THE MAKERS OF THE RED SEA STEAM NAVIGATION.
MR. J. WEST LAKE has presented with a little book, gilt edged and bound in green, the perusal of which might embolden the young aspirant to write a history of Overland traffic. Printed and published in Calcutta in 1837,
it contains a letter of Dr. Dionysius Lardner, of Cyclopedia fame, addressed to Lord Melbourne, then Prime Minister, on Steam Communication with India by the Red Sea.
That was the year when some halting lines appeared in a Bombay journal.
"Let us set up three lines instead of one
Ere the Red Sea line has fairly begun ;
! weep by the waters of Babylon
O'er two lakhs spent and still more to pay,
Besides a few mails th.it have gone astray."
The £20,000 referred to was the Government grant to defray the cost of the Euphrates expedition — a region which the elder Cheney did so much to elucidate.
Pioneers.
The earliest proposal for steam navigation by the Eed Sea is the following ironical notice which appears in the Asiatic Journal for May, 1822 : — " A Captain Johnston has suggested a plan for opening an intercourse with India by means of steam vessels, and the details he has furnished respecting it are so specious, and all the obstacles in the way of its success are so admirably disposed of, that it is astonishing the projector has
not been deluged with contributions or subscriptions already, and that a steamer is not unloading in the port of Suez." *
Mountstuart Elphinstone in 1823
was the first to make a distinct official proposition for the establishment of steam communication between Bombay and England via the Red Sea, and in 1826 he renewed the proposal, but the Court were
unwilling to act upon the suggestion.
Sir John Malcolm
Sir John Malcolm
[His final diplomatic appointment in India was as the Governor of Bombay and he served in this capacity from 1826 until his return to England in December 1830.
As Governor of Bombay, Sir John had political responsibility for Gujarat, including Kathiawar and Kutch. He heard good reports of the contribution that Swaminarayan�s teachings were making towards peace and harmony in the area and when he visited Rajkot in February of 1830, he asked the Acting Political Agent David Anderson Blane to arrange a meeting. Although he was by this time in poor health, Swaminarayan came to meet Sir John Malcolm at the Political Agent�s bungalow. During this meeting Sir John Malcolm asked for a copy of the Swaminaryan�s religious code and was presented with a copy of the Shikshapatri.]
contributed to the cause the weight of his great authority, and in December, 1830, he himself embarked on the Hugh Lindsay
to Cosseir, this being her second voyage. " A pleasanter voyage," says Sir John, " was never made."
Of Sir Robert Grant, Governor 1835-38,
(1779–1838)
Sir Robert Grant.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Grant_(MP)He was born in India, the son of Charles Grant, chairman of the Directors of the Honourable East India Companyn 1834 was appointed Governor of Bombay and GCH
The Oldest Medical College in Mumbai, India; Grant Medical Collegeis named after Sir Robert Grant. Grant Road and Grant Road Station in Mumbai (Bombay) are named after Governor Grant.He died in India in 1838.
the verdict of the Bombay Press on his death was : — " He did very much to promote the Overland route by the Red Sea."
These are conspicuous names, and the honour and glory of the first is not dimmed by the luster of the second or even by that of the third. They simply followed in the train of their illustrious forerunner. With the furtherance of this great scheme there are many names associated, and these are not lightly to be passed over. Each in his day and sphere did his own work.
But all their exertions would have been futile had it not been that they were contemporaneous with the rise of that great man Mohammed Ali, who in peace and in war was
the friend and patron of the Overland route through his Egyptian dominions. He overawed the Arabs and made the desert as secure for life and property as the highways of London.
Dr. Wilson's opinion as expressed in the Oriental Christian Spectator of 1841, of which he was the editor, on one of the foremost men in this work during " the thirties," is in these terms :
" William Taylor Money, partner of Forbes and Co., and afterwards her Majesty's Consul at Venice, was the most prompt and energetic advocate of steam navigation in Bombay."
And it redounds to his eternal honour that at a meeting in Calcutta in 1828, where the Cape Route was supported by Commodore Hayes, Captain Johnston, and Waghorn himself Low's Indian Navy, 1877.
Mr. J. A. Prinsep had the hardihood to state that letters might be conveyed, from Calcutta to Cosseir in twenty-nine days, thence to Cairo in two days, and thence to London in twenty- three days, doing the entire distance in fifty -four days. But it was a voice crying in the wilderness.
Meetings in Bombay.
The first meeting in Bombay to promote the Red Sea route was on the 17th April, 1830, shortly after. Taylor's arrival. I suppose that the name of
Robert Wigram Crawford, M.P. for the City, and Director of the Bank of England, should be a good authority on the question as to whom we owe Red Sea steam communication.* A partner of Remington and Co., Bombay, in 1836, he was in the thick of the fight. He has left it on record that the overland route between India and England was due to the community of Bombay, as represented by the
Bombay Steam Committee.
On May 8th, 1833, the Sheriff was asked to convene a meeting in the Town Hall for the furtherance of the object. Sir Herbert Compton was in the chair, and among the earliest subscriptions were Compton,
Jaggnath Sunkersett (Educationist & Railway Pioneer)
Jejeebhoy, [Sir JamsetjeeJejeebhoy, 1st Bt]
Ali Rogay, Rs. 1,000 each. Ritchie Steuart and Co., Forbes and Co., W. Nicol and Co., Adam, Skinner and Co., Remington and Co., Rs. 1,500 each. This was the sinews of war, and before November, 1833, the Bombay Steam Fund amounted to Rs, 1,30,000.
It was to this Steam Committee that Waghorn made his last appeal. " For myself, as I have devoted the best years of my life to this line of route, I offer my remaining ones at your disposal for providing greater rapidity for letters and comfort for passengers between you and England. I pray you to assist me, and if my onscience does not deceive me I firmly believe you will have just cause to congratulate yourselves as well as yours, , Thomas Waghorn, Alexandria, 11th Dec, 1839."
Thomas Waghorn, ca. 1847
by Sir George Hayter
Between 1835 and 1837 he lived among Arabs in the desert and laid the foundations for the overland route across the desert fromCairo to Suez. This involved building rest-houses and supplying guides, boats, horses and carriages for travelers.
Again on March 16th, 1836, another meeting was convened by the Sheriff, W. C. Bruce, in the Town Hall to consider the Who that saw him could ever forget him. He stood six feet four inches in his white stocking soles — a wonderful physique.
subject . of steam communication with England, which the papers describe as " the burning question of the day."
It was following the meeting of 1836 that in 1838 the over land route was established by a monthly mail from Suez, conducted by the Indian Navy, and, though we now anticipate, Bombay never paused in the work of steam acceleration by the Red Sea. In the year 1853 there were serious delays in the Overland Mails, The London mail of June 8th was delivered in Bombay on July 26th, that of June 24th on August 3rd, that of July 8th on August 25th, the last being forty-eight days in transmission. There is a limit to human forbearance, so a
great meeting was called in the Town Hall on September 3rd, 1853. That meeting was a memorable one, and the men who took part in it deserve to have their names recorded as bene- factors of their species.
I have no doubt that this meeting had a great deal to do with the withdrawal of the mail service from the Indian Navy and the substitution of the contract in 1855 for monthly mails by the P. and 0. Co. from London to Bombay. John Stuart, David M'Culloch, Robert Eyrie, J. Graham, Thomas Lancaster, L. A- Wallace, J. Hadow, Richard Willis, T. S. Cowie, Henry Scott and Nelson Howard sign the requisition. John
Smith, of William Nicol and Co., was in the chair. Berkeley, the Engineer, was there,
a splendid speaker. Bhau Daji
followed, and
John Wilson's work went beyond the field of education. He was a Linguist, an Orientalist, a Reformer, an Author. In recognition of his service to the cause of education, social awakening and scholarship, the Department of Archives. Government of Maharashtra, in 2000 honoured Dr. John Wilson as one of the Seven Founders of Modern Bombay.
Dr. Wilson by special invitation, as he was always interested in every question that affected the happiness of the public. Of these men (1895) Messrs. Robert Eyrie, James Graham, J. Hadow, and L. A. Wallace are still surviving. Confining ourselves to the practical demonstration of Red Sea Steam Navigation, we ought never to lose sight of the fact that it was during
[portrait of Sir John Malcolm]He returned to India in 1817, and on his arrival was attached, as political agent of the governor-general, to the force under Sir Thomas Hislop in the Deccan. With the rank of brigadier-general, he was appointed to the command of the third division of the army, and greatly distinguished himself in the decisive battle of Mehidpoor, when the army under Mulhar Rao Holkar was completely routed. For his skill and valour on this occasion he received the thanks of the house of commons, on the motion of Mr. Canning, who declared that “the name of this gallant officer will be remembered in India as long as the British flag is hoisted in that country.” His conduct was also noticed by the prince regent, who expressed his regret that the circumstance of his not having attained the rank of major-general prevented his being then created a knight grand cross, which honour, however, was conferred on him in 1821.
Malcolm's administration (1828-30) the Hugh Lindsay was built, launched, equipped, and despatched to Suez on March 20th, 1830. Here were deeds not words. Waghorn- and Taylor did not arrive in Bombay until March 21st, or the day after, and it is a curious circumstance to note that while
Waghorn at this time advocated the Cape Route, Taylor was in favour of the Red Sea, and still more strange that Waghorn soon after this should become the undisputed apostle and prominent advocate of the Red Sea, while Taylor was killed by the Arabs
this very year of 1830 while conveying an English mail through the deserts of Mesopotamia.
The "Hugh Lindsay."
The foundation of steam navigation in the Red Sea was without the shadow of a doubt the Hugh Lindsay, the first steamship constructed in Bombay (411 tons). She was named after Captain Hugh Lindsay, a man of great bravery, who forced his way to the Canton Palace. In 1865 she broke her back in the harbour of Bassadore.
Her first four voyages to
Suez were made from Bombay : —
1830 March 20th.
1830 December 5th.
1832 January 5th.
1833 January 14th.
Her passenger accommodation was taken up months before. Several parties, travelling overland 1,000 miles, were dis- appointed, though arriving two months prior to the time fixed for her departure. We are particular in these details, for they are the initial letters of all steam navigation in the Red Sea. These four voyages were the basis of the Resolution of a Committee of the House of Commons in 1834, and finally led to the
decision in 1837, which settled once for all the Red Sea route. Captain John H. Wilson, of the Indian Marine, who commanded the Hugh Lindsay, made seven voyages in her to Suez. He may be fairly regarded as a rival to Waghorn. "
He retired in 1838, but from that time to the day of his death in December, 1875, he never received any acknowledgment, honorary or other- wise, for his great services in promoting steam communication
between England and the East."
The Experimental Voyage.
There must be some men alive in Bombay who witnessed the first departure of the Hugh Lindsay for Suez on March 20th, 1830. That was an event worthy of being recorded — the sailing of the first steamer (she was launched in 1829), and the first steamer which cleared out of our harbour for Suez. Did she steal away past Kennery as private as pestilence, or was her departure heralded by sound of trumpet, or the roar of great
guns dying away among the ghauts, and wakening echoes from Thul to the jagged peaks of Karnala and Bhaumalang ? Did the boys, Hindoo or Parsee, scuttle away from Bennett's School, No. 6, Rampart Row, to see the fun ?
Sir John Peter Grant, having resigned, was in low spirits at the Hermitage. But John Skinner was at Mazagon, James Wright at Belmont, Mazagon, Harry George Gordon in Nisbet Lane, and John Smith at Love Grove. Surely there would be a gathering at one of these lordly mansions to drink success to the Red Sea Route, amid bumpers of wine. What about the theatre ? Did a favourite piece of that time. Ways and Means,
or a Trip to Dover, foreshadow the multiplied wishes for a new route and the wherewithal to accomplish it ?
Did Archdeacon Jeffreys preach a sermon on it ? " Those that go down to the sea in ships," with counsels of temperance, to which the ribald sailor replied in such doggerel as this : —
" Mr. Jeffreys, God bless you, We're fain to address you
In reply to your Temperance Log,
As we really can't see What great harm there can be In a moderate potion of grog."
Bombay a Point of Departure.
It is very easy in 1895 to sit down complacently and wonder why anybody could ever doubt that Bombay should be the point of arrival and departure of the Indian Mails. "By virtue of its inherent geographical position, and its nearness to Europe" — and so you settle the question once for all. No doubt Bombay's position on the map is unchangeable, and apparently unassailable. But carry yourself back to 1837 and
listen to the voice of India — and India, bear in mind, with no Suez Canal, with running postmen in lieu of railway com- munication to Calcutta, with no Aden as a coaling station, with steam vessels of 400 tons, such as they were. You may also bear in mind that Moresby's survey of the lied Sea was not completed until 1834, and in that year Captain Wilson, who had made four voyages to Suez in the Hugh Lindsay, stated
tha!, during the navigation of such a steamer across the Indian Ocean, the South-West monsoon so operates as — if not to prevent the communication — at least to render it useless.
Calcutta had a waterway on the Ganges for a distance of a thousand miles for the distribution of mails and passengers, while you had not a single river on the western side of India, Napier, " the bearded vision," having not yet put in an appear- ance on the banks of the Indus, As against this great water highway what had you to show ?
When your mails and passengers were landed in Bombay you had dawk and palanquin through countries recently acquired, or owning at least a nominal subjection to us. What sort of comfort had you to
show to ladies and families travelling to Calcutta by weary stages in the heat and the rains, those two factors which, Dr. Lardner remarks, all the wealth and science of the world are unable to eliminate (almost eliminated now by railway to Calcutta) ? Calcutta now was the capital of India, with tlnice the ad valorem of your commerce. Her merchants were princes.
When a commercial typhoon raged (1830-32) five of them succumbed with liabilities amounting to fifteen millions sterling ! Everything was on a larger scale in Calcutta. Of 3,500 passengers who came annually to India round the Cape, poor Bombay received 600, instead of 6,000, which every year she now receives with open arms.
The commerce of India, I read, is now worth 200 millions sterling. I am sure it was not half this amount in 1837. British India's population was then one hundred millions instead of three hundred millions of to-day. And think of the steamers of 1837. Would any shipowner nowadays dispatch a steamer of four hundred tons across the Indian Ocean during the violence of the monsoon ? And, when all was settled, consider for a moment what your introduction of steam navigation meant. The vested interest of sailing ships was
enormous. Not alone Green's line of clippers, but a whole fleet of Indiamen scoured the seas, for a funnel had scarcely been seen as yet on the Indian Ocean. It must be borne in mind also that there was a fierce and a bitter hostility against
steamers by all seafaring men. The Indian Marine simply hated them and their passenger proclivities. Captain Wilson was the only one of that service who had the courage to volunteer and take command of the Hugh Lindsay in 1830.
I should imagine that
Lord Clare's voyage out by the Red Sea in 1836 rather staggered all lovers of that route. His six months' weary journey from London to Bombay, varied by a forced halt of six weeks at Jeddah, waiting for coals from Suez, must have left a bad taste in his mouth. He at all events had enough of the Eed Sea, and I do not wonder that his efforts to promote its navigation have been left unrecorded.
Red Sea Route Decided Upon.
We read on May 30th, 1837, that the Red Sea Eoute once for all was decided on by Government. The Government and the East India Company had taken seven years to make up their mind. The Cape route by steam had many advocates, even Waghorn himself, as we have said, at an early stage of his career. If I remember rightly, £10,000 was offered to whoever should bring the first steamer to Calcutta by the Cape.
The Enterprise, of 500 tons, came out in 1826, and Government purchased her for £40,000 ; but she took 115 days. Sailing vessels have done the passage in seventy-seven days from the Lizard to Bombay, and on one occasion in sixty-six days. Then there was the Euphrates Valley route, to test which Government voted £20,000. A Mr. J. W. Taylor, agent for some capitalists in London, and brother of Major Taylor,
Resident at Bagdad, left Bombay on May 2nd, 1830, with letters via Bussorah. The party left Bagdad in September, and, within three marches from Mosul, Taylor and two Englishmen were murdered. This was a deathblow to the Euphrates Valley steam communication.
The plague at Bagdad and consequent quarantine
of thirty days in Bombay was a most formidable obstacle to any communication by this route, and it was no sham. The first officer of a ship which attempted entering the harbour about this time without pratique was shot dead.
There must be people alive who have spent a quarantine of thirty days in the lazaretto on Butcher's Island.
WAGHORN.
It is not easy to estimate the encouragement which the Bombay Steam Committee and the Chamber of Commerce after 1837 gave to Waghorn, when we remember that the Government had pronounced the Red Sea un navigable, and the East India Company laid documents before Parliament showing that the scheme was impracticable, because coals cost £23 a ton at Suez, and took fifteen months to get there ! Waghorn
dissipated all these delusions, and rose superior to the frowns even of the Bombay Government. What is harder to bear than opposition is neglect.
" Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe,
Whom I can face, or else avert the blow."
We have now before us in Dr. Lardner's book the following documents : —
A letter to Lord Mt-lbourne by Dr. Laidner 1836
A Circular published in Calcutta 1835
A Petition to Parliament (signatures, 7,632) 1836
A Memorial to the India Board 1 836
A letter to Lord William Bentinck. 1836
A reply of the Bengal Committee to M-ijor Head, Chairman
of the Provincial Committee 1836
In all 124 octavo pages of letterpress. Will it be believed that Waghorn's name or services are not even alluded to ? The Calcutta pilot — a prophet, if you will — had no honour in his own country, though his bust now greets the stranger as he enters the Suez Canal. And yet before 1836 he had done some things in this overland business to make him a marked man. He was not unknown in Calcutta; he had been in the pilot
service of that city from 1819 to 1824, and for two and a half years had command of the Matchless cutter, of Sir John Hayes' squadron, and had become early imbued with an interest in steam communication with England.
It was in Calcutta at a public meeting in 1828 that Commodore Hayes gave his warmest support to him, and it was its Steam Committee in 1828 which accredited him to persons of official standing in Madras, Ceylon Mauritius, the Cape, and St. Helena.
WAGHORN.
He surely had a title to be heard on the question. I presume it was well enough known in October, 1836, that
Lord Ellenborough, the President of the Board of Control (October, 1829), had sent for Waghorn to carry important dispatches to Sir John Malcolm and demonstrate the practica- bility of Eed Sea navigation. We all know how he performed that journey, how he darted across a continent without railways to Trieste, from Trieste to Alexandria in a sailing craft, to Rosetta on donkeys, to Cairo on a Nile boat, to Suez on camel
back, to Cosseir in an open native boat, and by the same conveyance to Jeddah, a distance of 660 miles from Suez.
Many of us can follow him on donkey and dahabiah, and on camel back, but for that voyage in an open boat on the Red Sea we would require Burckhardt, or Burton, or Frere to delineate its miseries. He arrived in the Company's cruiser on March 21st, in four months twenty-one days from London. Such was Red Sea navigation before steam was taken out of the tea-kettle. He had already lectured on the subject in all
the leading cities of India and England. It is honestly averred that he lived for three entire years with the Arab tribes between Cairo and Suez. Think of that, you who live at home at ease, and all to save you and your kith and kin from the plunder and cut-throats of the desert.
Government and the Company were not generous with Waghorn. They gave him a pension of £200 a year, I
understand, in 1848 (he died in 1850), which was immediately mortgaged by his creditors.* They could scarcely be expected to pay his outlay on dhuramsalas, dahabiahs and never-ending backsheesh. I dare say if they had known in 1848 what we know now, they would have paid his debts a dozen times over,
which would have been cheap at the money. What we complain of was their hide-bound prejudices in their postal system, as if it was immaculate, and their retention of dirty steamers, such as the Berenice and Zendbia. Did not a P. and 0. steamer make Calcutta from Suez in 1843 ?
How he should have been ignored by Calcutta in 1836 we * A sister who had all along cheered him in his labours survived him til 1883. She died in a London workhouse can only explain by the fact that the Company and the Post Office, the Gog and Magog of these early times, hated Waghorn and 'every man who dared to interfere with their established custom or routine, and it was the fashion to do so, tliough for
five years (1832 to 1837) he had the absolute control of the Overland Mails in his hands. One of the strangest things was how the truth gradually dawned upon Waghorn. At first he firmly believed in the Cape route and lectured upon it in Calcutta, where he engaged some of the foremost men there to assist him in making his views public to the communities of Madras, Ceylon, Mauritius, and the Cape. But truth travels slowly. He that believeth shall not make haste. I suppose his own passage down the Ked Sea in 1829 led up to his
conversion, and Captain Wilson's two voyages in the Hugh Lindsay from Bombay to Suez completed it.
Henceforth nothing could part him from the Red Sea route, and he threw all the energy and perseverance with which he was so largely endowed into the work of its accomplishment. Waghorn is one of the martyrs of science. Galileo on bended knees and Waghorn knocking at the door of the India House are two pictures that will endure to the last syllable of recorded time. Waghorn holds the key of the Overland route, and though he never saw the Suez Canal, he certainly saw the man who made it ; and Lesseps has left on record undying words (Nov. 1883) that it was to Waghorn alone that he was indebted for the great idea.
Yes, you may well look at this man, and go back to Spenser in the days of Drake and Raleigh for his portrait.
"A silly man in simple weeds forworne
And soil'd with dust to the long drieii way;
His sandales were with toilsome travail tornc,
And face all tann'd with scorching sunny ray,
As he had travell'd many a summer day
Through boyling sands of Arabic and Ynd."
Pilot of Calcutta and the Hooghly in the first place, and then pilot of the whole Eastern world of commerce,
Waghorn died in poverty at Chatham (1850) in the fiftieth year of
his age ;
Taylor was murdered in Mesopotamia in 1830 ;
Wilson, unrewarded, died in 1875, and I rather think that
WAGHORN'.
Capt. Johnston, E.N"., of the Enterprise, ended his days as English Postmaster in Alexandria. He died May 5th, 1851.*
"Give him a little earth for chari'y."
Such was the fate of the pioneers of the Red Sea and Over- land steam communication.
Some of the following quotations of 1837 are gropings in the dark, but represent the highest wisdom, or what was considered such at the period, on the all-engrossing theme : —
" A steamship does good duty if she works half her time."
" A steamer against the monsoon would tack like a sailing
vessel."
" Passages from Socotra to Bombay to be made under sail
only."
"Abundance of good steam coal is obtained in America,
which would doubtless be taken as ballast by American
vessels."
" Cairo to Suez. The road is hard and smooth ; there is no
need of a railroad."
"It might be found also that correspondence might be forwarded to Great Britain from Egypt with greater despatch by landing it at Marseilles and sending it by land to Calais."
So it was.
"The number of passengers and despatches to and from Bombay being less in a considerable proportion than the other ports of India." This seems to have been so in 1836.
" In seasons when the monsoon is most violent the Bombay
steamer might meet at the head of the Maldives."
" The course from Bombay to the Maldives would be quite
practicable, as well as the course from the Maldives to Socotra."
" If Bombay is decided on, it would be more convenient to land the passengers and parcels from India for Great Britain at Penzance or even the Scilly Islands than those of Great Britain for all India at Bombay." — Letter from Bengal Committee to Provincial Committee, Dec. 26th, 1836.
James Henry Johnsto.stinction belongs to the Nubia, Captain Wilkinson,
which left Bombay about March 9th, 1870. My fellow- passenger was the late Andrew Hay, Sheriff of Bombay (1868). We had a sickly voyage up the lied Sea and several deaths took place. The heat was blazing. Steaming slowly, we seemed to be cutting our way through a sea as smooth as plate glass.
Several times the ship was turned round to create a draught, for there was not a breath of wind, and we were almost suffocated. We buried two men one morning at 6 a.m. By a mischance the bodies were not unfastened from the grating, so at the last moment, when Wilkinson read from the Burial Service, " we commit the bodies of our dear brothers to the deep," down went the grating with the two bodies on it, nearly carrying the two quartermasters away with it. But Wilkinson did not flinch or falter ; he continued reading the Burial Service to the end, when, lo and behold ! some miles away the grating was seen floating on the glassy sea, with the two bodies on it, and the British flag atop.
" Stop her ! " was thundered out, a boat was lowered, the bodies released, and the recovered paraphernalia brought on board.
The Cathay was at Suez, and the Commander, if still to the fore, may have forgotten the circumstance, which I remember very well, that he entertained us hospitably on board his ship, with the addition of the Agent and English Consul for many years, the well-known Mr. West. The toast was drunk : " May you never touch the bottom." Great Scott ! I could see that it was an anxious moment when we entered the Canal. West
accompanied us, told us he had often ridden over the ground we were sailing over ; and Wilkinson — care sat on his manly brow — muttered something about skippers taking lessons in Dutch navigation.
It was a new experience for the lascars, trudging along the muddy banks with the hawsers wherewith to tie us up for the night. I am not quite sure that they had not to drive in the
THE FIRST P. AND O. THROUGH THE CANAL.
piles with which to fasten us while the sun descended and darkness covered the land of E^ypt. I dare say Wilkinson would have preferred running with bare poles before the South- West Monsoon, or being tossed like a bucket in the white squall of the Mediterranean, That night all was gloom. Not as now, when the electric light clears up a way in the silence and blackness of midnight, a veritable pillar of fire for many an exodus
to many a land of promise, changing these mud heaps on either side — the ugliest things in creation — into a weird phantasmagoria, flashing, dazzling to the eye, a wondrous dream, not
of the mingling of two seas, but —
''Twenty seas if all their sands were peirl."
I need not add that the Nulla s trip through the Canal was
a complete success. This trip was the beginning of a new era,
and I ventured to tell the story to onewlio was much interested
in it. " But what did your fellow passengers think of the Canal ? "
said Lesseps a few months after this. I answered that one of
them said it was the greatest work of utility that had been
made since the creation of the world, adding that an American
guessed he would not call it a great work until it paid. " It will
pay," said the Baron quietly, which was also Beaconsfield's
opinion, and which time has amply justified.
The date of this conversation was, I think, in July, 1870, and
the place was " The Wick," Eichmond, a bowshot from the " Star
and Garter," which everybody knows. There were no houses
between them in those days, and its garden ran down to the
Thames. This house had a celebrated history. It was once given
by the King to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and here Dr. Johnson and
Burke also, as I suppose, came to dine or sup. Neither of them
predicted the Suez Canal, nor dreamed that in the room where
they sat would be congregated a hundred men and women to do
honour to the maker of it. There they were, however, soldiers,
statesmen, artists, P. and' 0. directors, some old Egyptians, with a
sprinkling of undistinguished others. The place was worthy of
the occasion, and the Master of Ceremonies did it every honour.
He had been deputed by Lloyds as their representative at the
opening of the Canal, was an early friend of Lesseps, when
tliey wandered imknown, and bivouacked on scanty fare under
tamarisk or acacia in those days when Mohammed Ali, of vener-
able yeard, rode out on a white ass arid administered justice coram
populo in Okella or Bazaar. But why do we hesitate ? The
name of Alexander Tod was widely known by a generation of
Anglo-Indians at his half-way house in Alexandria. Long ere
he became a merchant prince his hospitality was boundless, and
flowed in a continuous stream.
Missionary, manager, explorer, diplomat, and subaltern, Sir
James Outram, Frere, or Lord Dufferin, were all made happy.
If the wheels on the Overland Eoute at first drove heavily, he
was a pioneer who smoothed the path and cheered the spirits of
the passing traveller. George Gliddon, American Consul, his
father-in-law, was Waghorn's representative in Egypt.
Brevity is the soul of wit and of wisdom also, and Johnson
himself would have lauded that speech of four words, in which
the master of the household toasted his ancient and honoured
friend — " genius and energy personified." I am sure Lesseps
never spent a happier day, not even in the Guildhall, when
he received the freedom of the City. There he was with his
young wife, in the blush of early womanhood. The Empress
of the French, when she was still the betrothed, at the Canal
inauguration paid her marked attention. " The last time I
saw you, you were in tears," said one to her who had not seen
her since that great day. He was laughing all the time. It
was too true. The Empress had embraced her, and overcome
by this act of love and condescension she had burst into a
flood of tears.
The host was a Scotsman, and as everybody nowadays,
when he arrives at distinction, is anxious to show he has a drop
of Scotch blood in his veins, Lesseps in his reply to the toast of
his health on this memorable occasion spoke in French nearly
as follows : — " I too have some claims to be regarded as a
Scotsman. If you read the story of the building of St. Giles's
Cathedral in Edinburgh you will see that its architect was
Le Sept. I claim to be a descendant of him." There was no
mention of his ancestor in the Scots Guard of Paris in this
speech.
Alexander Tod, full of years and honour, died at Walmer in
1893; his friend Lesseps in 1894 disappeared in a cloud, from
which his name and fame are destined to emerge.* William
Paterson founded the Bank of England, and the Darien
scheme is forgotten, and Panama will gradually subside into
the same oblivion and be swallowed up in the immortal
memory of Lesseps as the maker of the Suez Canal.
MR. J. WEST LAKE has presented with a little book, gilt edged and bound in green, the perusal of which might embolden the young aspirant to write a history of Overland traffic. Printed and published in Calcutta in 1837,
it contains a letter of Dr. Dionysius Lardner, of Cyclopedia fame, addressed to Lord Melbourne, then Prime Minister, on Steam Communication with India by the Red Sea.
 |
| Lord Melbourne, then Prime Minister, |
"Let us set up three lines instead of one
Ere the Red Sea line has fairly begun ;
! weep by the waters of Babylon
O'er two lakhs spent and still more to pay,
Besides a few mails th.it have gone astray."
The £20,000 referred to was the Government grant to defray the cost of the Euphrates expedition — a region which the elder Cheney did so much to elucidate.
Pioneers.
The earliest proposal for steam navigation by the Eed Sea is the following ironical notice which appears in the Asiatic Journal for May, 1822 : — " A Captain Johnston has suggested a plan for opening an intercourse with India by means of steam vessels, and the details he has furnished respecting it are so specious, and all the obstacles in the way of its success are so admirably disposed of, that it is astonishing the projector has
not been deluged with contributions or subscriptions already, and that a steamer is not unloading in the port of Suez." *
Mountstuart Elphinstone in 1823
was the first to make a distinct official proposition for the establishment of steam communication between Bombay and England via the Red Sea, and in 1826 he renewed the proposal, but the Court were
unwilling to act upon the suggestion.
Sir John Malcolm
Sir John Malcolm
[His final diplomatic appointment in India was as the Governor of Bombay and he served in this capacity from 1826 until his return to England in December 1830.
As Governor of Bombay, Sir John had political responsibility for Gujarat, including Kathiawar and Kutch. He heard good reports of the contribution that Swaminarayan�s teachings were making towards peace and harmony in the area and when he visited Rajkot in February of 1830, he asked the Acting Political Agent David Anderson Blane to arrange a meeting. Although he was by this time in poor health, Swaminarayan came to meet Sir John Malcolm at the Political Agent�s bungalow. During this meeting Sir John Malcolm asked for a copy of the Swaminaryan�s religious code and was presented with a copy of the Shikshapatri.]
contributed to the cause the weight of his great authority, and in December, 1830, he himself embarked on the Hugh Lindsay
to Cosseir, this being her second voyage. " A pleasanter voyage," says Sir John, " was never made."
Of Sir Robert Grant, Governor 1835-38,
(1779–1838)
The Oldest Medical College in Mumbai, India; Grant Medical Collegeis named after Sir Robert Grant. Grant Road and Grant Road Station in Mumbai (Bombay) are named after Governor Grant.He died in India in 1838.
the verdict of the Bombay Press on his death was : — " He did very much to promote the Overland route by the Red Sea."
These are conspicuous names, and the honour and glory of the first is not dimmed by the luster of the second or even by that of the third. They simply followed in the train of their illustrious forerunner. With the furtherance of this great scheme there are many names associated, and these are not lightly to be passed over. Each in his day and sphere did his own work.
But all their exertions would have been futile had it not been that they were contemporaneous with the rise of that great man Mohammed Ali, who in peace and in war was
the friend and patron of the Overland route through his Egyptian dominions. He overawed the Arabs and made the desert as secure for life and property as the highways of London.
Dr. Wilson's opinion as expressed in the Oriental Christian Spectator of 1841, of which he was the editor, on one of the foremost men in this work during " the thirties," is in these terms :
" William Taylor Money, partner of Forbes and Co., and afterwards her Majesty's Consul at Venice, was the most prompt and energetic advocate of steam navigation in Bombay."
And it redounds to his eternal honour that at a meeting in Calcutta in 1828, where the Cape Route was supported by Commodore Hayes, Captain Johnston, and Waghorn himself Low's Indian Navy, 1877.
Mr. J. A. Prinsep had the hardihood to state that letters might be conveyed, from Calcutta to Cosseir in twenty-nine days, thence to Cairo in two days, and thence to London in twenty- three days, doing the entire distance in fifty -four days. But it was a voice crying in the wilderness.
Meetings in Bombay.
The first meeting in Bombay to promote the Red Sea route was on the 17th April, 1830, shortly after. Taylor's arrival. I suppose that the name of
Robert Wigram Crawford, M.P. for the City, and Director of the Bank of England, should be a good authority on the question as to whom we owe Red Sea steam communication.* A partner of Remington and Co., Bombay, in 1836, he was in the thick of the fight. He has left it on record that the overland route between India and England was due to the community of Bombay, as represented by the
Bombay Steam Committee.
On May 8th, 1833, the Sheriff was asked to convene a meeting in the Town Hall for the furtherance of the object. Sir Herbert Compton was in the chair, and among the earliest subscriptions were Compton,
Jaggnath Sunkersett (Educationist & Railway Pioneer)
Jejeebhoy, [Sir JamsetjeeJejeebhoy, 1st Bt]
Ali Rogay, Rs. 1,000 each. Ritchie Steuart and Co., Forbes and Co., W. Nicol and Co., Adam, Skinner and Co., Remington and Co., Rs. 1,500 each. This was the sinews of war, and before November, 1833, the Bombay Steam Fund amounted to Rs, 1,30,000.
It was to this Steam Committee that Waghorn made his last appeal. " For myself, as I have devoted the best years of my life to this line of route, I offer my remaining ones at your disposal for providing greater rapidity for letters and comfort for passengers between you and England. I pray you to assist me, and if my onscience does not deceive me I firmly believe you will have just cause to congratulate yourselves as well as yours, , Thomas Waghorn, Alexandria, 11th Dec, 1839."
Thomas Waghorn, ca. 1847
by Sir George Hayter
Between 1835 and 1837 he lived among Arabs in the desert and laid the foundations for the overland route across the desert fromCairo to Suez. This involved building rest-houses and supplying guides, boats, horses and carriages for travelers.
He became deputy consul in Egypt in 1837, but soon fell out with the authorities. From 1840, P&O set up in competition with him, backed by the British government. Then came another setback: 300 horses died in a plague. It was the end—and the Pasha bought him out.
Waghorn turned his attention to speeding the post in Europe, through the new railway system. He was successful, but the Government reneged on a deal to pay his expenses for the trials left him £5,000 in debt.
Waghorn died at his London home in Islington on 7 January 1850. He was buried at All Saints', Snodland, just outside the vestry door. The south wall of the nave bears a memorial to him
Again on March 16th, 1836, another meeting was convened by the Sheriff, W. C. Bruce, in the Town Hall to consider the Who that saw him could ever forget him. He stood six feet four inches in his white stocking soles — a wonderful physique.
subject . of steam communication with England, which the papers describe as " the burning question of the day."
It was following the meeting of 1836 that in 1838 the over land route was established by a monthly mail from Suez, conducted by the Indian Navy, and, though we now anticipate, Bombay never paused in the work of steam acceleration by the Red Sea. In the year 1853 there were serious delays in the Overland Mails, The London mail of June 8th was delivered in Bombay on July 26th, that of June 24th on August 3rd, that of July 8th on August 25th, the last being forty-eight days in transmission. There is a limit to human forbearance, so a
great meeting was called in the Town Hall on September 3rd, 1853. That meeting was a memorable one, and the men who took part in it deserve to have their names recorded as bene- factors of their species.
I have no doubt that this meeting had a great deal to do with the withdrawal of the mail service from the Indian Navy and the substitution of the contract in 1855 for monthly mails by the P. and 0. Co. from London to Bombay. John Stuart, David M'Culloch, Robert Eyrie, J. Graham, Thomas Lancaster, L. A- Wallace, J. Hadow, Richard Willis, T. S. Cowie, Henry Scott and Nelson Howard sign the requisition. John
Smith, of William Nicol and Co., was in the chair. Berkeley, the Engineer, was there,
a splendid speaker. Bhau Daji
followed, and
John Wilson's work went beyond the field of education. He was a Linguist, an Orientalist, a Reformer, an Author. In recognition of his service to the cause of education, social awakening and scholarship, the Department of Archives. Government of Maharashtra, in 2000 honoured Dr. John Wilson as one of the Seven Founders of Modern Bombay.
Dr. Wilson by special invitation, as he was always interested in every question that affected the happiness of the public. Of these men (1895) Messrs. Robert Eyrie, James Graham, J. Hadow, and L. A. Wallace are still surviving. Confining ourselves to the practical demonstration of Red Sea Steam Navigation, we ought never to lose sight of the fact that it was during
[portrait of Sir John Malcolm]
After the termination of the war with the Mahrattas and Pindarries, he received the military and political command of Malwa, and succeeded in establishing the Company’s authority, both in that province and the other territories adjacent, which had been ceded to them.
In April 1822 he returned once more to Britain with the rank of major-general. Shortly after, he was presented by the officers who had acted under him in the late war with a superb vase, valued at £1,500. The court of directors of the East India company likewise testified their sense of his merits by a grant to him of £1,000 a-year. In July 1827 he was appointed governor of Bombay, which important post he resigned in 1831, and finally returned to Britain
Malcolm's administration (1828-30) the Hugh Lindsay was built, launched, equipped, and despatched to Suez on March 20th, 1830. Here were deeds not words. Waghorn- and Taylor did not arrive in Bombay until March 21st, or the day after, and it is a curious circumstance to note that while
Waghorn at this time advocated the Cape Route, Taylor was in favour of the Red Sea, and still more strange that Waghorn soon after this should become the undisputed apostle and prominent advocate of the Red Sea, while Taylor was killed by the Arabs
this very year of 1830 while conveying an English mail through the deserts of Mesopotamia.
The "Hugh Lindsay."
The foundation of steam navigation in the Red Sea was without the shadow of a doubt the Hugh Lindsay, the first steamship constructed in Bombay (411 tons). She was named after Captain Hugh Lindsay, a man of great bravery, who forced his way to the Canton Palace. In 1865 she broke her back in the harbour of Bassadore.
Her first four voyages to
Suez were made from Bombay : —
1830 March 20th.
1830 December 5th.
1832 January 5th.
1833 January 14th.
Her passenger accommodation was taken up months before. Several parties, travelling overland 1,000 miles, were dis- appointed, though arriving two months prior to the time fixed for her departure. We are particular in these details, for they are the initial letters of all steam navigation in the Red Sea. These four voyages were the basis of the Resolution of a Committee of the House of Commons in 1834, and finally led to the
decision in 1837, which settled once for all the Red Sea route. Captain John H. Wilson, of the Indian Marine, who commanded the Hugh Lindsay, made seven voyages in her to Suez. He may be fairly regarded as a rival to Waghorn. "
He retired in 1838, but from that time to the day of his death in December, 1875, he never received any acknowledgment, honorary or other- wise, for his great services in promoting steam communication
between England and the East."
The Experimental Voyage.
There must be some men alive in Bombay who witnessed the first departure of the Hugh Lindsay for Suez on March 20th, 1830. That was an event worthy of being recorded — the sailing of the first steamer (she was launched in 1829), and the first steamer which cleared out of our harbour for Suez. Did she steal away past Kennery as private as pestilence, or was her departure heralded by sound of trumpet, or the roar of great
guns dying away among the ghauts, and wakening echoes from Thul to the jagged peaks of Karnala and Bhaumalang ? Did the boys, Hindoo or Parsee, scuttle away from Bennett's School, No. 6, Rampart Row, to see the fun ?
Sir John Peter Grant, having resigned, was in low spirits at the Hermitage. But John Skinner was at Mazagon, James Wright at Belmont, Mazagon, Harry George Gordon in Nisbet Lane, and John Smith at Love Grove. Surely there would be a gathering at one of these lordly mansions to drink success to the Red Sea Route, amid bumpers of wine. What about the theatre ? Did a favourite piece of that time. Ways and Means,
or a Trip to Dover, foreshadow the multiplied wishes for a new route and the wherewithal to accomplish it ?
Did Archdeacon Jeffreys preach a sermon on it ? " Those that go down to the sea in ships," with counsels of temperance, to which the ribald sailor replied in such doggerel as this : —
" Mr. Jeffreys, God bless you, We're fain to address you
In reply to your Temperance Log,
As we really can't see What great harm there can be In a moderate potion of grog."
Bombay a Point of Departure.
It is very easy in 1895 to sit down complacently and wonder why anybody could ever doubt that Bombay should be the point of arrival and departure of the Indian Mails. "By virtue of its inherent geographical position, and its nearness to Europe" — and so you settle the question once for all. No doubt Bombay's position on the map is unchangeable, and apparently unassailable. But carry yourself back to 1837 and
listen to the voice of India — and India, bear in mind, with no Suez Canal, with running postmen in lieu of railway com- munication to Calcutta, with no Aden as a coaling station, with steam vessels of 400 tons, such as they were. You may also bear in mind that Moresby's survey of the lied Sea was not completed until 1834, and in that year Captain Wilson, who had made four voyages to Suez in the Hugh Lindsay, stated
tha!, during the navigation of such a steamer across the Indian Ocean, the South-West monsoon so operates as — if not to prevent the communication — at least to render it useless.
Calcutta had a waterway on the Ganges for a distance of a thousand miles for the distribution of mails and passengers, while you had not a single river on the western side of India, Napier, " the bearded vision," having not yet put in an appear- ance on the banks of the Indus, As against this great water highway what had you to show ?
When your mails and passengers were landed in Bombay you had dawk and palanquin through countries recently acquired, or owning at least a nominal subjection to us. What sort of comfort had you to
show to ladies and families travelling to Calcutta by weary stages in the heat and the rains, those two factors which, Dr. Lardner remarks, all the wealth and science of the world are unable to eliminate (almost eliminated now by railway to Calcutta) ? Calcutta now was the capital of India, with tlnice the ad valorem of your commerce. Her merchants were princes.
When a commercial typhoon raged (1830-32) five of them succumbed with liabilities amounting to fifteen millions sterling ! Everything was on a larger scale in Calcutta. Of 3,500 passengers who came annually to India round the Cape, poor Bombay received 600, instead of 6,000, which every year she now receives with open arms.
The commerce of India, I read, is now worth 200 millions sterling. I am sure it was not half this amount in 1837. British India's population was then one hundred millions instead of three hundred millions of to-day. And think of the steamers of 1837. Would any shipowner nowadays dispatch a steamer of four hundred tons across the Indian Ocean during the violence of the monsoon ? And, when all was settled, consider for a moment what your introduction of steam navigation meant. The vested interest of sailing ships was
enormous. Not alone Green's line of clippers, but a whole fleet of Indiamen scoured the seas, for a funnel had scarcely been seen as yet on the Indian Ocean. It must be borne in mind also that there was a fierce and a bitter hostility against
steamers by all seafaring men. The Indian Marine simply hated them and their passenger proclivities. Captain Wilson was the only one of that service who had the courage to volunteer and take command of the Hugh Lindsay in 1830.
I should imagine that
Lord Clare's voyage out by the Red Sea in 1836 rather staggered all lovers of that route. His six months' weary journey from London to Bombay, varied by a forced halt of six weeks at Jeddah, waiting for coals from Suez, must have left a bad taste in his mouth. He at all events had enough of the Eed Sea, and I do not wonder that his efforts to promote its navigation have been left unrecorded.
Red Sea Route Decided Upon.
We read on May 30th, 1837, that the Red Sea Eoute once for all was decided on by Government. The Government and the East India Company had taken seven years to make up their mind. The Cape route by steam had many advocates, even Waghorn himself, as we have said, at an early stage of his career. If I remember rightly, £10,000 was offered to whoever should bring the first steamer to Calcutta by the Cape.
The Enterprise, of 500 tons, came out in 1826, and Government purchased her for £40,000 ; but she took 115 days. Sailing vessels have done the passage in seventy-seven days from the Lizard to Bombay, and on one occasion in sixty-six days. Then there was the Euphrates Valley route, to test which Government voted £20,000. A Mr. J. W. Taylor, agent for some capitalists in London, and brother of Major Taylor,
Resident at Bagdad, left Bombay on May 2nd, 1830, with letters via Bussorah. The party left Bagdad in September, and, within three marches from Mosul, Taylor and two Englishmen were murdered. This was a deathblow to the Euphrates Valley steam communication.
The plague at Bagdad and consequent quarantine
of thirty days in Bombay was a most formidable obstacle to any communication by this route, and it was no sham. The first officer of a ship which attempted entering the harbour about this time without pratique was shot dead.
There must be people alive who have spent a quarantine of thirty days in the lazaretto on Butcher's Island.
WAGHORN.
It is not easy to estimate the encouragement which the Bombay Steam Committee and the Chamber of Commerce after 1837 gave to Waghorn, when we remember that the Government had pronounced the Red Sea un navigable, and the East India Company laid documents before Parliament showing that the scheme was impracticable, because coals cost £23 a ton at Suez, and took fifteen months to get there ! Waghorn
dissipated all these delusions, and rose superior to the frowns even of the Bombay Government. What is harder to bear than opposition is neglect.
" Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe,
Whom I can face, or else avert the blow."
We have now before us in Dr. Lardner's book the following documents : —
A letter to Lord Mt-lbourne by Dr. Laidner 1836
A Circular published in Calcutta 1835
A Petition to Parliament (signatures, 7,632) 1836
A Memorial to the India Board 1 836
A letter to Lord William Bentinck. 1836
A reply of the Bengal Committee to M-ijor Head, Chairman
of the Provincial Committee 1836
In all 124 octavo pages of letterpress. Will it be believed that Waghorn's name or services are not even alluded to ? The Calcutta pilot — a prophet, if you will — had no honour in his own country, though his bust now greets the stranger as he enters the Suez Canal. And yet before 1836 he had done some things in this overland business to make him a marked man. He was not unknown in Calcutta; he had been in the pilot
service of that city from 1819 to 1824, and for two and a half years had command of the Matchless cutter, of Sir John Hayes' squadron, and had become early imbued with an interest in steam communication with England.
It was in Calcutta at a public meeting in 1828 that Commodore Hayes gave his warmest support to him, and it was its Steam Committee in 1828 which accredited him to persons of official standing in Madras, Ceylon Mauritius, the Cape, and St. Helena.
WAGHORN.
He surely had a title to be heard on the question. I presume it was well enough known in October, 1836, that
Lord Ellenborough, the President of the Board of Control (October, 1829), had sent for Waghorn to carry important dispatches to Sir John Malcolm and demonstrate the practica- bility of Eed Sea navigation. We all know how he performed that journey, how he darted across a continent without railways to Trieste, from Trieste to Alexandria in a sailing craft, to Rosetta on donkeys, to Cairo on a Nile boat, to Suez on camel
back, to Cosseir in an open native boat, and by the same conveyance to Jeddah, a distance of 660 miles from Suez.
Many of us can follow him on donkey and dahabiah, and on camel back, but for that voyage in an open boat on the Red Sea we would require Burckhardt, or Burton, or Frere to delineate its miseries. He arrived in the Company's cruiser on March 21st, in four months twenty-one days from London. Such was Red Sea navigation before steam was taken out of the tea-kettle. He had already lectured on the subject in all
the leading cities of India and England. It is honestly averred that he lived for three entire years with the Arab tribes between Cairo and Suez. Think of that, you who live at home at ease, and all to save you and your kith and kin from the plunder and cut-throats of the desert.
Government and the Company were not generous with Waghorn. They gave him a pension of £200 a year, I
understand, in 1848 (he died in 1850), which was immediately mortgaged by his creditors.* They could scarcely be expected to pay his outlay on dhuramsalas, dahabiahs and never-ending backsheesh. I dare say if they had known in 1848 what we know now, they would have paid his debts a dozen times over,
which would have been cheap at the money. What we complain of was their hide-bound prejudices in their postal system, as if it was immaculate, and their retention of dirty steamers, such as the Berenice and Zendbia. Did not a P. and 0. steamer make Calcutta from Suez in 1843 ?
How he should have been ignored by Calcutta in 1836 we * A sister who had all along cheered him in his labours survived him til 1883. She died in a London workhouse can only explain by the fact that the Company and the Post Office, the Gog and Magog of these early times, hated Waghorn and 'every man who dared to interfere with their established custom or routine, and it was the fashion to do so, tliough for
five years (1832 to 1837) he had the absolute control of the Overland Mails in his hands. One of the strangest things was how the truth gradually dawned upon Waghorn. At first he firmly believed in the Cape route and lectured upon it in Calcutta, where he engaged some of the foremost men there to assist him in making his views public to the communities of Madras, Ceylon, Mauritius, and the Cape. But truth travels slowly. He that believeth shall not make haste. I suppose his own passage down the Ked Sea in 1829 led up to his
conversion, and Captain Wilson's two voyages in the Hugh Lindsay from Bombay to Suez completed it.
Henceforth nothing could part him from the Red Sea route, and he threw all the energy and perseverance with which he was so largely endowed into the work of its accomplishment. Waghorn is one of the martyrs of science. Galileo on bended knees and Waghorn knocking at the door of the India House are two pictures that will endure to the last syllable of recorded time. Waghorn holds the key of the Overland route, and though he never saw the Suez Canal, he certainly saw the man who made it ; and Lesseps has left on record undying words (Nov. 1883) that it was to Waghorn alone that he was indebted for the great idea.
Yes, you may well look at this man, and go back to Spenser in the days of Drake and Raleigh for his portrait.
"A silly man in simple weeds forworne
And soil'd with dust to the long drieii way;
His sandales were with toilsome travail tornc,
And face all tann'd with scorching sunny ray,
As he had travell'd many a summer day
Through boyling sands of Arabic and Ynd."
Pilot of Calcutta and the Hooghly in the first place, and then pilot of the whole Eastern world of commerce,
Waghorn died in poverty at Chatham (1850) in the fiftieth year of
his age ;
Taylor was murdered in Mesopotamia in 1830 ;
Wilson, unrewarded, died in 1875, and I rather think that
WAGHORN'.
Capt. Johnston, E.N"., of the Enterprise, ended his days as English Postmaster in Alexandria. He died May 5th, 1851.*
"Give him a little earth for chari'y."
Such was the fate of the pioneers of the Red Sea and Over- land steam communication.
Some of the following quotations of 1837 are gropings in the dark, but represent the highest wisdom, or what was considered such at the period, on the all-engrossing theme : —
" A steamship does good duty if she works half her time."
" A steamer against the monsoon would tack like a sailing
vessel."
" Passages from Socotra to Bombay to be made under sail
only."
"Abundance of good steam coal is obtained in America,
which would doubtless be taken as ballast by American
vessels."
" Cairo to Suez. The road is hard and smooth ; there is no
need of a railroad."
"It might be found also that correspondence might be forwarded to Great Britain from Egypt with greater despatch by landing it at Marseilles and sending it by land to Calais."
So it was.
"The number of passengers and despatches to and from Bombay being less in a considerable proportion than the other ports of India." This seems to have been so in 1836.
" In seasons when the monsoon is most violent the Bombay
steamer might meet at the head of the Maldives."
" The course from Bombay to the Maldives would be quite
practicable, as well as the course from the Maldives to Socotra."
" If Bombay is decided on, it would be more convenient to land the passengers and parcels from India for Great Britain at Penzance or even the Scilly Islands than those of Great Britain for all India at Bombay." — Letter from Bengal Committee to Provincial Committee, Dec. 26th, 1836.
James Henry Johnsto.stinction belongs to the Nubia, Captain Wilkinson,
which left Bombay about March 9th, 1870. My fellow- passenger was the late Andrew Hay, Sheriff of Bombay (1868). We had a sickly voyage up the lied Sea and several deaths took place. The heat was blazing. Steaming slowly, we seemed to be cutting our way through a sea as smooth as plate glass.
Several times the ship was turned round to create a draught, for there was not a breath of wind, and we were almost suffocated. We buried two men one morning at 6 a.m. By a mischance the bodies were not unfastened from the grating, so at the last moment, when Wilkinson read from the Burial Service, " we commit the bodies of our dear brothers to the deep," down went the grating with the two bodies on it, nearly carrying the two quartermasters away with it. But Wilkinson did not flinch or falter ; he continued reading the Burial Service to the end, when, lo and behold ! some miles away the grating was seen floating on the glassy sea, with the two bodies on it, and the British flag atop.
" Stop her ! " was thundered out, a boat was lowered, the bodies released, and the recovered paraphernalia brought on board.
The Cathay was at Suez, and the Commander, if still to the fore, may have forgotten the circumstance, which I remember very well, that he entertained us hospitably on board his ship, with the addition of the Agent and English Consul for many years, the well-known Mr. West. The toast was drunk : " May you never touch the bottom." Great Scott ! I could see that it was an anxious moment when we entered the Canal. West
accompanied us, told us he had often ridden over the ground we were sailing over ; and Wilkinson — care sat on his manly brow — muttered something about skippers taking lessons in Dutch navigation.
It was a new experience for the lascars, trudging along the muddy banks with the hawsers wherewith to tie us up for the night. I am not quite sure that they had not to drive in the
THE FIRST P. AND O. THROUGH THE CANAL.
piles with which to fasten us while the sun descended and darkness covered the land of E^ypt. I dare say Wilkinson would have preferred running with bare poles before the South- West Monsoon, or being tossed like a bucket in the white squall of the Mediterranean, That night all was gloom. Not as now, when the electric light clears up a way in the silence and blackness of midnight, a veritable pillar of fire for many an exodus
to many a land of promise, changing these mud heaps on either side — the ugliest things in creation — into a weird phantasmagoria, flashing, dazzling to the eye, a wondrous dream, not
of the mingling of two seas, but —
''Twenty seas if all their sands were peirl."
I need not add that the Nulla s trip through the Canal was
a complete success. This trip was the beginning of a new era,
and I ventured to tell the story to onewlio was much interested
in it. " But what did your fellow passengers think of the Canal ? "
said Lesseps a few months after this. I answered that one of
them said it was the greatest work of utility that had been
made since the creation of the world, adding that an American
guessed he would not call it a great work until it paid. " It will
pay," said the Baron quietly, which was also Beaconsfield's
opinion, and which time has amply justified.
The date of this conversation was, I think, in July, 1870, and
the place was " The Wick," Eichmond, a bowshot from the " Star
and Garter," which everybody knows. There were no houses
between them in those days, and its garden ran down to the
Thames. This house had a celebrated history. It was once given
by the King to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and here Dr. Johnson and
Burke also, as I suppose, came to dine or sup. Neither of them
predicted the Suez Canal, nor dreamed that in the room where
they sat would be congregated a hundred men and women to do
honour to the maker of it. There they were, however, soldiers,
statesmen, artists, P. and' 0. directors, some old Egyptians, with a
sprinkling of undistinguished others. The place was worthy of
the occasion, and the Master of Ceremonies did it every honour.
He had been deputed by Lloyds as their representative at the
opening of the Canal, was an early friend of Lesseps, when
tliey wandered imknown, and bivouacked on scanty fare under
tamarisk or acacia in those days when Mohammed Ali, of vener-
able yeard, rode out on a white ass arid administered justice coram
populo in Okella or Bazaar. But why do we hesitate ? The
name of Alexander Tod was widely known by a generation of
Anglo-Indians at his half-way house in Alexandria. Long ere
he became a merchant prince his hospitality was boundless, and
flowed in a continuous stream.
Missionary, manager, explorer, diplomat, and subaltern, Sir
James Outram, Frere, or Lord Dufferin, were all made happy.
If the wheels on the Overland Eoute at first drove heavily, he
was a pioneer who smoothed the path and cheered the spirits of
the passing traveller. George Gliddon, American Consul, his
father-in-law, was Waghorn's representative in Egypt.
Brevity is the soul of wit and of wisdom also, and Johnson
himself would have lauded that speech of four words, in which
the master of the household toasted his ancient and honoured
friend — " genius and energy personified." I am sure Lesseps
never spent a happier day, not even in the Guildhall, when
he received the freedom of the City. There he was with his
young wife, in the blush of early womanhood. The Empress
of the French, when she was still the betrothed, at the Canal
inauguration paid her marked attention. " The last time I
saw you, you were in tears," said one to her who had not seen
her since that great day. He was laughing all the time. It
was too true. The Empress had embraced her, and overcome
by this act of love and condescension she had burst into a
flood of tears.
The host was a Scotsman, and as everybody nowadays,
when he arrives at distinction, is anxious to show he has a drop
of Scotch blood in his veins, Lesseps in his reply to the toast of
his health on this memorable occasion spoke in French nearly
as follows : — " I too have some claims to be regarded as a
Scotsman. If you read the story of the building of St. Giles's
Cathedral in Edinburgh you will see that its architect was
Le Sept. I claim to be a descendant of him." There was no
mention of his ancestor in the Scots Guard of Paris in this
speech.
Alexander Tod, full of years and honour, died at Walmer in
1893; his friend Lesseps in 1894 disappeared in a cloud, from
which his name and fame are destined to emerge.* William
Paterson founded the Bank of England, and the Darien
scheme is forgotten, and Panama will gradually subside into
the same oblivion and be swallowed up in the immortal
memory of Lesseps as the maker of the Suez Canal.
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