ART. II.-Eastern and Egyptian Scenery, Ruins, &c., accompanied with descriptive Notes, Mups, and Plans, illustrative of a Journey from India to Europe, followed by an Outline of an Overland Route, Statistical Remarks, &c., intended to show the advantage and practicability of Steam Navigation from England to India. By Captain C. F. HEAD, Queen's Royal Regiment. London. Oblong folio. 1833.

THE

HE wonderful change which the introduction of the power of steam has, in the course of a few years, effected in the navigation of rivers, lakes, and narrow seas, is felt by us every day. It has brought remote districts close to one another, and has converted us into a nation of travellers. It is not surprising, therefore, that attempts should have been made to apply it to distant voyages also; and, accordingly, efforts have been used to include even the East Indies in the range of steam navigation. The difficulty of finding intermediate stations, and fuel, in such very distant voyages, must always form a great obstacle to their success, until some mode can be devised, either of consuming less, or of conveying it in a less bulky form. And it may be doubted whether, in voyages where a great part of the course is made by trade-winds and a regular monsoon, at a rate nearly equal to that usually effected by steam, as is the case in those round the Cape of Good Hope, the average saving of time by steam navigation, gained at a very great expense, would eventually repay the adventurers using steam-vessels on the present construction, deprived as they are of the benefit of a large extent of canvass.

Plans have, however, been proposed for opening a regular intercourse with our Eastern possessions by the ancient Indian road of Egypt and the Red Sea. The route is direct and short, but the difficulties are considerable. The two most obvious are the total want of fuel at all the intermediate stations, as well as in India; and that the communication, when once established at an enormous expense, is always liable to be deranged or broken off, by the revolutions of a barbarous court, or the caprice of an ignorant despot. The former of these difficulties it is in the power of money to remove; and in particular instances it has been overcome; the voyage from Bombay to Cosseir, and back, having actually been made oftener than once by steam and supposing the difficulties to the east of Suez to be overcome, those to the west are manageable enough. The whole resolves into a question of expense.

VOL. LVII. NO. CXVI.

X

It is hardly necessary to point out the great advantages, both political and commercial, which would accrue from such a communication. The demand for it, especially in India, where its advantages are most immediately felt, has been of course very urgent; and much has been written on the subject, both there and at home. Among others, Captain Head has examined with much care the proposed route, and the present volume contains the result of his observations and researches. He tells us that he had a double object in view, namely, to promote a rapid • communication with India, by way of Egypt, through the agency of steam navigation; and, as a natural consequence of this measure, to secure our northern frontier against the perils of northern invasion. In order to leave no part of the question unilluminated, a journal of the line of route has been given, with sketches of scenery and antiquities; instructions have been supplied for the navigator, calculations for the economist, and statistical and political data for the proficient in ' military science.'

Captain Head proposes that this overland, or rather more direct communication, should be connected with the steam-packets which at present sail monthly from Falmouth for Malta; that a branch steamer should be ready to carry the Indian packet thence to Alexandria, and that another steamer should be in waiting at Suez to receive it on its arrival there, and proceed with it to Bombay. The time necessary he calculates thus:

Falmouth to Malta, (as at present,) including two

days at Gibraltar

Stay at Malta

Alexandria to Suez, by Cairo

Malta to Alexandria

Suez to Aden

Stay at Aden

Aden to Bombay

Days. Miles.

2250

837

175

81

1323

101

1644

Letters forwarded from Bombay by horse-dak or post, would, he calculates, reach Madras in less than fifty-seven, and Calcutta in about fifty-nine days, or two months, from London.

Such is the proposed plan. The great physical difficulty is the supply of fuel at the eastern stations. Bombay, it is probable, could always be supplied at a fair rate by the quantity carried out to that port as ballast. Captain Head Captain Head proposes that the depôt at Aden should be supplied by ships, on their way to Bombay from England, during the south-west monsoon, run

ning through the Mozambique channel and on to Aden, before bearing down for that port, which it is calculated would lengthen the voyage not more than one month; while Suez might be supplied from Alexandria by coals brought from England, and carried first up the Nile to Cairo, and then on camels to Suez. In this way he reckons that they might be supplied at Bombay at 40s. the ton, at Aden at 50s., and at Suez at 60s. As coals have been discovered, and even wrought, in various places of India, it is not impossible that, in the course of time, they might be found equal in quantity and quality to the demand for steam and other purposes. Captain Head supposes that three new steamers would suffice; two on the Indian side of Egypt, and one between Egypt and Malta.

The estimate of the annual expense of each steam-boat varies from L.26,800, that furnished by the East India Company, to L.5974, 12s. as given by Captain Head ;—the former calculating the vessel to last fifteen years, the latter twenty; the former estimating the original expense of each vessel at L.35,600, the latter at L.12,000. Similar discrepancies occur in all the other items of account. It is probable that the one is a good deal too high, while the other, grounded on the data furnished by merchants, eager to see the enterprise undertaken, is considerably too low. When Captain Head, among the receipts, reckons L.45,000 for the postage of 300,000 letters annually, L.10,000 for newspapers, and no less than L.30,000 for what he calls periodical law papers, bills of exchange, &c. for India, he seems to go to a ridiculous extreme.

The Company estimate the total expense of four steamers, for fifteen years, at L.1,608,000 606,800

Captain Head, that of three, for twenty years, at

It is not our intention to attempt reconciling these jarring conclusions, nor indeed is it necessary. If the regular steam navigation is found practicable at all, the expense must, in the first instance, be defrayed either by the Government, or by the merchants of India and England. In the present unsettled state of Indian revenue, it is not probable that the Government, either at home or abroad, will add a new branch of expense to their already severely burdened finances; while, if it is to be attempted by a body of merchants, their local knowledge and intimacy with the details of the economy of navigation, would give the plans conducted by them many advantages, in point of saving, over any to be managed by the servants of Government, either in the East or West. But Government should lend its aid; and perhaps a plan undertaken by merchants in

India and England, under the protection of Government, and with a contract for the transmission of Government despatches and packets, under such regulations as might be agreed on,—fixing, of course, the times of sailing and the length of passage, and stipulating a reasonable sum on these principles, would offer the best commencement of such an enterprise. The postage of letters, if not otherwise arranged by the contract, might be left with the undertakers for a certain period, if they fulfilled the terms of their contract. In this way, Government, while it contributed a fixed share, would not be led unadvisedly into an expense that, under its management, must in its nature be in a great degree uncertain; while the execution would be intrusted to that able, wealthy, and intelligent body of men, who are most eager for its success, and who have it most in their power to manage it economically and efficiently.

Another route has also been proposed, proceeding from Bombay to Bussora, then up the Euphrates to Beles and Bir, thence across the Desert to Aleppo and Scanderoon, and so on to Malta and England. The disadvantages of this route are the numerous obstructions by rocks and shallows when the river is low, and the danger from the Arabs in mounting the Euphrates, and in passing from Bir to Aleppo. On the other hand, it is stated as an advantage, that the supply of bitumen or naphtha, as fuel, is inexhaustible and cheap. But, as long as Egypt is quiet, the route by the Red Sea possesses many advantages. The effects of Mohammed Ali's conquest of Syria on the neighbouring Arab tribes remains yet to be seen, and may in the issue greatly facilitate that by the Euphrates. At all events, in cases where the road by Egypt from any cause was shut up, the power of advancing above Korna, on the Tigris, by means of steam, would greatly shorten the period of time employed in the transit; even when it was necessary to resort to the old overland route, by Tartars, from Bagdad to Aleppo or Constantinople.

It is probable that the steam-vessels could carry little or nothing of a cargo properly so called. Their fuel, and provisions for their crews and passengers, would occupy most of their spare room. It should seem, however, that the knowledge of the dangers of the navigation of the Red Sea, and the intimacy with the trade of the two countries which such voyages would produce, joined to the introduction of a more regular government into Egypt and the Arabian coast, ought naturally, were not the Pacha himself a merchant, to generate a limited trade in the productions of the East and West, from India to the Mediterranean, by the route by which that commerce was conducted from the earliest periods of recorded time. Such a com

merce could not fail to be beneficial both to Egypt and to our Eastern territories.

The real difficulty, in the first instance, seems to be the want of a British population in India sufficiently numerous, by its constant and extensive demand for communication with the mother country, to support the regular expense of such an establishment. The English in India are generally estimated at little more than thirty thousand. The demand for passages through Egypt, even at present, we believe would be very great. Numbers of our countrymen in India would embrace such an opportunity of visiting Egypt, the Holy Land, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and France, on their way to their native country or to India. But the total number of letters in so limited a population would increase but slowly, while the ordinary conveyance, by which letters arrive cheaply, sometimes in little more than three months, still remained open. A more extended population of Europeans would indeed tend more than any thing else to support the proposed plan; especially as the increase would, in a considerable degree, consist of active and speculative men, who hoped to introduce new branches of trade, or to improve the old.

As to the general question arising out of this view, and which has been so much agitated with reference to other purposes,--Whether the settlement of Englishmen in the interior of India ought to be encouraged or checked; and, as connected with that question, Whether the regulation prohibiting them from acquiring landed property is really beneficial to the natives, for whose benefit it was professed to be introduced,-we shall, at present, in passing, make only a very few remarks.

On these subjects, the two classes of Europeans, those who are in the service of the Company, and those who are not, have in general entertained opinions diametrically opposite. In this, as in many other instances, we believe that the best explanation of the diversity will be found in the history of the measure itself. The Company, in its origin, when invested with a grant of the monopoly of the English trade to India, received at the same time such powers as were considered requisite to render it effectual; and, among others, that of securing and sending home such interlopers as interfered with their interest by buying or selling, or otherwise carrying on trade within their peculiar bounds. As long as the monopoly was absolute, these extraordinary powers, though occasionally exercised in an arbitrary and oppressive mode, were considered as a necessary part of it. The hostility between the licensed and unlicensed trader, which originated during this period, became very acrimonious,—much re