APPENDIX TO THE SECOND EDITION. Modes of Travelling in India and Fares Clearing House System as Applied to Railways Price of Labour and Materials in India Price of Labour and Materials in England - APPENDIX TO THE THIRD EDITION. Statement of the Traffic between Calcutta and Delhi, from Officially Authenticated Government Returns 177 Average Speed and Cost of the Present Modes of Conveying Passengers and Goods in Bengal and Report upon the Practicability of Introducing Railways into India, from F. W. Simms, Esq., Captain A. H. C. Boileau, and Captain T. R. Western - Report on the Introduction of Railways in Bengal, Addressed to Sir Archibald Galloway, K.C.B., Chair- man of the East India Company, by W. P. Andrew, Extract from Administration Report of Railways in India, 1882-3, by Colonel F. S. Stanton, R.E., Direc- tor-General of Railways Feeder Roads for Railways, by Colonel J. G. Medley, R.E., Consulting Engineer to Government of India for Railways in Scinde and the Punjab, dated Improvement of Trade in India, by Mr. J. Lightfoot, 247 254 INDIAN RAILWAYS. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. So many years have elapsed since the last edition of this work was published, under the nom de plume of "An Old Indian Postmaster," that it appears both necessary and desirable that a succinct account should be given of the more recent progress of railway enterprise in India. With this view, and to make it more clear to the general reader, we will cast a hasty glance at what was accomplished in the early days when the old magnates of Leadenhall Street began to realise the fact that sleepers could be laid and that water would boil in their great eastern dependency, and that nothing was better calculated to arouse, than the whistle of the locomotive, the apathetic Roadless condition of India before the introduction of railways. Hindoo to the knowledge of the value of time, and to assume among the nations an aspect of renovated power. When England became the dominant Power in India, probably there never was a country with a people so rich and intelligent, in which roads were so few and travel so difficult. For the rich the camel, the elephant, the horse and the palanquin, for the poor the pony and the pack-bullock, were the only means of conveyance by land. Springless wheeled carriages called ekkas, drawn by horses and ponies, and bullock-carts, could generally only be used on a few of the main roads, that might be enumerated on the fingers of one hand, or in the neighbourhood of populous towns. In the south-west of India, from November to June, small bullock-carts could travel in certain districts on what have been called the "natural tramways of the country," otherwise in ruts, formed in black cotton-soil, which after two days' rain become a morass impassable for horses, difficult for bullocks and buffaloes, and such was frequently the distress of these animals that they sank under their burdens, and their bones whitening the route acted as land-marks to travellers. Over thousands of square miles wheeled carriages were unknown, and had never been seen by the oldest inhabitant. Merchandise could for the most |