to place by 
the aid of a few camels and elephants. One of these 
over a torrent near Benares, of a hundred and sixty 
feet span, stood a severe test during last year’s inun- 
dation, when, if ever, the cordage might have been 
expected to suffer from the rain, and when a vast 
crowd of neighbouring villagers took refuge on it as 
the only safe place in the neighbourhood, and indeed 
almost the only object which continued to hold itself 
above the water. He has now finished another bridge 
* Vol. i. page 83. 
+ Bishop Heber appears to have imagined that Mr. Shakspear 
was the inventor of these bridges ; but this is quite a mistake : he 
only applied, and improved upon, a principle long known in 
northern India. 
