View of the Breach Causeway at Bombay.
This is plate 5 from James Wales' 'Bombay Views'. The series was painted for Sir Charles Malet (1752-1815), the British Resident of Poona, who met Wales in Bombay in 1791.
Completed in 1784, the causeway completed was one of the first major engineering projects that transformed the original seven islands of Bombay into one landmass. Designed to block the Worli creek and thereby prevent the flooding of low-lying areas of Bombay at high tide, it was initiated by Governor Hornby against the wishes of the East India Company. Thus it became known as Hornby's Vellard (from the Portuguese word vallado, meaning barrier). In the foreground is a Palanquin, a 'Bengal Chair', and a 'Meana' - local methods of transportation.
