Previous  - next

towards noon, they came in sight of the Indian coast: two hours
later the pilot came on board. A range of hills lay against the
sky in the horizon, and soon the rows of palms which adorn Bombay
came distinctly into view. The steamer entered the road formed by
the islands in the bay, and at half-past four she hauled up at the
quays of Bombay.

Phileas Fogg was in the act of finishing the thirty-third rubber
of the voyage, and his partner and himself having, by a bold stroke,
captured all thirteen of the tricks, concluded this fine campaign
with a brilliant victory.

The Mongolia was due at Bombay on the 22nd; she arrived on the
20th. This was a gain to Phileas Fogg of two days since his
departure from London, and he calmly entered the fact in the
itinerary, in the column of gains.




Chapter X

IN WHICH PASSEPARTOUT IS ONLY TOO GLAD TO GET OFF
WITH THE LOSS OF HIS SHOES


Everybody knows that the great reversed triangle of land, with its
base in the north and its apex in the south, which is called India,
embraces fourteen hundred thousand square miles, upon which is spread
unequally a population of one hundred and eighty millions of souls.
The British Crown exercises a real and despotic dominion over the
larger portion of this vast country, and has a governor-general
stationed at Calcutta, governors at Madras, Bombay, and in Bengal,
and a lieutenant-governor at Agra.

But British India, properly so called, only embraces seven
hundred thousand square miles, and a population of from
one hundred to one hundred and ten millions of inhabitants.
A considerable portion of India is still free from British authority;
and there are certain ferocious rajahs in the interior who are
absolutely independent. The celebrated East India Company
was all-powerful from 1756, when the English first gained a foothold
on the spot where now stands the city of Madras, down to the time
of the great Sepoy insurrection. It gradually annexed province
after province, purchasing them of the native chiefs, whom it seldom paid,
and appointed the governor-general and his subordinates, civil and military.
But the East India Company has now passed away, leaving the British
possessions in India directly under the control of the Crown.
The aspect of the country, as well as the manners and distinctions of race,
is daily changing.

Formerly one was obliged to travel in India by the old cumbrous methods
of going on foot or on horseback, in palanquins or unwieldy coaches;
now fast steamboats ply on the Indus and the Ganges, and a great railway,
with branch lines joining the main line at many points on its route,
traverses the peninsula from Bombay to Calcutta in three days.
This railway does not run in a direct line across India.
The distance between Bombay and Calcutta, as the bird flies,
is only from one thousand to eleven hundred miles;
but the deflections of the road increase this distance by more than a third.

The general route of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway is as follows:

Previous  - next